Profile: Mac Yates
Last updated: 03/06/2007
Mac Yates before and after surgery
Sometimes, Mac Yates' job as a paramedic requires him to hike miles into the woods to help an accident victim or a hunting victim. But when Yates weighed 378 pounds, that was a hard task.
"I would have to stop just to catch my breath," Yates said. "And in accidents, I couldn't be the one to get into a wrecked car and help someone. I was too big."
His health was also suffering when he was obese. His blood pressure was high, and he saw a future full of knee ailments caused by walking with so much extra weight. Despite countless attempts at shedding pounds through diets and weight-loss pills, Yates remained obese.
"I would lose a little weight, then gain it all back and more," he said.
Finally, in late May 2002, Yates made a life-changing decision to have open gastric bypass surgery at Cabell Huntington Hospital's Center for Surgical Weight Control.
Yates now weighs just under 200 pounds and is more confident in his work. Now he can hunt again; at his former weight Yates was unable to fit into a tree stand he used to spot wildlife.
"I was afraid the tree would fall down," he said. "Weight was always a big struggle in my life, and it kept me from my work and from what I enjoy."
Yates, a station chief and paramedic for Southeast Ohio EMS, said his social life changed with the surgery too.
"It's a world of difference how people look at you. You're more accepted when you are not obese," Yates said. "I would do this surgery all again. My whole life turned around."