Driver Profile

Driving on the edge

“Ice Road Trucker” Alex Debogorski is tough as nails and skilled at driving a truck in the arctic wilderness, but he found the most dangerous threat lurking inside of him

Professional drivers do not need a 101 course on “Ice Road Truckers,” the most-watched original telecast in the 12-year run of The History Channel.” They know from tuning in each week that “Ice Road Truckers” documents the exploits of fellow driving pros who power their big rigs along treacherous ice roads running through Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada.
     Alex Debogorski, or “the shock jock” as he is known to his legions of fans, is one of the show’s most popular personalities, and he has long been a legend among other drivers on the ice roads. With 26 years of experience driving under the most brutal conditions imaginable, Alex is always in the hunt to deliver the most loads and earn the big money.
     Alex is human, though, and he had to withdraw from the series last season due to heart arrhythmia and pulmonary embolisms. It took determination and months of recovery for Alex to get back on his feet, and he took time out of his busy schedule to talk candidly with Driver HEALTH about his illness, his dramatic hospitalization and his journey toward wellness. Alex also has words of encouragement for other drivers who want to lose weight, eat right and improve their heart health:

 

So how did you first get into trucking? You’ve been at it 26 years.

In 1973, I was 19 and worked at a tire store, and a fellow came in looking for a truck driver. He asked me if I’d driven a truck, and I told him I’d driven them on the farm and thought I could do it, but I didn’t have a license.” He said, “Good enough,” and off we went.
     I never had plans to become a truck driver, but I needed a job – a better job than I had, anyway – and I had a wife and a child. One thing led to another and soon I started running heavy equipment.

 

How did you make the move to ice road trucking?

In 1976, my wife and I decided I needed to get another job, so we ended up in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territory of Canada.
     In the north there are mines and explorations in the middle of nowhere, and there’s not much of an infrastructure. In the wintertime, it’s hard to reach areas that are inaccessible. The water freezes, the lakes freeze, the rivers freeze, and all of a sudden people are looking for the most efficient way to get parts, equipment and building supplies into these communities. We try to haul as much freight as we can by truck, and if somebody wants to do the driving, there’s quite a bit of opportunity. And you use the ice roads.
     I figure it’s better than hauling on a regular basis. Make the payments and buy the groceries – those are my incentives to go to work. People say we make a lot of money in the north, and that’s true, but our costs are very high. Someone says we should be filthy rich, and I say, well, I got a lot of costs, and my electricity and water are expensive. He says that his water and electricity are $100 month, and I say mine is $1,000 Canadian a month. That’s a huge difference.

 

And ice road trucking isn’t for the novice driver, is it?

Well, we were all novices once. I try to be professional. I’m always concerned with my equipment and the company’s equipment – I might even be more concerned with something belonging to someone else. And the big thing is safety. I’ve never had a major catastrophe. My family wants me back in one piece.

 

How were you chosen to be a part of “Ice Road Truckers”?

The ice road truckers have been romanticized all over the world. We’ve had many camera crews here. National Geographic has been up here, people from Germany, people from England, folks from Japan – and they film enough for a one-hour program to take back to their various countries. The History Channel had one that aired on a regular basis. They found that people were interested, and they thought they could make a longer show, so they sent a film crew up here and made a deal with a trucking company that would allow them to film.
     They interviewed numerous people and were looking for characters. People would say, “If you’re looking for characters, you should meet Alex Debogorski. He’s a bona fide character.” The film crews came looking for interesting people, and I was one of the drivers who agreed to be part of the show. My rationale was that I have a large family and I have nine grandkids. (I wouldn’t mind having 91 more.) It would be nice, when I’m dead, for them to watch Grandpa in reruns!

 

Driving in arctic conditions must be hard enough without having a camera in your face all day long. What’s that like?

Truck drivers like being by themselves for long periods of time, and having cameras on us all day long does make a difference. If I didn’t want to do it, I guess I could quit. It seems to be working for me, though.
     And many touching opportunities arise because of our work on “Ice Road Truckers.” We just attended a picnic sponsored by a group called The Candlelighters. These are people with children who passed away from cancer or have survived cancer. I even had a chance to be a part of the big parade, and they let me drive the big 80,000-lb. tow truck. One of the wish kids and his father rode along with me.

 

When did you first realize you were facing some health issues?

I was in my 30s, and a lady doctor found out I had a heart murmur. I burst out laughing at the time, because nobody had ever found anything physically wrong with me. Then 12 years later I went in – this was probably in 2000 – and when they checked my heart out they saw something wrong.     
     They said my heart had a hole in it, but that’s not that uncommon. They did an angiogram and found out I had more blood flowing outward than inward – a valve wasn’t working properly. A specialist said if I’d waited two years, I would’ve needed a heart transplant. Anyway, they patched my valve.

 

And what led to the medevac flight last year that ended your season early?

When I had my heart valve replaced, they also discovered that I was hypothyroid, so I began taking medication for it. In the cold weather, I developed a rash across my chest and shoulders that itched and drove me batty. I found out it was a side effect of my condition. I read up on it and learned that a higher dose of the thyroid medication might help. My doctor said OK, but somehow we never talked about dosage.
     When I was up north during the second season of the show, my heart rate was up to 135 and I was pretty dire. My heartbeat was irregular, and my body was putting blood clots in my lungs – one in each lung. I stuck with work about a month, but then I started coughing up blood. I don’t know whether you saw the episode, but they medevac’d me from Inuvik to Stanton Hospital in Yellowknife.
     The problem was I’d been taking an extra whole pill of the thyroid medication, and they figured I should have just taken a quarter of a pill more. I was in the hospital about 10 days. They took me off the thyroid meds completely and I got sicker. It took me two months to get the numbers right.

 

That experience would scare anyone. How has it changed your lifestyle?

The doctors never really pushed me. I’m drinking more water now, because they claim it keeps your blood thinner, and eating more greens and fruit. I eat smaller portions, too.
     I don’t smoke anymore, and I don’t chew. Quitting them was hard, and it took me a lot of prayer and effort. I’m thinking about healthy things now like exercising and finding the right scenario to do it on a regular basis. Maybe I’ll be like my wife and go to a place like Curves (a worldwide fitness franchise) and get addicted to it. She’s lost I don’t know how many pounds.                     
I’m reading a book that says if you have one glass of red wine a day, that’s good for you, but if you have two glasses, it negates the benefits of the first glass. So I usually only have one glass of wine.
     My oldest child is 38 years old, and he works out. I have another child who lifts weights scientifically, and he actually introduced me to it a few months ago. I need to spend more time with the weights so I can learn which ones to use.
     I take it easier and I don’t worry as much – I give things more moccasin time, y’know, Indian feet…time doesn’t matter much to them. You wake up in the morning and the wind and snow are blowing and you don’t worry about it. You go back to bed and do something else. When the wind, the rain or the snow stops, you go and do it. You get the job done without getting stressed out about things that aren’t life-threatening. 

 

Any words of encouragement for other drivers who are interested in improving their heart health?

Oh yeah, I’ve got lots of free advice. The number one thing: look in the mirror and decide whether you have a problem. If you have a problem, you have to take ownership of it. Maybe a guy needs to buy a scale and read some simple stuff to help take care of himself. It’s good to talk with other people who are trying to improve their health situation. And then go to a naturopath or take the advice of a doctor. Read the literature.
     If you’re overweight, you might as well start reading about diabetes because if you aren’t diabetic already, you will be in the next five or 10 years if you don’t change your ways. Fix it before it breaks.
     Think about taking little steps. Don’t drink soda, not even diet soda, because it has its problems. Drink water. Take a little more time to chew your food. They claim you should eat a small portion and wait 20 minutes to see if you’re still hungry.
     I started eating salad, a great big salad with a little chicken mixed in. It was like a meal. At first, I had to force myself to eat a salad, but then I started to look forward to it.
     The other thing is to be sure you get enough sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, you can’t lose weight.

Will your fans get to watch you again in season four of “Ice Road Truckers”?

That’s up to the History Channel. I think they had pretty good ratings this past season. They’ll start talking with us some time in November. They won’t start filming until the ice is good and hard, so that’s probably going to be in January or February.