Australians have grown so fat that the air ambulances ferrying them from remote corners of the state of New South Wales to big-city hospitals must be retrofitted or replaced to accommodate them.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service is replacing its fleet of four planes with as many as seven, and each will be equipped with stretchers stout enough to support passengers weighing as much 570 pounds. That's almost twice what the current equipment can handle. The service, which marked its 80th anniversary last year, says two of the new planes will have the capacity to carry patients that large.
Word of the need for larger aircraft, first reported by Sydney's Daily Telegraph, comes amid a mounting obesity epidemic Down Under, where one report notes 17.5 percent of the nation's 21 million people are grossly overweight. "It is alarming to consider that the number of people who are obese has increased so much that special equipment is needed to lift those in a medical emergency to safety," acting Health Minister Ian Macdonald told the Telegraph.
And it is but one of a growing number of examples of how mounting obesity is creating headaches for the aviation sector.
The problem isn't unique to Australia. A high court in Canada recently ruled airlines must offer obese passengers a second seat -- at no cost -- if they cannot comfortably or safely fit into one. Overweight flight attendants have sued airlines for hiring practices they consider discriminatory. The Federal Aviation Administration revised its guidelines for calculating the weight of a plane, bumping up the average passenger weight in the equation it uses to determine takeoff weight and center of gravity limits. And some experts suggest obesity may have had a role in the crash of a US Airways commuter flight that killed 21 people when it crashed in 2003 after failing to gain altitude quickly enough.
The new planes the Flying Doctors will roll out won't come cheap. The organization's business manager told the
Telegraph the planes will cost at least 10 mil in Aussie dollars (about U.S.$6.8 million) apiece, and millions more to outfit them. The organization has little choice but to spend the money, as it provides a vital service. Last year it served more than 240,000 patients and performed 35,000 aerial evacuations.
Photo: Helen K / Flickr.
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