Keith Martin, 42, a 58-stone man who is believed to be the world’s fattest person, has revealed he is tended to by seven carers a day, costing an estimated £50,000 a year to the taxpayer.
He has been unable to work for more than a decade owing to his weight and cannot move from his reinforced bed. As well as his carers, who wash and change him in two shifts, he also receives visits from two nurses every other day who tend to his bed sores.
He assured he was trying to lose weight to qualify for a gastric band operation. Keith of Hendon, north London, said he was able to enjoy a normal life until his mother, Alma, died when he was 16. His parents had separated when he was small and his father, Henry, a hospital porter, passed away within a couple of years of his mother. Keith left school with just a few qualifications and worked as a warehouseman and laborer until his weight, and the resultant lack of mobility and breathlessness, made it impossible.
By 2001 his weight resulted in him being taken to hospital for the first time. Keith, who has outgrown his size 8XL clothes, is 5ft 9in tall but has a 6ft waist. He has also been diagnosed with depression and had heart problems. When he has to go to hospital, a specialist team which uses a £90,000 adapted ambulance for obese people is needed to move him. Up to eight ambulance officers manoeuvre him from his bed to the ambulance by stretcher or a special bag which can be used to drag him along the floor. Medics say he must lose half his weight before they will consider weight-loss surgery.
Keith Martin is believed to have taken the fattest man title from a 90-stone Mexican called Manuel Uribe, who has gone on a diet and is now 31st 6lb.
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