Quite a Few People Have Gone Overboard on 'Deadliest Catch'

June 2024 · 3 minute read

Who went overboard on 'Deadliest Catch'? The collection has documented a number of deaths and rescues over the process 16 seasons.

Source: Discovery Channel

On a fresh episode of Deadliest Catch, the Dutch Harbor captains broke down one of the extra bad facets in their process, including the ever present risk of unruly weather and unpredictable seas. 

In truth, the Discovery Channel show once captured the instant a greenhorn on the fishing vessel Summer Bay went overboard throughout a specifically nasty storm, leaving Captain Bill Wichrowski and his quick-thinking team shaken for the remainder of the season.

Who went overboard on 'Deadliest Catch'?

The most up-to-date incident befell whilst the sequence was filming in 2017. Cameras caught deckhand Spencer Moore suffering to connect a pot to the block when he used to be all at once pulled over the railing via an especially rapid present.

Source: Discovery Channel

Thankfully, Spencer grabbed hang of a buoy and controlled to stick afloat in the 34-degree water whilst Summer Bay’s fisherman rushed to rescue him. They had been ready to pull him back up with the help of a life ring.

Spencer defined that he didn’t have a chance to procedure the entirety as it all took place so temporarily. "I was trying to get the bag in the block, and it's just ripping hard, and I held on, and it ripped me over way faster than I could let go," he shared.

Bill recalled the terrible feeling that washed over him in that quick. "I hadn't been afraid, probably, in 25 years and I was afraid and that takes a lot," he admitted to PopCulture in 2019.

"I get choked up talking about that. I've done this for 40-something years and never had a man in the water. So that was pretty hairy," he added. "We've fished in way worse… but it was just the wrong thing at the wrong time. I can still see him going over the side."

Source: Discovery Channel

Unfortunately, there have been a number of "overboard deaths" on 'Deadliest Catch'.

Though Spencer survived his frightening ordeal, the same can't be mentioned for Manu Lagai, who was knocked overboard all through the 2005 opilio season. He was swept out to sea on opening day whilst running aboard the Sultan.

His death marked the economic snow crab business’s 6th fatality in less than 24 hours following the capsizing of fishing vessel Big Valley, which killed five of the boat’s six workforce contributors. That identical season, greenhorn Kevin Davis nearly died when he slipped over the Saga’s railing into the Bering Sea. Like Spencer, he was once rescued by way of a lifestyles ring.

In Season 3, Johnathan Hillstrand — who was then the co-captain of Time Bandit — saved the lifetime of fisherman Josh White after he fell off a within reach boat called Trailblazer. 

Source: Discovery Channel

"I knew I was in a bad spot, and I felt myself slipping," Josh told The Seattle Times in 2007. "I tried to get a good grip, but I couldn’t. Before I knew it, I was gone."

After hearing in regards to the twist of fate over the radio, Johnathan temporarily assessed that the Time Bandit was in a higher position to achieve Josh, who had in spite of everything been in a position to inflate his existence vest after going underneath the water thrice. 

The then 31-year-old "took a little break" from crabbing after his brush with loss of life, however ultimately returned to the career that just about killed him. "I’ll never quit," he said at the time.

New episodes of Deadliest Catch air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery Channel.

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