Fat consequences at the emergency responder course Today, we had our biannual brush-up course for emergency responders. The group was fairly small with one obese woman among us. Stable side position was of course one of the first things to practice, and it was concerning to see how poorly the obese woman performed. It was impossible to get her in a good position because her fat arms and chest kept her head too high, and her one bent leg barely stayed where it should. When it was her turn to move someone into position, she had trouble reaching the right spots, and she wasn't exactly short. Chest compressions were also interesting to say the least. The course instructor chose me to demonstrate and let me do compressions for about eight minutes to show the others how strenous it can get. (He always does that in those courses, and maybe I had to demonstrate because I was the slimmest and shortest person in the room, potentially the first to wear out). My hand started to hurt a bit, but apart from that, it wasn't too much of a deal. The obese woman, on the other hand, had to do compressions for about 1-2 minutes and was huffing afterwards. Go figure. Later on, we were taught on how to care for someone with a heart attack, and the same obese woman from before said that she already had one and knows the feeling. What the hell? She was barely 50, her heart already gave her a dire warning, and she's STILL obese? Goddamn, please no. I learned: Fat consequence is performing poorly at potentially life-saving measures, be it as the person in need or the helping part. But yeah, your fatness doesn't affect me. I really could see that today. It was health at each and every size.