Feature: Dying for a Burger?

A woman in her 40s collapsed at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas recently while tucking into a monstrous Double Bypass burger, smoking cigarettes and

drinking a margarita. She was found unconscious at the restaurant.

Two months before, a man at the same restaurant suffered a heart attack while dining on an 8,000 calorie Triple Bypass burger with 15 slices of bacon.

Restaurant owner ‘Doc-tor’ Jon Basso said they’d had a variety of incidents in the past at the hospital-themed burger joint in Las Vegas, but this man’s coronary was their first full-scale medical emergency.

"He was enjoying his meal when he began experiencing severe cardiac problems", said Basso. He could hardly talk, and I’m not actually a medical doctor, so I called 911, and they took him to a real hospital. I hear he’s recuperating."

But these unfortunate events have had little effect on the restaurant’s business - quite the opposite as the place is even more popular than ever as diners are drawn to the giant burgers.

At 10,000 calories, the restaurant’s Quadruple Bypass burger was crowned as the most caloric sandwich on Earth by the Guinness World Records.

Basso defends the provocative names of the high-calorie items on the menu. "Our declared intent is to serve nutritional pornography, like our Fatliner Fries cooked in lard, food so bad for you it’s shocking.

"Our waitresses dress as nurses, our customers are patients and their food order - or prescription - is written on a tag around their wrists. If you weigh over 350 pounds (159kg), you can eat here for free."

The restaurant has signs that read ‘This Establishment is Bad for Your health’.

"Unlike cigarettes, I have had warnings labels since day one when we opened in 2005 telling people how bad our food is for you," Basso told reporters." I think that skirts any liability we might have."

The latest victim is recuperating.

Incidentally, last year the restaurant’s 575-pound (261kg), 29-year-old spokesman died.*