Robert Earl Hughes was the heaviest man on Earth at the time of his death on July 10, 1958. It has been widely reported over the years that he was buried in a piano shipping box because no coffin was large enough to hold him. Was this really true?
The press described Hughes as having been a normal-sized baby at the time of his birth on June 4, 1926, in Monticello, Illinois. Personally, I consider 11-¼ lbs (5.1 kilograms) to be a very large baby. The story goes everything was fine until he suffered an attack of whooping cough at three-months of age. After that, his weight began to skyrocket. By age 6, Hughes weighed 203 lbs (92 kg); at 10 he was 378 lbs (171 kg); at 13 he was 546 lbs (248 kg), and at 25 he weighed in at 896 lbs (406 kg).
In 1953, he signed on with the Gooding Brothers amusement company as a sideshow attraction. He was billed as “The World’s Heaviest Man.”
He was still traveling with Gooding in July of 1958 when he fell ill at the Mermaid Festival in North Webster, Indiana. He was diagnosed with a case of the measles and rushed to nearby Elkhart General Hospital. Unable to care for him, he was sent to an osteopathic hospital in South Bend, but they also could not treat him. Finally, Hughes arrived at the Bremen Community Hospital and they agreed to care for him.
The biggest problem was that Hughes was so large that none of the hospitals had a gurney strong enough to carry his weight. In addition, it was clear that he could not pass through the doors into any of their hospital rooms nor did they had a bed big enough to hold him. Instead, a makeshift hospital room was set up inside of Hughes’ home, which was built atop a tractor-trailer bed and parked in the hospital’s parking lot.
In addition to the measles, it was determined that Hughes was also suffering from congestion and a heart condition. Initially, he seemed to respond well to treatment, but he passed away on Thursday, July 10, 1958. He was just 32-years-old. The cause of death was given as uremia.
The American Medical Association confirmed that he was the heaviest known man at the time of his death. He weighed 1,041 lbs (472 kilograms), had a 122 inch (3.09 meters) waist and measured 40 inches (1.02 meters) around each upper arm.
After being embalmed in his trailer-home, he was transported to the Brown Funeral Home in Mount Sterling, Illinois. His brother Guy told the press, “I asked Brown’s to arrange for building a special casket.” So, he was not buried, as widely reported, in a piano shipping box. The casket was constructed in Burlington, Iowa and measured 52-inches (132 cm) wide, 34-inches (86 cm) deep, and was of normal length.
More than 1,500 people attended his funeral, which was held on July 12, 1958, in a tent at Bennville Cemetary in Bennville, Illinois. There were no pallbearers and a mechanical hoist was needed to lower the specially built coffin into the ground. His tombstone is engraved with the words “Worlds Heaviest Man, Weight 1,041 Pounds.”
That is a record that he no longer holds. Ten men and one woman have since weighed more. The heaviest man was Jon Brower Minnoch, who weighed in at 1,400 lbs (635 kg). He passed away on September 10, 1983 at 41 years of age. The heaviest woman was Carol Yager who weighed 1,200 lbs (544 kg). She passed away on July 18, 1994. She was just 34-years old.
One thing is clear: carrying that much weight translates into a shorter life. Of the twenty-two 1000-plus pound people listed on Wikipedia, the oldest lived to 63-years of age. The vast majority of those on the list who have passed away died while in their 30s or 40s. Very sad…
