Deadliest Catch: The 5 Gnarliest Injuries In The Show’s History, Ranked
It’s a hard-knock life on the crabbing boats that populate “Deadliest Catch,” and the show rarely shies away from that ugliness. When someone gets sick — such as when Sig Hansen had his heart attack, Phil Harris endured his fatal stroke, or when Norman Hansen suffered a seizure while onboard the Northwestern — it is documented on camera. When major injuries take place, they too end up on viewers’ screens, no matter how bloody or dire the matter may be, unless the captains or deckhands in question request the matter not be broadcast. Some crew members have gotten close to dying on camera but fortunately didn’t lose their lives.
So it goes with any accident that happens aboard each trawler. Whether it’s someone hitting their head, losing part of a finger, or coping with possible internal injuries, every single captain has faced some sort of problem through the years. It’s all part of keeping the dream alive and each ship filled to the brim with king crab. These are the nastiest and downright scariest injuries related to “Deadliest Catch.”
5: The many injuries of Taylor Jensen
Among the many greenhorns the show’s spotlighted over the years, no one’s had harder luck than Taylor Jensen of the Saga. He spends much of Season 15 getting injured, including cutting his forehead open on camera, and starts up Season 16 by ripping his finger open in the coil just as a storm’s building. It’s a fairly minor injury compared to the many brutal ones that will decorate this list. But it’s a good starting point because the camera doesn’t resist zooming in on the hunk of flesh Jensen’s torn off of his hand.
The ship’s doctor proceeds to fix Jensen’s injury right on camera while he writhes in agony, trying not to curse before ultimately giving in and blurting out a blue streak. It’s the impact of his pain that really makes this one stick out as particularly gruesome, standing out from the many superficial injuries and broken noses audiences have seen over the years from the show. The stitches do at least hold in this case, and Jensen lives on to sail another day.
Don’t cry too hard for Jensen, though. It looks like he’s now the co-owner of the legendary “Deadliest Catch” vessel The V/F Cornelia Marie. Just goes to show that hard work — and a little spilled blood — pays off.
4: The Patricia Lee’s Francis Katungin gets crushed against the stack
Sometimes bad luck will intervene and make your life a whole lot more difficult. So it goes for poor Francis Katungin, whose day on the Patricia Lee gets a whole lot more difficult during Season 18 when a rogue wave smashes him against a stack of crabbing pots. Katungin is clearly in pain, and his fellow crewmen are shaken up from the accident. Todd Stanley, the show’s producer, renders aid to him, and Katungin can be seen near tears throughout the segment. He survives the incident but ends up with shattered hips and a broken pelvis, which are treated via a medflight back into Alaska.
History makes this one a hard watch — Patricia Lee Captain Rip Carlton had just lost a crew member, Todd Kochutin, during a previous 2021 voyage. Kochutin passed away from injuries sustained after he was hit with a crabbing pot weighing over 800 pounds. The echo of history here is downright spooky and definitely sad, but at least it had a happy ending and tragedy was avoided on “Deadliest Catch.”
3: Keith Colburn smashes face-first into a boat
Captain Keith Colburn is never shy about letting his feelings be known, and when he accidentally injured himself while diving to complete an underwater repair on the Wizard, he was scarily dazed and confused.
The incident happened during Season 10, and it completely startles Colburn’s crew, who thought the repair was just going to be a routine task for their leader. Fortunately, they act quickly when a rogue wave sends the ship crashing down on Colburn’s head. The ocean’s buoyancy saves him from death and while his skull may have been crushed, he begins to come around 24 hours later. He ends up with a possible concussion and has to get stitches for a wound atop his head, but otherwise, he comes out of the situation with flying colors, despite his near-death experience. Had Colburn been just slightly off, he would have ended up crushing his head.
While there have been a number of captain-related illnesses and injuries, and even a death or two on “Deadliest Catch,” this is the scariest thing to ever happen to one of the show’s captains.
2: Mike Vanderveldt loses the tip of his finger
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“Deadliest Catch” can be awfully blunt about the dangers of what can occur out on the Bering Sea, but the most gruesome moment yet to happen to a regular crew member was blatantly honest about how ugly things can get out there. During Season 8, viewers witness Kodiak deck boss Mike Vanderveldt as he trips while on deck and catches the tip of a finger between the launcher and the crab pot. It nips the tip of his digit clean off, and the show’s producers blatantly show off Vanderveldt’s agony without sparing much for the watcher’s imagination.
Captain “Wild” Bill Witchrowski jumps into action, calling for a medevac back to Alaska so Vanderveldt can get his finger reattached. But before then, those who continue to watch the segment are not only treated to the sight of his bleeding digit being treated by the onboard medic, they also get to see the severed tip of it, waiting for reattachment, lying on a paper towel. It’s one of the most stomach-churning sights in the show’s history, but it definitely paints a strong picture of how heavy and dangerous crabbing pots are. Fortunately, Vanderveldt made it back to dry land, where he and his finger were reunited.
1: The Coast Guard encounters a spiral fracture and a bait grinder injury
This one didn’t happen to any “Deadliest Catch” regular, but these broken bones were incredibly gnarly and terrifying to look at. They both made it on the air during the episodes “Now or Never” from Season 15 and Season 9’s “The Final Battle,” respectively. The episodes spotlight the efforts members of the Coast Guard flight crew undertake to help commercial fishermen who suffer serious injuries. Two of those unfortunate souls were spotlighted during this edition of the show, and they undoubtedly had the ugliest injuries ever shown off on “Deadliest Catch.”
In “Now Or Never,” there was a deckhand named Cody Rhodes from the Kari Marie who suffered a compound spiral fracture on deck two hours before their arrival. The compound injury is utterly gruesome. The camera shows his leg almost entirely twisted around, his foot and leg going in opposing directions. The Coast Guard swimmers cut through bad weather to evacuate him for treatment on dry land.
Not as lucky is the unnamed “The Final Battle” patient, who mangles his hand after it gets jammed into a bait grinder. After he is airlifted to a local hospital, a surgeon informs him that he’ll likely lose two fingers, unless the intervention of a hand surgeon in Seattle helps him out. It’s the ultimate sacrifice in the name of fishing — and undeniably the most gruesome thing ever seen on the show.
