I read this article 40 minutes ago, latest news from US presented oddly enough in the Australian newspapers. I was instantly stunned by his weight and thought that ‘surely he must be the heaviest person in the world’. At the same time I remembered a documentary I saw not long ago, about a man named Jon Brower Minnoch. He weighed 635 kilos at the most. He died 42 years old in 1983 after repeated attempts to reduce his bodymass. At most he managed to get down to 219 kilos, before gaining the double back. His doctor estimated at one point that more than half his weight was retained fluid. In the end that is what killed him.
While the weight of both these men seem the most striking, the story behind their deaths should be of more interest. Daniel Webb had no insurance, and after a knee injury was left to literary rot in his chair at home. His wife tried to help him, but no insurance company would help. For nine months he was stuck in the chair, unable to use the bathroom he was found covered in sores and human excrement.
With insurance Daniel Webb would most probably be alive today, and without his edema Jon B Minnoch life would have had a different outcome.