RIP Matt Hughes (Storm Chasers)

[Ksyrup]

Haven't watched last night's ep of Storm Chasers, but apparently this is an unexpected (for most) storyline - Matt died shortly after the tornado chase featured on last night's show, in late May. I thought the "fatal injury at home" thing sounded suspiciously vague, and a search of the net reveals that he had long battled depression and apparently died from complications following a suicide attempt. Sad.

NEW YORK (CBS) "Storm Chasers" fans were shocked to learn on Wednesday's episode that meteorologists and storm chaser Matt Hughes had died.

The episode, appropriately titled "Dedication," featured Hughes' final chase as he led the team to what Discovery Channel says was "their best tornado intercepts ever."

The show revealed that the same weekend of his last chase, Hughes suffered a fatal injury at his home. He died a week later on May 26, 2010, in Wichita, Kan., at age 30. He is survived by his wife, Kendra, and two sons, Collin and Hunter.

According to the Wichita Eagle, his 15 years of storm chasing experience helped him land on the show in 2009.

He admitted to the newspaper last year that it took some time in the beginning to earn his team's trust, but he eventually became a perfect fit.

"As the season went along, you could see us come together," he said. "By the end of the season we're like a well-oiled machine. We knew what each other was thinking almost before we had to say it."

[DaddyTorgo]

And here I thought this was about UFC superstar Matt Hughes.

[sovereignstar v2]

Don't scare MMA fans or anything ...

[Ksyrup]

Sorry, I don't watch wrestling or any of that other shit. Never heard of him. I changed the title.

[DaddyTorgo]

LOL - it's cool. I've never seen Storm Chasers, but that sucks. Depression/suicide I mean.

[Ksyrup]

Should be an interesting dynamic to follow on the show - in the eps leading up to his suicide attempt, the storm chasing team he was on (lead by a guy who knows virtually nothing about meteorology but who is trying to film an IMAX tornado movie) moved him from the team's chase car to the lead car to act as the chief meteorologist. Yet, the movie guy, Sean, repeatedly refused to take his suggestions for when/where to chase and invariably made the wrong choices, leading to a tremendous amount of frustration for Matt and others. And then they apparently hit on a great storm with Matt taking the lead, and that weekend he commits suicide. I gotta think Sean bears some of the guilt for what happened. Or at least he should. The guy is a douche of the highest level.

[jeff061]

I would say it's probably not wise to take a heavily edited TV show and draw conclusions from it. Who knows how much is exaggerated to create a villain.

I doubt the guy killed himself over anything on the show. If he has a history of depression, it's basically a treatable yet often lethal illness. Doesn't matter what you do or where you are in life, you can't pull yourself out of the darkness. It's a shame.

[Ksyrup]

Eh, that guy's own words make him out to be a douche. No need to edit it. I don't know how much of the chase stuff factored in, but I think it's interesting that all of that was going on shortly before he died. I guess we'll never know.

[stevew]

RIP Matt Herges. Hope you spend the afterlife serving up gopherballs in heaven.

[Scoobz0202]

Was a great episode last night and the ending was quite jarring. I had no idea this had happened.

[Ksyrup]

I guess it's because he wasn't all that well known on the show that it never became a story at the time.

[Ksyrup]

Watched the ep last night. Incredibly sad that this happened, coming off of what appeared to be the highlight of the guy's professional career. Anyway, this was posted on June 7th by one of his friends and fellow KAKE employees and gives a little bit of insight into what happened:

It was May 12th and I was typing away, preparing my next blog about how the city of Wichita really dodged a bullet on May 10th, when a tornado had its sights on the city. But on May 14th, everything changed.

One of our KAKEland StormChasers, Matt Hughes, was taken to the hospital after trying to take his life. This sentence is still hard to explain and even more difficult to express on a computer screen. Matt was in the hospital for several days in intensive care, there was a 24 hour vigil outside the waiting room, family, other chasers, business associates, etc.

I spent quite a bit of time bouncing from work to the hospital and back again...hoping for the best, comforting others, but several days later, after serious complications arose, I knew we were going to lose him.

I want to explain something right away, Matt was a young, vibrant, and resourceful man. One who embodies the passion everyone should have doing something they love. He would do anything for anyone, would try to make everyone happy, would try to do a good job for someone..and would never ask for anything in return.

What a lot of us didn't know was that he suffered from depression.

When Matt came to me in March of 2009 to tell me that him and his chase partner, Brandon, were picked to co-star in the Discovery Channel's hit show "Stormchasers" --I was excited! Matt was truly worried about his role for KAKE and that he'll not be able to do as much for us as he wanted to since he'll be away from the state a lot with the production crew. He then asked me what I thought about the show and whether he should do it. A veteran of several chasing shows myself, I told him to seize the opportunity because it may never happen again. He accepted the job and the rest is history.

For those who follow the show, Matt was the forecaster for Sean Casey's TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle)--he was responsible for placing Sean in front of tornadoes so he can capture IMAX quality footage for a future project. Matt did a fine job on the show, he was responsible for getting Sean his first legitimate close-up encounter with a tornado with his IMAX cameras. The producers of the show were so happy with Matt and Brandon that they signed up for a second season, of which principal shooting is wrapping up now.

The two of them this year were able to capture some amazing footage for the show, and for Sean. While the professional side of Matt was going fine, his personal life was nothing but.

I won't go into specifics here, but there was never any illegal activity, but an accumulation of issues at home were mounting, and he kept it to himself until the end.

His friends, and I, will never know what he was truly thinking, will never know if there was something we could've done, will never know if anything could've been done. I've spent several sleepless nights over the last few weeks playing Monday morning quarterback..trying to make sense of this, wishing things were different. I'm going to miss Matt and everything he stood for.

Depression is a silent and debilitating disease..it can effect more than just the person suffering from it. It can destroy marriages, it can alter relationships, it changes lives.

His funeral last week was attended by over 500 people. If only he would've seen all the people who care for him ..could things have ended differently?

I wanted to wait until he was laid to rest, and for me to find the right words before I felt like blogging again. I also want to thank my employer, KAKE-TV, as they made a donation to a memorial fund set up for Matt's family at Intrust Bank.

Matt-- I hope this was ok?

[MizzouRah]

I watched the episode this morning and knew nothing about his death.. when they mentioned it at the beginning of the show I thought it was definitely tornado related, especially since they were in the middle of one towards the end of the show.

Sad news indeed about his depression....