Deadliest Catch Captain Phil Harris Suffers Stroke, Prognosis Unknown

Phil Harris, one of the primary stars of the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, suffered a stroke over the weekend and has been hospitalized in Anchorage, Alaska.

Anyone who has watched Deadliest Catch is familiar with Captain Phil Harris, the hard-smoking former deckhand who captains the Cornelia Marie. His two sons, Jake and Josh Harris are deckhands on the boat, which is often beset with mechanical problems while still managing to maintain a high level of commercial success while crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Harris suffered a stroke on Friday night while he was offloading opelio crab at St. Paul Island, off the coast of Alaska. He was eventually flown to Anchorage where doctors performed surgery to relieve swelling in his brain. Doctors induced a coma and that is the last official word on Captain Harris.

Both Discovery Channel and Harris' sons have issued statements saying that Phil is resting in the hospital and that there is no word on his prognosis at this time. Harris suffered a severe blood clot two seasons ago on Deadliest Catch and had to be hospitalized at that point for a significant portion of the fishing season. Despite his obvious health issues and a life of hard living as captain of a Bering Sea crab boat, Harris is rarely on screen without a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

The long hours at sea and the short crabbing seasons force crews to work around the clock to try to meet their quotas and offload the crab before the market price drops.