Fire crews moved record number of overweight Brits last year – with nearly 2,3K incidents filed

FIRE crews had to move overweight Brits a record number of times last year.

There were 2,298 incidents in which they helped cops or paramedics carry obese people in the year up to June, Home Office figures show.

That is up from 1,783 the year before and 855 in 2017.

Britain’s waistlines have been expanding for decades and severe obesity is three times as common as in the early 1990s.

Firefighters are called when it is not safe for the other emergency services to move patients because they are too heavy.

It often involves ­carrying the sick or injured from homes into an ambulance using specialist gear.

Previous examples include a crane hoisting Jason Holton from his third-floor flat in Camberley, Surrey — with the windows removed — after he ­ballooned to 50st in 2020.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “It’s frightening that so many people are now having to be rescued from their homes.

“And it’s more frightening still that the figures will keep increasing for years to come.”

He added: “In the last two years, the Government has U-turned on every measure it proposed to help people live more healthily.”

NHS figures show 30 per cent of adults were obese in 2019.

James Roberts, of the Tax­Payers’ Alliance, commented: “The out-of-shape state doesn’t need the added weight of bulky Brits — emergency services face enough pressure as it is.”