Todd Meadows Deadliest Catch Death Detailed by Fellow Deckhand

Deckhand Todd Meadows died last month during production on season 22 of the Discovery Channel series Deadliest Catch. At the time his death was first reported, very few details were shared. On Friday, Meadows’ fellow deckhand and bunkmate on the Aleutian Lady explained what happened.

Trey John Green III told Page Six the Bering sea was “calm” in the late afternoon of Feb. 20, but added the water was “only a degree or two above freezing.” The ship’s crew members were taking turns climbing into the boats to sift through crabs they’d just caught. Green said Meadows was in a pot, which was seated in the ship’s launcher, when it fell “over the rail” and into the chilly water.

“It’s one of those things that none of us really understand,” Green, 30, said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Meadows, who was 25, was “doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing,” Green added. “We’re like, ‘Holy crap, he’s gonna sink to the bottom. We’re not gonna have any way to get this pot back up.’”

But Green says he saw Meadows escape the pot and attempt to swim. He was not wearing a life vest — none of the crew were.

Meadows was in the water just “three or four minutes” before the boat’s designated swimmer retrieved him from the sea. He was already “lifeless,” Green said.

The crew attempted CPR and used a defibrillator, but the efforts failed. The crew wrapped Meadows’ body in a tarp and “place it in the freezer to preserve it and head back to town,” the publication wrote.

“Everybody did everything they could do,” Green said, adding that “everything” was captured by the production’s cameras.

“This remains an active U.S. Coast Guard investigation,” a Discovery Channel spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “We are assisting in their efforts and cannot comment at this time.”

“We lost our brother,Todd Meadows,” the Aleutian Lady’s captain Rick Shelford wrote in a Facebook post last week. “Todd was the newest member of our crew; he quickly became family. His love for fishing and his strong work ethic earned everyone’s respect right away. His smile was contagious, and the sound of his laughter coming up the wheelhouse stairs or over the deck hailer is something we will carry with us always.”

Deadliest Catch, produced by Fremantle’s Original Productions, unfortunately lives up to its name: Meadows is by no means the first death of a castmember on the job.