Alan Thicke loved playing hockey with his son and during his final hours that is exactly what he was doing.
The former Growing Pains star and his youngest son, Carter, 19, were playing a pickup game at a skating rink in Burbank, Calif., when he collapsed, PEOPLE reports.
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“We were worried that he was having a heart attack, but he was breathing, he was talking,” Pickwick Gardens vice president Darin Mathewson told KCBS on Tuesday of Thicke.
Mathewson was the individual that called 911 and was with Thicke and his son when the ambulance arrived at Pickwick Ice.
Thicke died at the hospital later that day.
“They got him up on the gurney. They went to take him out. He gave us a thumbs up,” says Mathewson. “He looked at his kid and said, ‘Hey, wait! Take a picture of me. Make sure you get the rink in the background!’ “
Thicke always had a positive attitude when he spent time at the rink. “He always had a smile on his face and was so kind to everyone,” a Pickwick Ice regular tells PEOPLE of the actor.
The Pickwick Ice employees tried to stay positive through the incident to keep Carter calm.
“We felt bad for Carter, but we trying to be a light for him to at the same point because we didn’t think it was that crazy,” said Mathewson.
Originally posted on Womanista.com.
