Ambulance for corpulence
They do everything big in Vegas, don't they?
And I'm not just talking about the shows and the lights and the fountains and the hotels and the fake breasts. I'm talking about the ambulances, too…
According to an Associated Press article from March 29th, a Las Vegas company called American Medical Response has sunk a quarter of a million dollars not into roulette or blackjack, but on an extra-large ambulance designed specifically to carry . The rig is equipped with winches, gurneys and ramps capable of handling patients as heavy as 1600 pounds!
That's more than three quarters of a ton!
Already, the company has used the rig to transport 75 patients weighing more than 600 pounds. The extra-wide rig was obtained by AMR at the request of the Clark County, Nevada, Fire Department - who apparently had trouble transporting some plus-sized patients whose hearts weren't up to losing (or maybe winning) big money at the gaming tables…
But this isn't the only news on the American fat front. Another recent AP story reveals the details of a Chicago-based research study that concludes many young children are TOO HEAVY for most models of car-safety seats - now mandated by law for youngsters in most states.
The research found that fully a quarter-million U.S. kids aged 1 to 6 exceed the weight limits of most standard car-safety seats currently in production. The bulk of these (no wordplay intended) were aged 3 or less, yet weighed more than 40 pounds! One of the study's lead authors is quoted in the story as having said that technicians were having a hard time even finding seats to fit some kids.
Naturally, car-seat makers are now starting to introduce models for bulkier kids. But this is a band-aid on a bullet wound, if you'll pardon the expression. The solution isn't to keep modifying our car seats and our clothes and our homes, ambulances, furniture, and even our caskets to accommodate our fatness…
The solution is to stop being so fat! Why is the simple obviousness of this eluding us? And in more news on conspicuous consumption in Vegas…
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz - oh, what a big feast it is
I've just written about how, instead of restraining our appetites to remain able to fit in our world, we're tailoring our world to suit our unchecked appetites…
And what better way to further illustrate this trend than with the world's biggest and most obscene smorgasbord!
At the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada (where else?), approximately 850 people gorged themselves on what's now been officially certified as the World's Largest Buffet by the Guinness Book of World Records, according to an AP item from March 28th. The buffet featured 510 different items…
But here's the funniest part about the story: The record-setting spread was laid out by a division of none other than German pharmaceutical giant Bayer - to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the company's household-name Alka-Seltzer antacid! What better way to pay homage to an indigestion medicine than with the world's biggest stomach-expanding pig-fest, right?
Oh well, at least Vegas now has the right sized ambulance to help transport any plus-sized gluttons with heart symptoms away after the feast…
Viva Las Ve-GAS,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
