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 on June 4 by specially equipped ambulance to Avera McKennan Hospital about 300 miles away in Sioux Falls.

“When Patrick came in, he was dying,” says Dr. Frederick Harris, who leads a nine-person team caring for the 42-year-old man.

Deuel suffered from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and other obesity-related problems, says Harris. He had trouble breathing and was malnourished because so many of his calories came from foods high in fat and carbohydrates.

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, which can be risky.

Deuel’s weight loss is about eight months ahead of schedule, his doctor says. Recently, Deuel took his first steps in months. He now can walk on his own a short way down the hospital corridor.

He hopes to move into a rehabilitation wing of the hospital, possibly as early as October. And he’d like to get into the swimming pool, but that has complications, too.

“Swimming for me has always been a good way for me to lose weight. But they can’t let me in the pool until they can get me out.”

Patrick Deuel prepares to stand with the help of registered nurse Haley Antonsen, left, and physical therapist Terri Harmelink, right, in his room at Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D. Deuel, 42, weighed 1,072 pounds before he entered the hospital in June. He has since lost more than 370 pounds.

A gregarious man who asks for hugs from nurses and visitors, Deuel says he doesn’t mind the attention he’s received since arriving at the hospital back in June.

“So long as people hear what I have to say,” Deuel says, “as long as I am succeeding in getting my message out, it doesn’t bother me.”

Bedridden since last fall, he thought about trying to keep his identity private. But he figured he could do more good by talking about obesity, its stigma and the lack of financial and medical resources available for people his size.

He says most people have been sympathetic and offers as proof dozens of letters and cards taped to the walls of his hospital room and a 2-inch thick stack of e-mails from well-wishers — some from as far away as Australia.

Only a few people have been critical, he says. One called him a name. Another scolded him for gaining weight in Nebraska and then asking doctors in South Dakota to solve his problem.