In what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a “dramatic increase,” the nation’s obesity rates have steadily risen in the past 20 years. A 2002 CDC report found that about two-thirds of Americans are overweight and one-third are obese.

Now, medical technicians are concerned about getting hurt while lifting heavy patients, said Dean Schaan, director of Virginia's Pasquotank County Emergency Medical Services, which also serves Camden County.

“The patients we are seeing over the years are getting heavier,” Schaan said. “It’s something the EMS industry is looking at nationwide.”

Pasquotank’s EMS plans to ask for new equipment to haul its heaviest patients.

Schaan said one possibility is to ask the county for an additional $17,000 next year to buy a stretcher that could carry 850 to 1,000 pounds and to retrofit an ambulance to handle it.

The EMS budget for this year is about $1.037 million.

The added equipment, Schaan said, could save money in the long run because technicians would be less likely to get hurt and draw workers compensation.

Already, some local technicians have suffered strained muscles and back problems, he said.

“This job can get tough on the body,” Schaan said. “We don’t have the proper equipment to handle the larger patients right now.”

Most of the stretchers EMS uses are designed to hold around 500 to 650 pounds. They replaced older stretchers that could haul 400 pounds.

“We were literally bending,” the 400-pound stretchers, Schaan said.

Recently, medical technicians had to call the fire department to help move a man who weighed at least 700 pounds, he said.

If EMS gets a new, heavy-duty stretcher, such patients could be moved more quickly.

Among the designs EMS is considering is a model that offers enough space around it for eight technicians to lift a patient. Some designs even come with towing hitches that would allow technicians to move a stretcher with a mechanical hoisting system.

A 5-foot, 10-inch man weighing more than 175 pounds is considered overweight, and one weighing about 210 pounds is considered obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. A 5-foot, 5-inch woman weighing more than 150 pounds is considered overweight, and one weighing about 180 pounds is considered obese.

The EMS department takes about 4,000 calls a year, and around 3,000 involve ambulance runs to hospitals.

courtesy HamptonRoads.com