MOL
LONDON
Britain’s fattest woman who weighed 40st died of a heart attack aged 44 after being unable to walk out of her house for six years.
Doctors warned Brenda Flanagan-Davies to ‘lose weight or die’ when she became bed-bound at her home in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, after consuming more than 6,000 calories a day.
But just four hours after a check-up in July 2013, where she returned home via an ambulance, her husband Ronald Davies found her foaming at the mouth and in pain.
He called an ambulance, and four paramedics used a blanket to carry Mrs Flanagan-Davies to the vehicle, but she died on her way to hospital after suffering a heart attack.
Mr Davies, 68, who had been with his wife for five years, now wants to warn people about the risks of obesity after he was left ‘devastated’ following her death.
The retired labourer and water inspector, said: ‘She was alive one minute and dead the next. ‘I think the heart attack was down to her weight and her health. It could have happened at any time.
‘I don’t know what to do. When I used to sit in the living room I would talk to her.
‘I still find myself speaking to her in the other room since she died but obviously there is no answer as she’s not there.
‘I want to warn other people to look after after themselves and not to decline help if anyone wants to give you a hand.
‘I wouldn’t want what happened to Brenda to happen to other people.’
Mrs Flanagan-Davies was so addicted to food that she had a fridge next to her bed, crammed full of chocolate and fizzy drinks, and would get regular deliveries from the butchers, fish and chip shop and local Tesco supermarket. She was unable to walk just a few steps to the shower or the living room without getting out of breath.
Mr Davies, who said he had worried about his wife’s health, added: ‘She spent most of her time in bed, she had a telly beside her but she didn’t watch it. Sometimes she would have music on without the picture. ‘She couldn’t walk very far. She had to get assisted to get to the shower. It took two of us, myself and her carer.
‘I felt sad for her. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I felt sad for her.
‘I did worry about her health but I didn’t like to tell her in case it made her upset. I wanted her to lose the weight so she was healthy.’ She was offered a gastric band by doctors if she lost enough weight to prove she wanted the £12,000 operation and when she didn’t the operation was offered to somebody else.
Mr Davies said: ‘The doctors were telling her to lose weight. But she wasn’t showing them that she was losing the weight - I think she was a bit frightened of having the operation.
‘She did lose quite a bit of weight so she must have been thinking about it but she didn’t go through with it.
‘It must have been a relief to not have the operation and she went back to her old self. ‘Maybe if she had taken the help her situation would have been different.’
The couple met five years ago at a community centre in Gateshead - in that time Mrs Flanagan-Davies put on 11 stone.