The Sad Story of Ricky Naputi....Who was to blame?

it his fault, ultimately we make our own decisions and he choose to ignore his he paid the price. his wife on the other hand should of stopped it before it begun to get serious. but its not her fault, the doctor no way, they can advice but yet we make that decision no one can force it

I saw this show a few weeks ago. Very sad. He was morbidly obese when she married him, and she was pretty obese herself, so I think there were a lot of psychological issues going on here. He needed her - for everything. And I think she liked it that way. Ultimately, it was his decision to eat the food. He could have eaten less.

I felt sorry for the doctors who were trying to help him. Although the show compressed the timeline, in fact, they tried to get him to lose weight for 3 years, but he just gained more instead. And this man lived on Guam, a relatively small island with limited medical facilities for the morbidly obese. Which is why they asked him to lose weight before being admitted to the hospital for full-time nursing care. They simply didn't have the equipment on hand to handle a man of his weight.

They did everything they could to facilitate his recovery, but at some point you have to take some responsibility for your own situation. He just whined how he wanted somebody to help him, but he wasn't willing to help himself.

On a side note, this is a serious issue in the Pacific islands. The native population, much like the native population in the US, is facing life-threatening obesity, diabetes, and everything else that goes with them. Poverty, poor diet, and sedentary lifestyles are taking a huge toll on these proud peoples. As someone who has traveled to, and lived in, many of these areas, it makes me sad.

Well, I passed the bar exam a long time ago and I DON"T think the wife breached any legal duty to husband in this situation. No crime was committed. She may bear some moral responsibility but is not legal culpable unless he had been declared mentally incapacitated and she appointed as his guardian.

Why in the world would you blame the doctors? They're not miracle workers.

This. When someone is that big, they have to lose some weight before doctors can do the surgery or they're more likely to die on the table.
With everyone lawsuit happy these days, I don't blame doctors a bit for not eating that bullet.

Considering the man has died, he has now paid the price for his addiction. Like other addicts, I agree with the post above, you wouldn't give a drug addict drugs and feed their habit when they are in rehab.

In saying that the wife was clearly a part of this sad story. The doctors are experts and had their reasons for not opening him up straight away, it would have been too risky and therefore they then would have been to blame should he have died on the operating table.

I think his wife will have to live with the fact she fed her husband to death. she would be blaming herself unless she's suffering from some sort of mental illness, that alone should be enough punishment to last her lifetime.

The whole thing is just sad. I can't fathom how he let himself get to that point. I'm so uncomfortable at my weight...and I can walk/jog. Before it got THAT out of control, he had to of felt *something*... a *tug* that it is out of hand. Unfortunately noone helped him with his food addiction....that to me is sad. It took years to get to that point... so before it got that out of control someone should have stepped in and motivated him, helped him, encouraged him...and if he still refused to care...then he is to blame ultimately. We are responsible for our actions, no one else.

And as a caregiver myself, I won't lie, I would have given up on him.... because he gave up on himself. You can't make someone change. They are either going to do it, or they aren't. Period. :ohwell:

i beleve they are feeders and yes should be charged...a person who is that weight would die of starvation if left. or at best loose some weight...so it has to be the feeders to blame

He was to blame.
Although it would've been preferable if his wife didn't allow him to do this to himself, but i don't think she should be charged with a crime at all.

He was to blame. It was him who ate so much that he was unable to feed himself to begin with. She was most likely only complying with his requests for food (assuming he wasn't asking for healthy options) and ultimately he was the one choosing to consume the food. While she brought him the food, she didn't force feed him or make him eat it all. He always had a choice (ignoring that he was most likely a food addict which isn't his wife's fault anyway) about what and how much to eat and judging from the state he had allowed himself to get in, he had been making the wrong ones for a very long time.

A very sad case but the wife is not to blame.

The Doctor's are definitely not to blame as I'm sure they had very good reasons for refusing treatment (the massive risk factors that come with that kind of obesity or limited capacity of equiptment for example)