Carol Yager
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Carol Yager (1960-1994) holds the distinction of having been the most obese person ever to live. When she died in 1994 at the age of 34, she weighed about 1200 pounds. Some estimates place her weight at as much as 1600 pounds at her peak, but these are unverified. At death, she was 5'7" tall, and able to fit through her custom-built 48" wide front door, although some sources claim she was more than 5 feet wide.
Like others in the 900+ pound weight class, Yager was not able to stand or walk, as her muscles were not strong enough to lift her due to atrophy.
She lived in Mount Morris Township, near Flint, Michigan, and was cared for by health care professionals, friends, her daughter Heather, and other family members, many of whom visited daily.
Yager claimed to have started her massive weight gain deliberately as a child to discourage the sexual attacks of a "close family member," although in later interviews, she indicated that there were other contributing factors, or "skeletons in my closet", and "monsters" as she was quoted.
In January, 1993, she was admitted to Hurley Medical Center, weighing-in at 1189 lbs. She suffered from cellulitis (her skin was breaking down due to the stress of holding in her mass). She stayed in the hospital for three months, where she was restricted to a 1200 calorie diet, and while there lost 521 pounds, though most of this was fluid. (Massively obese people often suffer from edema, and their weight can fluctuate with astonishing speed as fluid is taken up or released.) Yager suffered from many other obesity-related health problems as well, including breathing difficulty, a dangerously high sugar level, and stress on her heart and other organs. Yager's death certificate lists kidney failure as the cause of death, with obesity and multiple organ failure as contributing causes.
It took a lot of teamwork among as many as 15 - 20 fire fighters and ambulance workers to convey Yager to the ambulance, in relay fashion. One team inside the house would pass her through the doorway to another team on the outside, who would in turn pass her off to another team inside the ambulance, where she would ride on the floor, for her many trips to the hospital (13 times in two years). Eventually, she was moved into the nursing home where she lived after leaving the hospital. She appeared on the Jerry Springer Show, and was the subject of attention from several dieting gurus.
A short time before her death, Yager's latest boyfriend, Larry Maxwell, who was characterized by her family as being 'an opportunist who courted media attention for money-making possibilities', married her friend, Felicia White. Maxwell had claimed that the only donation in Yager's name he ever received was for $20.00, although numerous talk shows, newspapers, radio stations, and other national and international media are reported to have offered her cash and other gifts in exchange for interviews, pictures, etc. Diet maven Richard Simmons is said to have been 'angry that Yager's story was actively peddled to tabloid and television media by Maxwell and others'.
Yager was buried privately, with about 90 friends and family members attending memorial services.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Dimensions Magazine, people known to have weighed more than 900 pounds
- Bizarre magazine 64, p. 81
- The Flint Journal
- The Flint [Michigan] Journal, Wednesday, August 18, 1993, page A1, "Weight loss brings star status" by Mike Stobbe (Journal health writer)
- The Flint Journal, Tuesday, May 24, 1994, page C1, "Obese woman's losing bid to lose hits TV show"
- The Flint Journal, Friday, June 17, 1994, page A1, "What next for 1,200-pound woman?" by Marcia Mattson (Journal staff writer)
- The Flint Journal, Tuesday, July 19, 1994, page A1, "1,200-lb Woman dies" by Marcia Mattson
- The Flint Journal, Wednesday, July 20, 1994, page B1, "Richard Simmons mourns Yager" by Marcia Mattson
- The Flint Journal, Sunday, July 24, 1994, page B1, "1,200-lb. woman more than curiosity" by Ken Palmer (Journal staff writer)
- The Flint Journal, Monday, July 25, 1994, page A6, "Americans must work harder to overcome weight problems"
