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by ALISON GENDAR and DAVE GOLDINER
Tipping the scales at a relatively svelte 300 pounds, Larry McConneghey was once a talented disco dancer who earned the nickname "Conceited."
But that was a few years ago, before McConneghey ballooned to 800 pounds and retreated to a bed in his family's fifth-floor Washington Heights apartment.
He was carried out of the building to an ambulance yesterday after he called 911 to complain about shortness of breath.
"He's just too big," said Carlos Rosa, the building superintendent. "Last time I saw him, he tried to walk across the street to the park, but I don't think he made it. He's just gotten bigger since."
McConneghey, 36, told firefighters he hadn't walked more than 20 feet in the past two years.
It took firefighters two hours to get McConneghey down five flights of stairs in a safety net used as a makeshift stretcher.
He was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was in stable condition.
"It took several, several firefighters," said an FDNY spokesman.
Neighbors said McConneghey was a well-known figure for blasting '70s-era disco classics in the building where he lived with his girlfriend and several relatives.
But lately the music had died down, replaced by the occasional sound of him yelling on the phone.
"I haven't seen him in about two years," said neighbor Chip Kyle.
McConneghey got some encouraging words from Eleodoro (Tiny) Villafane, an overweight East Village man who nearly died in a fall in 2001.
Villafane, who weighed 840 pounds, is now down to 375. He wants to meet McConneghey to tell him he can do the same thing. "I want him to understand he's not by himself," said Villafane. "If I can do it, he can do it."
Villafane said it's hard work to slim down, but it took nearly dying to make him realize he had to change his lifestyle.
"He's going to have to do something about it," Villafane said. "Otherwise, he can just go home and eat himself to death."
With Ralph Ortega
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