that broke loose when a huge wave hit the ship and tossed him around in his stateroom. He waited a few days coughing up blood before heading for shore and the hospital. He was told to not man the ship anymore but he only stayed out for the rest of that season...he tried to return and was told by the doctor to get off the ship for a longer period of time. Eventually, sometime during the next season, he returned to Captain the ship, but the stress and little movement in the cabin evidently brought on the clots again that ended up in his brain causing the stroke (much like clots develop in some people on long air flights and complete bedrest because they aren't moving around). TPA is the major clot busting medication that used to be only given to heart attack patients and was recently okayed by the FDA for stroke victims, but it has to be administered within the first hour to be effective. Evidently, although he was in port at the time of the stroke, he wasn't able to be choppered out to a hospital quickly enough and had another stroke a couple of days later.
I enjoyed watching him interact with his sons...he tried to treat them and talk to them as if they were nothing more than employees on the ship, but you saw how often he catered to them and spoiled them beyond reason sometimes. He had a great rapport with fellow Captains and they were always pulling pranks on each other. The unique ways they found to entertain themselves while locked up in close quarters for long periods of time at a stretch were some of the funniest (sometimes even sick lol) I've seen in a long time. It was the ONLY reality show I could actually endure and feel entertained by...the whole time wondering how somebody could live such a hard life on purpose all for the sake of family and tradition.
TONI H
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