‘Deadliest Catch’ shares health update on Capt. Keith
Colburn seemed to be exhibiting symptoms of a heart attack or stroke.
After Deadliest Catch’s Captain Keith Colburn suffered a “terrifying” medical emergency at sea that left fans reeling with concern, we finally have an update on his status after the event led his brother and fellow captain, Monte “Mouse” Colburn, to rush their crabbing boat to shore so he could be airlifted for proper medical care.
This week’s episode, which aired on Oct. 8, opened with the captain situated in his hospital bed in Anchorage, Alaska, where doctors performed a full workup after he “lost consciousness multiple times at sea.”
His medical episodes, which caused him to fall and hit his head, left him scared for his life as he began experiencing left-sided numbness and pain in the middle of the Bering Sea. Fans were worried that he may have been experiencing a heart attack or stroke.
When his test results finally came back, while a heart attack wasn’t ruled out completely, it seemed unlikely since his troponin levels—a cardiac enzyme that increases during cardiac events—were negative.
Keith was understandably “still a little confused as to what actually happened,” but emergency room doctors didn’t have an answer for him, either, recommending he see a cardiac specialist for further testing.
The captain was itching to get “right back out to the boat” but agreed to wait for “the green light” from the hospital which, unfortunately, did not come before the episode’s end.
While he did see the cardiologist, he still didn’t know what had happened to him, with one suggestion being a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which is often referred to as a mini-stroke and causes the same symptoms a stroke might, without the permanent effects (although someone who experiences a TIA is much more likely to go on to have a full-blown stroke in the coming months).
“It could have been a stroke, not sure,” he told his brother over the phone, revealing that the doctor had told him that, for now, he needs to remain near a hospital. “So I will not be coming back to the boat in the next couple days, I’ll tell you that right now.”
For now—or, at least when the episode was filmed—Mouse says Keith is doing “all right,” but with Captain Keith remaining pretty silent on social media of late, viewers may be waiting for answers for a while yet.
