Could you imagine a person weighing more than a half a ton? Such a person did indeed live. His name was Robert Earl Hughes, and he was the heaviest person ever weighed.
When Hughes was born in Illinois in 1926, he weighed 11 1/2 pounds. By the time he was six years old, he weighed over 200 pounds, and at ten he weighed 378 pounds. By the age of 18, his weight was almost 700 pounds, and at 27 he tipped the scales at 945 pounds.
A few years later, though, he reached his greatest weight, an amazing 1,069 pounds. At that time, his waist size was 122 inches.
Hughes spent the last years of his life touring with a carnival. In 1958, he became ill while the carnival was in Bremen, Indiana, but he wasn’t brought to the hospital because he couldn’t fit through the door. So, he was treated in his house trailer, which was parked outside the hospital.
When Hughes died soon afterwards, his 1,041-pound body was placed in a coffin made from a piano case. The coffin was so heavy that it had to be lowered into the ground by a crane.
