‘Sixty stone’ girl in hospital after house rescue
Darshna Soni
Communities Editor
An obese teenager who had to be rescued from her home in South Wales by a 40-strong team after falling seriously ill is recovering in hospital.
Neighbours of 19-year-old Georgia Davis, from Aberdare, who is thought to weigh more than 60 stone, claimed that she had not been seen outside for up to three years.
Once dubbed “Britain’s fattest teen”, Ms Davis attended a “fat camp” in America as part of a television series in 2008. After nine months, her weight had dropped from 33 to 18 stone.
When she returned to south Wales, however, she regained the weight.
Her mother, interviewed by ITV Wales while Ms Davis was in America, issued a warning at the time: “We do need the help, she needs the help, otherwise what’s it going to cost if she comes back, and puts the weight back on?”
Neighbour Jane Price, 52, said on Friday that she thought Ms Davis was “under a lot of pressure” to keep off the weight after she returned from America: “I don’t think I’d seen her for about three years. It’s such a shame because she has so much to live for at her age.”
She added: “I understand that she was confined to bed so someone must have been bringing her food in that situation.”
After being taken seriously ill, a rescue operation was organised when medical services were unable to take Ms Davis through the door of her home.
Ms Price said a large team of workmen had arrived at the teenager’s home the day before she was freed to plan the extraction.
Fire engines, search and rescue vehicles, ambulances and police cars were stationed outside Ms Davis’s house for eight hours on Thursday as a team of more than 40 – including doctors, paramedics, social workers, fire crews and a team of scaffolders – worked to remove her safely.
While scaffolding was erected, internal and external walls were torn down, and police redirected traffic away from the area, Ms Davis was accompanied by a medical officer, nurse and social worker.
The Welsh Ambulance Service confirmed the use of a specially reinforced “bariatric” ambulance used for obese patients to take Ms Davis to hospital.
Ms Davis, who has made a number of television and media appearances throughout her teen years, has spoken publicly about trying to lose weight.
She says she began to overeat following the loss of her father, who died from emphysema when she was five.
She has suffered a series of complications from her condition, including depression and problems walking.