14 DAY TRIAL // Just days ago, firefighters in Germany got to spend a few good hours walking around wearing biohazard suits and breathing with the help of respirators. Mind you, they didn't put on these outfits to deal with some freak chemical accident.
On the contrary, the firefighters wore the biohazard suits and the respirators to keep safe while trying to rescue a man living in the town of Nurtigen, not far from Stuttgart.
According to local media reports, it was because of the positively terrifying conditions inside this man's apartment that his rescuers were left with no choice but to only approach him after making sure that they themselves were safe.
This man's apartment was a death trap
Word has it that firefighters arrived at the man's apartment after being called in by one of his neighbors, who heard him tapping on the ceiling. Apparently, the man decided to ask for help from his neighbor after he started having trouble breathing.
Having arrived at the man's apartment, firefighters were shocked to find that the 65-year-old they were supposed to help tipped the scale at 25 stones (158 kilograms / 348 pounds). Besides, he was bedridden and buried knee-deep in trash.
“It was knee deep in rubbish, from rotting pizza boxes to old food and tins, and vermin rustling about,” a firefighter told the press in an interview, as cited by Daily Mail. “The smell was indescribable,” the firefighter went on to say.
So, how did they help him?
Seeing how the man was too big to fit through the front door, the firefighters who took part in this rescue mission were forced to use a crane to lower him to an ambulance, information shared with the public says.
Once taken to a hospital, the 65-year-old man, whose identity remains a mystery, was bathed and doctors treated his breathing trouble. The rescue crew, on the other hand, disinfected their gear and went back to business as usual.
Word has it that, because of his size and his inability to get around on his own, this man had not bathed in about 5 years when the firefighters finally got to him. Thus, his life boiled down to lying in bed and eating take-out food delivered to his apartment.
The other folks living in this apartment block in the town of Nurtigen say that, had they known that the man was in such poor condition, they would have alerted authorities sooner.
“We had no idea what kind of state his apartment was in, but we got a whiff of it after firemen opened the front door,” a neighbor said in a statement.