SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Patrick Deuel is on a diet. He's down to about 700 pounds now. He hopes to lose 400 more.
When he entered the hospital in Sioux Falls, he weighed more than half a ton — a disaster Deuel blames on bad genes and his early years in the restaurant business.
He kept eating until he hit 1,072, a weight that could only be determined when he was put on a scale used to weigh trucks loaded with grain. To get him to the scale, a wall had to be knocked out of his home in Valentine, Neb.
From the truck scales, Deuel was taken by specially equipped ambulance to Avera McKennan Hospital about 300 miles away in Sioux Falls on June 4.
Now on a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet, Deuel hopes to hit the 300-pound mark and be healthy enough to have stomach-stapling surgery.