A woman whose brother died in the Vauxhell helicopter crash shed eight stone when she saw the size of his coffin.
Amanda Wood, whose brother, Matthew, died in 2013 when a helicopter struck a crane and plunged
7,000ft to the ground, was 22st 9lbs at the time of his death.
Ms Wood, 35, said she had a ‘lightbulb moment’ at the funeral when she saw the size of Matthew’s coffin, which had to be made specially for him. He weighed around 25 stone, she said.
‘It was a bit of a lightbulb moment, seeing his extra big coffin and comparing it to my father’s the year before,’ she said.
‘Because he was obese we found we had to pay more money for a bigger coffin, when I had thought it didn’t work like that and that one size fits all.
‘After that, it made me realise that I didn’t want to be in the same position if I were to die in that way, or a similar way, because I want to be in a normal-sized coffin.’
Ms Wood turned to Weight Watchers to reach her goal weight of 18 stone. Since then, she has shed four more.
A 2015 inquest into the Vauxhall helicopter crash found that pilot Peter Barnes, 50, had not deliberately breached air clearance rules but had lost awareness when he clipped the crane.
Mr Barnes was contending with poor visibility and freezing fog. He had been diverted to Battersea heliport.
