Cristian Fredes couldn’t get out of bed.
He had been confined to his home in Merlo, Argentina, for five years, and his body had reached nearly 270 kilos. He was so immobile that firefighters had to break through a wall of his bedroom to carry him out on a stretcher. Before that, he had gone a month and a half without being able to bathe on his own. His mother was the one who helped him with everything.
A year after that rescue, Cristian stepped onto the scale again. The result: he had lost 134 kilos and 700 grams, and now weighs 130. He learned to walk again, exercise, prepare his own breakfast, and even take the bus by himself—things that had been impossible for him a year earlier.
“I look at that and it seems like a movie, as if I’m not the one who’s there”, he said upon seeing the images of his rescue. He is just 10 kilos away from reaching his target weight for medical discharge.