Half-Ton Mexican Man Dies After Pleading For Help

A bedridden 990-pound man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem has died of heart failure, AP reports. Emergency officials had to knock down Jose Luis Garza's bedroom wall and hoist him onto the back of a friend's pickup truck to take him to the hospital. The 47-year-old man was pronounced dead on arrival, and was buried yesterday.

Garza had followed in the footsteps of the world's fattest man, fellow Mexican Manuel Uribe, by taking his weight problem public. Garza said he had always struggled with his weight but fell into a cycle of depression and overeating nine months ago after his parents died of natural causes within two weeks of each other. He was bedridden for four months.     (More Manuel Uribe stories.)