Ricky Naputi, the 900-pound Guam man at the center of a new TLC documentary, was never able to lose the necessary weight that would have allowed him to have a surgery that could have saved his life. He ultimately died from morbid obesity.
TLC's cameras followed Naputi, 39, for three years as he struggled to find a surgeon who would be willing to perform a potentially life-saving weight-loss surgery. The documentary, "900 Pound Man, Race Against Time," debuted Wednesday night.
The show chronicles the lives of Naputi and his wife Cheryl, who lived on a tropical beach in Guam. Because there was no form of transportation that would have supported his immense size, Naputi spent the last five years trapped in bed, a prisoner in his own home.
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"The last time I got out and enjoyed myself must have been years," he said in the documentary. "I miss feeling the sun on my face. Miss showering, feeling the water run down my body."
He consumed up to 10,000 calories a day, in spite of doctors telling him he had to get down to 600 pounds in order to qualify for any weight-loss surgery.
"I'm feeling nervous about seeing [the doctor] today," Naputi says in a preview clip of the show. "Because I actually should have been losing some weight."
Cheryl Naputi spent her days caring for her husband like a mother cares for a child.
"I'm going to get scolded," she said in the documentary. "No matter how much I try I tend to always give in to my husband — and it's really hard because my husband wears the pants in this relationship."
The show also captures the heartbreaking moment when Cheryl Naputi finds her husband unresponsive in bed and calls 911. Paramedics attempted to revive him, but it was too late.
"My hope for today, for this meeting, is to hear the doctor say we can go through with this, that we can do the surgery and we can prepare me for the journey to come," he said earlier in the show. "I'm going to try my best and my one goal, and my one goal only, is to get my life back."
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