Carol Yager

Biography

Carol Yager said she developed an eating disorder as a child after being sexually abused by a close relative, though she later mentioned other factors contributed to her obesity. She also insisted she ate only normal amounts of food. She spent most of her life in Beecher, Michigan, near Flint.

In her final years, she was looked after by healthcare workers, friends, her daughter Heather, her son Stephen Bishop, and other family members who visited almost daily. She was eventually placed in a nursing home. Yager appeared on The Jerry Springer Show and drew interest from several diet experts.

Health problems

In January 1993, Yager was admitted to Hurley Medical Center, weighing in at 1189 lb. She suffered from cellulitis due to a bacterial infection, and immunodeficiency. She stayed in the hospital for three months, where she was restricted to a 1,200–calorie diet, and while there lost 521 lb, though most of this was believed to have been fluid. (Severely obese people often suffer from edema, and their weight can fluctuate rapidly as fluid is taken up or released.)

Yager suffered from many other obesity-related health problems as well, including breathing difficulty, a dangerously high blood sugar level, and stress on her heart and other organs. Yager was not able to stand or walk, because her muscles were not strong enough to support her, due in part to muscle atrophy from disuse. Yager was hospitalized 13 times in two years, according to Beecher Fire Department chief Bennie Zappa. Each trip required as many as 15 to 20 firefighters from two stations to assist paramedics 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 pass her to another team inside the ambulance, where she would ride on the floor.

Death

Yager died in Flint on July 18, 1994. 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 said that the only donation in Yager's name he ever received was for $20, 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. Dietary educator Richard Simmons was quoted as saying that he was 'angry that Yager's story was actively peddled to tabloid and television media by Maxwell and others'.

Yager's death certificate lists kidney failure as the cause of death, with morbid obesity and multiple organ failure as contributing causes. Yager was buried privately, with about 90 friends and family members attending memorial services.