Man suffers heart attack while eating “Triple Bypass” burger at Heart Attack Grill
“Doctor” Jon Basso thought “Nurse” Bridgett was kidding when she informed the Heart Attack Grill owner that a customer was suffering some medical difficulties in the dining room.
The situation was, in fact, as serious as a heart attack. FOX5 News Las Vegas reports that this past weekend, a man in his 40s began experiencing chest pains while consuming one of the restaurant’s signature 6,000 calorie “Triple Bypass” burgers. Basso, who is not a medical professional, called 911, and EMTs and paramedics arrived on the scene quickly.
The customer – or “patient” as they are referred to at the restaurant, which moved from Chandler, Arizona to Las Vegas last October – is reportedly alive and recuperating. Sadly, that’s not the case for the restaurant’s 575-pound spokesman, who died last March at the age of 29.
Heart Attack Grill is no stranger to controversy, actively courting fans and nayayers alike with slogans like “Taste worth dying for!” and “Cash only, because you might die before the check clears.”
Menu items like lard-fried “Flatliner Fries,” highly caloric “Butterfat Shakes” and unfiltered cigarettes abound, scantily clad female servers dressed as nurses take orders as “prescriptions,” and a house policy allows diners weighing over 350 pounds to eat for free.
Still, Basso calls the incident “horrible,” and had harsh words for those attempting to make light of it. He told FOX5 News, “The tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that.”
“Heart Attack Grill” was trending on Twitter throughout Wednesday, with sentiments such as, “Sorry customer at Heart Attack Grill in LV had heart episode. But you can’t complain about getting the house specialty.” from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon.
“I love this story for the irony; feel bad for customer,” wrote ABC 17 News Weekend anchor and producer Evan Millward.
Basso claims that this is the first full-scale coronary that happened in his restaurant. The name of the patient has not been released.
