Woman denied massage because she's 'fat'

AURORA, CO - A Colorado woman says she was denied a massage because of her size.

Laura Smith trains with a running group for a half marathon in May, but she couldn't run away fast enough from a painful situation last month.

"I had planned it specifically for the day after my marathon, because I knew I'd be hurting," she said.

She had just completed a half marathon in Arizona and couldn't wait for a massage at natural healing center.

"She, the doctor comes out and she says, I'm sorry but you're too fat for our tables. You're going to probably break a table and then you'd have to pay for it.' and i was like, in shock, like I'm hearing this?"

She left the center in tears. She couldn't understand. She's six-foot-three and had massages even before she'd lost 47 pounds to drop to about 250.

"I mean I'm not tiny, I know that, but I'm working on it."

At Kambeitz Chiropractic Health and Wellness, a client's weight has never been an issue in 15 years of business.

"There's static weight which most benches hold up to about 2,000 pounds, and then there's working weight which is up to about 500 pounds for the patient." said Chiropractic Doctor Jim Kambeitz.

Penny Wells, the owner of Natural Healing Center, wouldn't talk on camera, but she says she called Smith large, not fat. And she worried a table might collapse because one had broken under a 165 pound man.

"I honestly expected to have some kind of a phone call or something from them, you know, just to say, 'wow, we're really sorry we didn't know it came across that way," or something, but nothing," said Smith.

And Smith says she's still waiting to get that massage. "I don't think i want a massage there though."