FIREFIGHTERS in Wiltshire were called out nine times last year to help paramedics rescue severely obese people – including one who had fallen over drunk.

Super-sized patients needed extra manpower and specialist equipment, including animal harnesses, to move them after becoming trapped.

Fire crews attended nine call-outs in the last financial year and eight between 2013 and 2014.

The majority of cases involved people who had become stuck in their homes.

One incident on May 30 last year involved five crew members called out by the ambulance service.

They used an oversized stretcher to extract a “bariatric person” from a first-floor flat.

A crew then helped move a casualty from the bathroom floor to a bedroom chair in Swindon on October 10 last year. Paramedics and the borough council’s Homeline alarm service also attended the property. Another call-out involved moving a “drunk bariatric person” from the toilet floor.

Five crew members and paramedics took part in the rescue on February 22, 2014.

In October 2013 firefighters and paramedics twice had to join forces to convey overweight residents from their homes to ambulances parked outside. The scenario was repeated on January 29 this year when a bariatric patient was removed from a flat to be taken to hospital.

The incident is described as “assisted lifting” in a log released by Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The following month firefighters had to improvise when an obese casualty was lifted out of a first-floor window because the doorways were too narrow.

A crew of seven took part in the extraction after being called out by the ambulance service.

In two cases firefighters attended after calls from members of the public – including to help a casualty back into a wheelchair on November 11, 2013.

Details of the incidents were released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Firefighters in Gloucestershire also carried out bariatric rescues, with 10 in the last financial year and nine between 2013 and 2014. These included a three-hour operation to transport a casualty from the first to ground floor of a house using a crane.

The resident was then transferred to an ambulance on April 1 last year.

Crews also used animal straps and harnesses to help a 67-year-old bariatric patient leave a house.

One fire engine attended the address on September 11, 2013, according to the log.

In Avon, nine bariatric rescues were carried out in the last financial year and 10 between 2013 and 2014.

While some fire brigades charge ambulance services for call-outs to non-emergency bariatric rescues, but Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire have not adopted the policy.

Peter Dartford, president of the Chief Fire Officers Association, said: "We have seen an increase in call outs for support for people suffering with bariatric conditions in the past two years.

"Fire and rescue services are here to help all members of the community who are in need of our assistance and we will continue to do so.

"Nationally, we know there is an increasing issue with obesity which will continue to impact on a number of services unless it is addressed.

"We are currently working alongside health professionals at both a strategic and operational level to influence and shape the health agenda.

“Our focus for a number of years has been on prevention, and this is now developing to be much more than fire safety checks in people's homes.”