Colorado woman denied massage because she is "too fat"

COLORADO (WITI) -- A Colorado woman says she was denied a massage because of her size. Now, she's speaking out against the company she says rudely turned her away.

Laura Smith is training 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," Smith said.

Smith 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?" Smith said.

Smith left the center in tears. She couldn't understand.

Smith is 6'3" tall and had massages even before she lost 47 pounds, to drop to about 250.

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

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," Director of ChiropracticJim Kambeitz said.

Penny Wells, the owner of Natural Healing would not talk on camera, but 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," Smith said.