A “Deadliest Catch” cast member is revealing how Todd Meadows died after going overboard into the ocean while inside a 900-pound pot.
Deckhand Trey John Green III gave Page Six a detailed account of what he claims happened aboard the Aleutian Lady fishing vessel on the Bering Sea approximately 170 miles north of Dutch Harbor in Alaska in the late afternoon of Feb. 25.
According to Green, the notoriously treacherous water was actually “calm” that day, even though it was “only a degree or two above freezing.”
Green told us that many of the boat’s crew members had taken turns getting into the pots — baited, rigid traps used to catch shellfish — to sift through crabs retrieved from the ocean.
Green alleged that fellow deckhand Meadows, 25, was still inside one of the pots when it went “over the rail” and back into the water, claiming the other crew members screamed when they saw what was happening.
“It’s one of those things that none of us really understand. I don’t know what happened,” Green, 30, explained.
“So that’s what Todd was doing. The pot is sitting in the launcher, and Todd was actually inside the pot.”
Green emphasized that Meadows was “in the right place at the right time,” “doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing” when the accident occurred.
“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,’” Green recalled thinking, adding that he immediately ran to the back of the boat, climbed on top of the pots and saw Meadows.
“Somehow, some way, I don’t know — he was a fighter because he made it out of that pot,” he marveled, noting that Meadows was “swimming” and “trying to hang in there.”
According to Green, Meadows was in the water for only “three or four minutes” before their designated rescue swimmer, Steve Porter, got his “lifeless” body back on the boat. What followed for the next “half hour, 45 minutes” was an attempted rescue, as Page Six previously reported.