On directive of Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, an obese taxi driver, Noor Hassan, has been airlifted on a Pakistan Army helicopter from Sadiqabad to Lahore for weight loss treatment on Tuesday.
The poor man, weighing 330kg, had made an appeal on social media to the army chief for help to get him treated as because of his excessive weight he could not travel in an ambulance by road and needed to be airlifted.
Rescue personnel had to break the main door and wall of his house to get him out. The 55-year-old was transported on a mini truck to a football ground in the city from where the air ambulance brought him to Lahore.
He will be treated at the private hospital of Lahore that has conducted several successful bariatric surgeries since 2017, when Muhammad Naveed, 42, underwent the surgery and reduced his weight from 360 kg to 210 kg.
In January this year, Dr Muaaz performed a successful surgery on 37-year-old Indian woman. The woman has reduced her weight from 150 kg to 80 kg.
Bariatric surgery causes weight loss by restricting the amount of food the stomach can hold.