Tuesday, June 8, 1999 Published at 10:33 GMT 11:33 UK
Man forklifted to hospital
Case of Mr Hebranko highlights growing problem of US obesity
Emergency crews in New York have had to remove part of a wall and use a forklift truck to get one of the world's most obese men to hospital for medical treatment.
At about half a ton, Mr Hebranko weighs too much to walk or to fit through his own front door.
It is the second time the 46-year-old father of one has had to undergo the indignity of having part of his house demolished so he can be hospitalised.
More than half the population is clinically obese and obesity rates are rising steadily.
Mr Hebranko went to hospital for treatment three years ago and lost 300lb (135kg) in two months. But he has put back all that weight and more.
A decade ago he dieted so successfully he became the spokesman for US weight loss guru Richard Simmons.
'I could be a better man'
"I've got two choices," Mr Hebranko told reporters before being taken away from his Brooklyn house. "I could stay in this house and die, and you people could have the same circus watching them take me out as a dead person."
Mr Hebranko told the reporters that he ate far less than people might expect, and the reason for his obesity was that his body "holds on to fat".
"He was more difficult to move this time," said Philip Crimaldi of MetroCare Ambulance, the company which transported Mr Hebranko in May 1996 and again on Monday.
Mr Crimaldi said the patient was also far worse medically than in 1996, with congestive heart failure and fluid on the lung.
He was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, a Manhattan hospital specialising in obesity.
Mr Hebranko's blood pressure rose sharply during the lifting, Mr Crimaldi said.