"Deadliest Catch" Dead at 33 of Sleep Apnea

Time Bandit deckhand Justin Tennison ... died at the age of 33 in Homer, Alaska, in February, only four days after returning to shore, from complications of sleep apnea.

"I know," says Hillstrand. "J.T., man, craziest thing I ever saw in my life. His mom died when he was six of sleep apnea, is what we were told. It's where your throat closes, and you just stop breathing. John does it, too, scares the hell out of me.

Full article: http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox ... riend.html

Edited 4/21/2011 to replace incorrect photo.

That is sad.

I started watching the new series last week so I guess the producers will have another death to deal with. I liked that guy.

Bryan

but was he under treatment???

THERE'S a good question!

purple wrote:but was he under treatment???

The way you see those guys sucking down cigarette smoke and talking about being in/out of rehab indicates probably not.

OK, maybe one of the doctors around here can answer this but how do they know you "die of sleep apnea"????

Does anyone ever die of total respiratory failure simply from an obstructed airway with no other reasons??? Seems to me there will always be something else--cardiac arrest, CVA, aspiration, etc. --that will really do you in. I can see dying of "complications of sleep apnea" but not sleep apnea with nothing else going on. (Maybe it's my denial?).

I put his name in Google to read any other articles. One said the police found some drugs and empty alcohol bottles in the hotel room in which he was found dead. Now, you could surmise he may have imbibed a drink or two and smoked some weed, but we don't know. I imagine the autopsy report will yield that information. Looking at his picture, not the one in Rooster's post--that isn't him---he wasn't overweight, but he had a thick neck. With apnea in the family, it would seem there would have been treatment, but we all know how that denial thing works.....

Some of the stories mention that he suffered a stroke caused by sleep apnea. Drinking suppresses the respiratory drive. On top of sleep apnea he might have stopped breathing. That might be what caused the stroke; his heart trying to arouse him to breath.

Emilia wrote: Looking at his picture, not the one in Rooster's post--that isn't him---he wasn't overweight, but he had a thick neck. With apnea in the family, it would seem there would have been treatment, but we all know how that denial thing works.....

Emilia, Thanks for pointing that out. I was puzzled by the picture with the article because that guy had a good square jaw which is an indication of low risk for obstructive sleep apnea. I will replace that photo with the correct one.

BTW, I would bet his BMI is greater than 30. 25 and up is overweight and 30 and up is obese. We have gotten so used to living in a "fat culture" that we don't recognize overweight and obese.

An MD once gave me a run down on how we often misinterpret death information. We have all heard that traveling salesmen often die of heart attack. and are often single. The assumption many make is that it is stress of being on the road constantly versus being at home with family drives the heart attack. The rest of the story is usually like this. A traveling salesman checks into a hotel/motel and is of course bored. He starts his evening with several drinks. Then adds in a really big dinner with more alcohol. Perhaps finishing with a creme de menthe, made from mint, which opens the valve at the top of the stomach.

He lays down. All that food and alcohol do what one would expect, and often cause a person, while still asleep and in a drunken stupor, to regurgitate. This ends up in the throat, where it blocks the breathing passage, and the person dies of a heart attack induced by a lack of oxygen.

Not sure where the stroke would fit in with this scenario.

gvz wrote: But, I agree Rooster -- if only we ate bugs, carcasses, roots and maybe some berries from time to time, we wouldn't be in this fricken mess.

I don't believe the bugs and berries would help.

Suggest instead breastfeeding until the age of two, eating raw crunchy fruits and vegetables, especially whole apples and pears, carrots, celery, raw nuts, tough cuts of beef, all throughout the developing years. What other foods will exercise the kiddies' jaws well?

Oh, and forego the 140 lbs. of sugars added to food that the average American eats every year.

roster wrote:

Emilia wrote:BTW, I would bet his BMI is greater than 30. 25 and up is overweight and 30 and up is obese. We have gotten so used to living in a "fat culture" that we don't recognize overweight and obese.

Hi,
I was just told I turn blue when I sleep and am just awaiting my prescription for a machine. Anyway, while a bit late, I just saw that this fellow died of complications related to apnea, and tied into my recent diagnosis was reading here. You mention BMI. Sorry to say that BMI is a load of hooey. If you want a real measurement, percent body fat is the only real way to tell if you are overweight. BMI is just way too loose of a calculation. It does not account for body types etc. The best shape in my life I weighed 205 lbs. I am 5 foot 11 inches. That says my BMI is 28.5 and that I was fat. I had a percent body fat measured at 9%. That is in the range of a professional athlete. Not a fat baseball pitcher either. I was very lean. Or to put it another way, I had roughly 180 lbs of lean tissue and bone and 20 lbs of fat. To have a BMI of 23 (ideal BMI or so they say) for my height I would need to weigh 165 lbs. I would have had to lose all 20 lbs of fat and then lose another 15 lbs of muscle to reach the ideal weight/BMI. That doesn't make any sense what-so-ever. And BTW, you need at least 5% body fat if you are a guy, and at leat 10% if you are a woman or you risk serious health issues. Percent body fat of 10 - 20 % is good for men. Anything over 25% is Obese. Lately, some measures have up to 25% being "average", and I am at 23% (185lbs of lean muscle and bone, the rest ahem, fat). However, I don't think it is a good level and am working on it. My doctor tells me that yes I am overweight and need to lose about 30 pounds (to get to a healthy 15 or 16% body fat at 215 lbs) but in no way shape or form obese never mind morbidly obese (and can walk several miles easily or ride a bicycle 20km in less than an hour, etc.). Yet my BMI would say that I should be dead if I did any of those activities. Yet I can easily do them. And at 215lbs my BMI would say I was still really fat, yet my % body fat would be healthy. BMI is a very crappy measure.

Regards.

purple wrote:Not sure where the stroke would fit in with this scenario.

I can hazard a guess.

1. He is overweight.

2. He is on the road.

3. His salt intake is spectacularly high.

4. He drinks alcohol.

5. He has sub-clinical CV disease.

gvz wrote:But, I agree Rooster -- if only we ate bugs, carcasses, roots and maybe some berries from time to time, we wouldn't be in this fricken mess.

I used to think that but then I couldn't explain the French.

They remain a major contradiction in the CVD lit.

They smoke, they drink, they eat cheese.

Yet, they have the 2nd lowest CVD rate in the world, so far ahead of other industrialized countries it isn't funny.

Why is this so?

Why are they so different from the Brits, just a frog leap away?

Sorry to say that BMI is a load of hooey.

I read some articles on doctors' opinions of BMI and had a discussion with the trainer at my gym. The trainer told me that BMI is a good indicator for about 98% of the population. The other 2% includes people who have trained and eaten in a manner that they have large muscles and low fat. There is also a population of people with low BMI who are very skinny but have dangerous levels of abdominal fat.

Good doctors can take one quick look at a person and tell whether they are normal, overweight, or obese. Sometimes they like to use the BMI calculation to make an impression on obese people who are in denial. Doctors will look at the abdominal area of bodybuilders and know that for the ones in good shape BMI is not a good indicator.

I have attended several of the free health seminars at a local hospital. They encourage everyone to calculate their BMI and of course almost all fit bodybuilders know it is not a good measure for them.

Then there are those people who are in serious denial and like to totally dismiss BMI and point to the percent body fat test.

BTW, I read somewhere, maybe in this forum, that a sleep doctor says 90% of bodybuilders have sleep apnea. For NFL linemen it also quite high. The large neck muscles constrict the airway.