JUAREZ - A half-ton, bedridden Mexican who appealed on TV for help tackling his weight problem died yesterday of heart failure.

Emergency officials had to knock down Jose Luis Garza’s bedroom wall and load him onto the back of a pickup truck as he fought for his life. He was dead on arrival at a hospital. Garza, 47, followed the lead of the world’s fattest man, Guinness record holder Manuel Uribe, by going public. Garza lived about an hour away from Uribe. Garza always struggled with his weight, but fell into a cycle of depression and overeating nine months ago after his parents died within two weeks of each other.