‘Ultimate Survival Alaska’ personality found dead in Alaska
May 5, 2015, 12:54 PM
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — An outdoorsman and past character on National Geographic’s reality show “Ultimate Survival Alaska” has been found shot dead, and Alaska State Troopers were investigating the case as a homicide.
Officers responded to 69-year-old Jimmy Gojdics’ (GAY’-dohs) residence in Fox Sunday to find the victim with gunshot wounds, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported (http://bit.ly/1zKf9L8 ). Gojdics was transported to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Gojdics sometimes spelled his last name Gaydos, the way it’s pronounced and the name he was known as in Ultimate Survival. National Geographic Channel’s website says he had worked as a fisherman, horse wrangler, blacksmith, forest service firefighter, river guide and wilderness guide.
He appeared last year on the second season of the reality show, but “sustained an injury that made it impossible for his team to continue in the competition,” spokesman Chad Sandhas said in an email to The Associated Press Tuesday.
“We were saddened to learn of Mr. Gaydos’s untimely passing and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this difficult time,” Sandhas wrote.
Gojdics was originally from upstate New York, and had many friends in the Fairbanks area, according to one of the friends, Janine Carlson, who knew him for 12 years.
Carlson said Gojdics loved to travel, and spent winters in South America as much as he could.
“Everyone was his friend and he met someone everywhere,” she said.
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
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