"Do you have a stretcher in size XXXL?"

An article in the New York Times reports that in response to the growing number of obese people in the US, emergency response teams are now stocking up on equipment to help them address emergencies involving the obese.

Last fall, the department bought three gurneys that can hold patients weighing up to 600 pounds, about twice the holding capacity of a regular stretcher.

“We had to do something,” Acting Chief Tim McGinley said. “It was one of those things where we would try to use the equipment we had and were afraid that you were going to end up hurting somebody, the patients themselves or the staff.”

The "upgrade" doesn't come cheap.

A bariatric ambulance that can transport patients weighing up to 1,000 pounds costs $110,000 to build, compared with $70,000 for a standard ambulance, said Doug Moore, a spokesman for American Medical Response, which operates 4,200 ambulances nationwide.

A bariatric cot costs around $4,000, four times the price of a regular cot.

I think it's time people think twice about eating fast food.