The Discovery Channel show “Deadliest Catch” follows fishermen on different boats as they risk their lives to fish for deep-sea king crab and snow crab in the icy waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Since its first episode in 2005, this reality show has shown that nothing or no one can beat nature. Sad to say, this also means that some cast members have left this world too soon. So, let’s take a look at all the deaths that have happened on “Deadliest Catch.”
Nick McGlashan
Nick McGlashan was a fan favourite on this show’s crew. He was a seventh-generation fisherman who grew up not far from Dutch Harbor on the Alaskan island of Akutan. Between 2013 and 2020, Deck Boss, who was 33 years old at the time, was in almost 80 episodes. On December 28, 2020, his family and the Nashville Medical Examiner confirmed that he had died.
According to his autopsy report, the Florida man was in Tennessee to meet up with friends when he died after taking a “mix of methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl” that killed him. He was found in his hotel room, not moving, with some drugs near his body. Reports say that paramedics tried for a long time to bring him back to life but couldn’t.
Mahlon Reyes
Mahlon Reyes, a deckhand, was seen on the show for the last time in 2015. The 38-year-old was getting better from a torn Achilles tendon and was getting ready to move back to Alaska from his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, for the start of the next fishing season when he suddenly died.
After what officials now say was a cocaine overdose, Mahlon had a massive heart attack on July 25, 2020. On July 27, shortly after midnight, his family took him off of life support in a hospital. “Mahlon never woke up because he didn’t get enough oxygen for too long, which caused permanent brain damage,” his wife wrote at the time. “[His] body was tired from fighting so hard. He was the most powerful person we knew.”
Blake Painter
In Season 3 of the Discovery Channel show “Deadliest Catch,” Blake Painter was the youngest captain in the fleet. In May 2018, his body was found in his home in Astoria, Oregon. His body was found by a friend who went to see what was wrong after not hearing from him for a few days. This is a sad way to think about how he died.
The Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office said there were no signs of wrongdoing or strange circumstances, but the 38-year-death old’s could have been caused by drugs. In January of that year, he was arrested for smoking heroin in his car. TMZ also said that drugs like meth and prescription painkillers were found near his body.
Joe McMahon
Joe McMahon was shot and killed in July 2015 near his parents’ home in Pasadena, California. He was 24 years old and had worked as an associate producer on nine episodes of “Deadliest Catch.” The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office ruled out a gang-related shooting because he had no known enemies.
Within a few days, the police told everyone that Joe had been killed in a murder-suicide. The suspect was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound he had given himself. Family members say that Joe went outside to check out a noise coming from the street when he was shot. He died at the scene.
Tony Lara
Tony Lara, who was the former captain of the ship Cornelia Marie and had only been in six episodes of the Discovery Channel reality show, died in August 2015. He was 50 years old. He was in Sturgis, South Dakota, at the time for the city’s annual motorcycle rally. He died in his sleep after having a heart attack.
Before he was on the show, the captain had been crab fishing for a long time and ran his own freighting business. And because he was always there for them, the crew of the Cornelia Marie remembered him as a true friend after he died. On their website, they said, “At the end of the day, Tony made us all a little bit better.”
Justin Tennison
Justin Tennison, who worked as a deckhand on the Time Bandit, died in a hotel room in Homer, Alaska, just four days after coming back from the icy waters. On February 22, 2011, a crew member who had been worried about the 33-year-old father of two after not hearing from him for a while found him unresponsive.
Even though the police found beer, hard liquor bottles, and some marijuana in Justin’s hotel room, sleep apnea ended up being the cause of his death. The crew of the Time Bandit wrote on their website, “Justin was as tough as a bull and a good hand all around.” “We’re going to miss him so much.”
Phil Harris
Captain Phillip “Phil” Charles Harris, the captain of the successful Cornelia Marie, may have died in the most heartbreaking way of all the people who have been on “Deadliest Catch.” Phil fell off his bunk bed during a storm in 2008. After that, he started throwing up blood. He got better, but he had to take a break because he had a pulmonary embolism, which doctors found out. In 2009, Phil came back.
On January 29, 2010, while unloading crab in the port at Saint Paul Island, Alaska, the captain, who was 53 years old, had a massive stroke. He was then put into a coma to relieve the pressure and swelling in his brain, but as the days went by, he got much better. But ten days later, on February 9, Phil Harris had internal bleeding in his brain and died.
Dr. Keith Anderson
Even though Dr. Keith Anderson wasn’t a member of the cast of “Deadliest Catch,” his death was shown on the show. In January 2010, Jake Anderson’s father, who had taught high school before retiring, went missing. About two weeks later, his truck was found abandoned in a remote rural area by the police.
Then, in 2012, more than two years after his car was found, a hiker found Dr. Keith’s bones a mile from where his car was found. Even though he had colon cancer, it doesn’t look like we know what killed him yet. Jake’s sister had died the year before because of complications from pneumonia.
