In the season 17 premiere of Gold Rush, Rick Ness was noticeably missing as his crew arrived at Duncan Creek ready to begin another mining season.
Crew members Jason and Heather Folster had made it to Rick’s site, but they hadn’t heard from their boss and didn’t know what his plan was. When Ness finally appeared, viewers learned his absence wasn’t simply another mining setback. He had been dealing with a frightening health problem that he said had begun to take over his life.
“I can tell you, I don’t feel good,” Ness told his longtime friend and confidant Brian “Zee” Zaremba during the Oct. 2 premiere. “I can’t concentrate, pay attention to anything, I can’t stay awake.”
Ness said things had become particularly scary over the winter when he began sleepwalking.
“I woke up on the floor of my bathroom three times,” he revealed, explaining that he’d hit his head on the toilet during the falls and injured both his nose and head.
Even more alarming was Ness’ inability to stay awake. During his conversation with Zaremba, he appeared to fall asleep while resting on his hand. Ness also recalled falling asleep while standing up.
“That ain’t no joke anymore,” he admitted.
Zaremba agreed. He warned Ness that he’d been lucky so far but could eventually hit his head and suffer a major injury, urging his friend to seek medical attention.
That wasn’t an easy proposition for Ness.
“I haven’t been to a doctor in over a decade,” the miner revealed. “I avoid it at all costs.”
Still, Ness acknowledged that he couldn’t continue living the way he had been.
Rick Ness Finally Sought Medical Help For His Frightening Symptoms
Zaremba accompanied Ness to see a medical provider, where the Gold Rush star finally opened up about everything he’d been experiencing.
“I feel a lot better now that I went in there,” Ness said afterward. “It’s surprising. I unloaded everything that’s wrong with me. I’ve never really done that.”
Ness said he was relieved to learn that his heart, lungs and blood pressure looked good. He was told that sleep apnea could be behind the problems he’d been experiencing.
“The sleep apnea is kicking my ass,” Ness said. “I think he’s pretty convinced the sleep apnea is causing these problems.”
Nurse practitioner Mike Ellis explained on the episode that sleep apnea can contribute to serious long-term health problems and recommended that Ness undergo an overnight sleep study.
For Ness, simply going to the appointment marked a major change.
“I should’ve taken care of this a long time ago, but instead I was stubborn and I fought it and it did me no good,” he admitted. “No matter when I was supposed to take care of this, I took care of it now, and now I can only move forward and try to make something of it.”
‘I Don’t Want to Die’
Ness later sat down with his crew and apologized for leaving them in the dark.
“A lot of things progressed this winter to kind of some scary levels that I just can’t ignore things anymore,” he told them.
Ness described himself as “borderline narcoleptic” because of how difficult it had become for him to stay awake and revealed just how seriously he had begun taking the danger at home.
“I’m baby-proofing my own house so I didn’t kill myself,” he said. “It’s gonna change. It has to. I don’t want to die.”
Unfortunately for Ness, his health wasn’t the only problem waiting for him at Duncan Creek.
His crew revealed that a safety inspector had halted mining because of the site’s deep, high-walled cuts. They couldn’t move dirt until an engineer provided a mining plan designed to make the operation safer.
“Oh, f–k,” Ness responded when he heard the news. “That’s bad. That’s really bad.”
But after finally confronting his health problems, Ness appeared determined to confront his mining problems as well.
“We need to figure out how we’re gonna survive,” he told his crew. “We’ve got a lot to do to make this work this year, but I know we can do it. I know I’ve got a lot to fix. I’ve got my health checked out, it’s time to do something about it.”
The health scare comes three years after Ness returned to Gold Rush following an extended absence from mining. In a 2023 interview with Monsters & Critics, Ness opened up about dealing with mental health struggles and grief following the death of his mother, issues that contributed to him stepping away from the show for season 13.
This time, Ness made it clear that he isn’t willing to ignore the warning signs.
“We got a long ways to go, but we are here,” he said. “We’ve got to face it head on.”
Gold Rush airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery.
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