Sad. RIP.
Discovery Channel: 'Deadliest Catch' captain dies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100210/...it_phil_harris
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Phil Harris, the fishing boat captain whose adventures off the Alaska coast were captured on the television show "Deadliest Catch", has died, the Discovery Channel said Tuesday night. He was 53.
Harris suffered what his family described as a massive stroke on Jan. 29 while the fishing vessel he captained, Cornelia Marie, was in port at St. Paul Island, Alaska. The fisherman was flown to Anchorage for surgery.
The reality show, which has filmed five seasons, has been one of the Discovery Channel's most popular and depicts the crab fishing industry in the dangerous waters off Alaska.
"It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our dad - Captain Phil Harris. Dad has always been a fighter and continued to be until the end," sons Josh and Jake Harris said in a statement released by the network. "For us and the crew, he was someone who never backed down."
In a statement, Discovery Channel senior vice president Elizabeth Hillman says, "Phil was a devoted father and loyal friend to all who knew him."
"We will miss his straightforward honesty, wicked sense of humor and enormous heart," she said.
In an e-mail to The Associated Press, she said no additional information was immediately available Tuesday night.
Harris had seemed to be improving, and in a posting last Saturday on the ship's Web site, he was described as "talking to friends and family today; showing his greatest progress" since the stroke.
His sons wrote in a Feb. 3 posting that "No one ever said Captain Phil Harris wasn't tough. Today, dad showed some good signs of improvement, squeezing our hands and even summoning his trademark Captain's bluntness ... We are encouraged but still very cautious."
According to the ship's Web site, Harris started working on fishing boats at age 7 and started work 10 years later on a crab boat. When Harris turned 21, he ran a fishing vessel out of Seattle, making him one of the youngest to captain a vessel in the Bering Sea.
When Harris suffered the stroke, the family said a friend, Derek Ray, had flown to St. Paul to take over the role of relief skipper for the rest of the opilio crab season.
Harris' fishing vessel was based in Seattle.
Sad. RIP.
R.I.P. Captain Phil. I've seen every season of "Deadliest Catch" and Phil Harris was one of the skippers I enjoyed watching. He will be missed both in the fishing community and in TV land.
53 is way too young. RIP Phil.
This is so sad! Poor Phil. He's had several health issues on the show, but still.
He almost died on the show from his blood clot that one season. I think they said he was smoking 15 packs per day? It's a wonder he lived to 53.
RIP, Phil.
Very sad. I had hoped he was going to make a recovery.
Yep..........smoking constricts the blood vessels in the brain. My mother had two strokes smoking like a chimney.........doctor told her to quit smoking or die of a massive stroke. She quit 10yrs ago, and is now is great health.
RIP Phil.......... Deadliest Catch is a great show.
It is always a mystery why people who smoke several packs of cigarettes a day & drink a bottle of bourbon a day die so young…I hope one day medical research can find the answers…
That sucks. Phil was down here in Portland just about 6 months ago.
never watched it....
RIP Captain Sir
The wife and I are big fans of the show and the Cornelia Marie crew was one of our favorites.
RIP Captain.
That blows. I mean it was bound to happen, but still sucks
15 packs a day?? how is that possible...financially and physically?
15 packs? Really? 300 Cigarettes per day? How is that even physically possible? You'd have to burn through a smoke in under 5 minutes, chain the next one, and do it over and over. And that's without ever, EVER sleeping. You would literally have a cigarette burning non stop every single minute of the day.
I'm guessing it was more like 5 packs a day. And when he wasn't smoking he was usually chugging an energy drink.
RIP Captain. Great show
You have to remember that these guys frequently crab around the clock for days in a row. Phil sits up there in the wheelhouse and tries to stay awake, and not get his guys killed by rogue waves. I remember one episode where the film crew caught him with two cigarettes lit at the same time, one he just lit, and one still in the ash tray. If you looked up "chain smoker" in the dictionary, his picture would have been by the definition.
Thats sad. he was a cool guy on the show.
15 packs is impossible. 5 is already making me wonder.
Sad shame. Guy smoked like a chimney and lived on caffeine, but he worked hard for his family and cared about his kids. Hard not to respect that.
RIP Captain.
No way on 15 packs a day. First off a strong coke habbit might actually be cheaper then smoking 15 packs a day. I can see 5 though. I work with someone that goes through 3 packs in an 8 hour work day. Amazes me that he can be on his 3rd by the time I finish my first. That's sick though. I know I feel like smoking one pack a day. I only smoke a half a pack though.. which, though bad, isn't quite that bad.
Really ty. Probably my favorite crew on the show.
That really sucks. Captain Phil seemed like a great guy, though he was asking for it with his lifestyle.
I'm hoping they keep the Cornelia Marie for future seasons... perhaps his older son will get to captain it.
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