A rescue operation was launched when a 23-stone man with appendicitis found himself unable to get downstairs.
Police cordoned off a road outside his flat in London Road, Bexhill, so a vehicle fitted with a turntable ladder could reach an upstairs window at his home.
Firefighters from Bexhill had gone with ambulancemen to the scene but were unable to carry the man downstairs.
The patient was helped out of a top floor window on to the ladder, which lowered him to a waiting ambulance.
He was taken to the Conquest Hospital in Hastings with a fire crew following.
Firefighters then carried the man from the ambulance into the hospital.
A fire service spokesman said: "The man was physically and medically unfit and unable to move down the staircase."
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