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Family of man 'too big for tomb' warn overweight French

The Local France
The Local France - [email protected]
Family of man 'too big for tomb' warn overweight French
Photo: Daniel Racovitan/Flickr

A 115kg man from the French Riviera and his coffin were found to be too big for a crematorium and the family tomb. His relatives are warning others to take steps to avoid the trauma.

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The 90-year-old man - who weighed 115 kilos and was 1.8 metres tall (5ft11) - died in southern France at the beginning of this month.
 
His family planned to have him buried at their family tomb, but quickly came across problems, reported the Nice Matin newspaper.
 
Due to the man's considerable size, which would classify him as obese according to the Body Mass Index indicator, he needed a tailored coffin. This proved to be too large to fit through the entrance of the family tomb at the Saint-Marc à Saint-Laurent-du-Var cemetery. 
 
The coffin-makers had already measured the tomb's entrance in advance, but it is understand that a mix-up left the hefty coffin too large to fit. 
 
As a backup plan, the family decided to cremate the man, but were then handed their second slice of bad news. 
 
The man's coffin - which measured 77 centimetres wide and 2.19 metres long - was not only too big to fit through furnace opening, but was also too big to fit through the front door of the crematorium itself. 
 
For €1,000, the family was offered the last available drawer at the nearby Saint-Laurent cemetery - but the man couldn't fit there either.
 
Now out of options, the family said they had no choice but to bury the man underground "a few metres" from the family tomb, which is where he remains today. 
 
The final resting place of the man saddened his family, not least because could not be buried in his reserved spot beside his long-time wife inside the tomb. 
 
Nice Matin newspaper pointed out that such and unfortunate scenario could well become more commonplace given that one in two French people choose to be cremated and the nation is gradually becoming heavier, with obesity becoming a real issue.
 
He added that mix-ups can occur too, especially considering that cemeteries are publicly run, while some funerals are operated privately.
 
The family has said that they're not sharing their story in any attempt to profit from it, but rather to spread the word for other families to avoid the trauma. 
 
"We want people to know that they should check the dimensions all measure up before burying a family member," told the paper. 

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