FIRE crews used a turntable ladder to lift a former beauty queen who had been bedridden for 15 years out of a first-floor bedroom window into an ambulance.

Burnley ambulance crew called the fire brigade out to help take grandmother Linda Marrison, who weighs about 25 stones, to hospital because her medical condition prevented them from carrying her out through the house.

Crowds gathered at the front and rear of the Hurtley Street house as firefighters smashed a rear bedroom window and used a stretcher to lift Mrs Marrison on to the turn-table ladder.

Mrs Marrison, 45, is currently in Burnley General Hospital's intensive care unit suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia, gangrene and back problems and she is poorly but stable.

Her son Trevor, 27, said: "She fell on Christmas Eve 15 years ago when we lived in Glossop and she has been bedridden ever since.

"She had a compound fracture of her left leg and it never healed properly which left her confined to bed."

Mrs Marrison had been suffering from chronic bronchitis and her husband Phil called the doctor, who said she should go to hospital.

Trevor, of Cameron Street, Burnley, said: "My mum was terrified and she didn't want to go into hospital. She was really scared."

Leading firefighter Michael Hargreaves said it was one of the most unusual jobs he had ever attended in many years of firefighting.

Mrs Marrison won a beauty festival in Blackpool in 1967 when she was two months pregnant with Trevor.

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