Just hours before the Summer Bay’s winter season kicked off, Deadliest Catch Captain Wild Bill Wichrowski found himself in serious trouble when deck boss Nick McGlashan took a serious fall.
In Tuesday’s episode of the Discovery docuseries, McGlashan was helping the Brenna A tie up when he slipped on the icy Alaskan deck, going down hard on his ankle.
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“Only 12 hours before the season starts, an ankle injury could put an end to the Summer Bay’s departure plans,” narrator Mike Rowe explained of the gravity of the injury.
As his fellow fishermen helped him into a truck and back to the Summer Bay, the deckhand called up Wild Bill, who has the wind completely taken out of him by the news.
“Nick just twisted an ankle, I guess,” he told the camera, sighing, “I can’t take much more bulls— this season.”
As the pain from McGlashan’s ankle began to radiate up his leg, his fellow crabbers had to lift him on board, where Wichrowski cut off his rubber boot to take a look at the damage.
“I felt three big pops,” the injured fisherman revealed, earning some concerned glances.
Wrapping it up and putting ice on the injury, the captain and crew had to accept that the fate of the Summer Bay’s season would rest in the hands of an X-Ray result at the local clinic the next morning.
With three new crew members aboard the boat, bringing another on board would be a tough move for Captain Wild Bill, but the veteran crabber was holding out hope his longtime deck boss would pull through.
“This is ridiculous — he’s my heart and soul out there,” Wild Bill confessed. “If there’s a way for somebody to make it, he’ll do it. That’s the way he is.”
He wasn’t wrong. Although it turned out McGlashan had a “hell of a sprain” the next day, he made sure to take to the deck on a pair of crutches.
“A lot of people get on me like, ‘Why do you put so much effort into that guy?’” Wichrowski explained as he watched the injured deck boss get to work. “This right here is a good example of why I put effort into Nick. ‘Cause Nick puts effort into me.”
Deadliest Catch airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery.
Photo credit: Discovery
