DoctorOz: Dog the Bounty Hunter's Health Crisis and Dr. Oz's Dire Warning

Dog the Bounty Hunter was supposed to sit down with me days ago to update us on his goal of beginning 2021 completely smoke-free. Ever since he ended up in the hospital shortly after the death of his wife Beth, he and I have been focused on saving his life before it's too late. So when we got the word that Dog had to postpone the interview because he couldn't get out of bed and that he feared he may have COVID, I became very concerned as both a doctor and a friend. Thankfully, Dog is feeling well enough to update us today on his COVID fears and his battle with cigarettes, which I pray he's still taking seriously because with the pandemic still raging, his deadly habit is putting him more at risk than ever before. Dog the Bounty Hunter has been in nicotine's deadly grip since he was 12 years old. When he experienced a heart emergency in 2019, I rushed to Colorado to offer my support. Hi sir, how are you? Good. I was worried about you. Going through his medical records and examining the Bounty Hunter, I was alarmed. 148 over 97. Is that good? No, you know that's not good. No, I don't know. I'm looking at you and telling you he's a friend. You're a ticking time bomb. Dog confessed that he hadn't fulfilled a promise he'd made to his beloved wife Beth to quit smoking. I lied and said yes. Why'd you lie to her? Well, I thought I could and I lasted about two hours before I needed a cigarette. I sent Dog for further testing and his lung scan brought bad news, so I asked him to come into the studio to discuss it. That's a piece of blood clot that is actually inside the arteries of your lungs. That's called a pulmonary embolism. Thankfully, Dog's fiancee Francie proved to be a powerful new ally for me over the past year. Out of the house with a cigarette and put it out. Give it to me. My tactic is love and encouragement and I need him around for the next 20 years at least and so I just keep telling him that and encouraging him and loving him out of cigarettes. Still, Dog hadn't been able to reach his goal of a smoke-free life, but he made an important promise when we last spoke. I heard you tell Francie that January 1st, 2001, 1-1-21 was your smoking quit date. Are you still on track for that date? Yes, sir. Now, I probably will use a, not that I'm confessing failure, but I'll probably use the patches for a while, but as far as inhaling the smoke and all that, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop. Dog the Bounty Hunter joins us now. Dog, you were supposed to sit down with us a couple days ago. You got seriously ill. You worried me a lot. What was going on? You think you had COVID? Well, I had, I didn't have COVID, but I sure felt like it because I had this, I couldn't get out of bed. I think anybody right now in America that gets a bad cold or a little bit of a flu, ah, the COVID alarm goes off in your mind, fear, oh no, you know, I'm over 60, am I gonna make it? So, yeah, I thought, here we go, COVID versus a dog, here we go, but I didn't have it, so thank the Lord. Let me ask as a doctor, have you been tested for COVID-19 since feeling ill? Well, no, this is the second day I felt good, but at the time it hit me, I couldn't go. I thought I was, you know, almost dying. I was like, was saying my last prayers. Dog, let me take a step back here because this is sort of the bigger story of our relationship. I've been talking to Katrina, your nurse practitioner, the entire time, just, you know, peeking behind the curtain to see what you're up to, and when she didn't know you were sick, then I got concerned because that means you're so sick that you're scared to be seen by one of us because when patients get ill, they'll often run from knowledge because they don't want to face what they're up to, and our only chance to have helped you if you truly were in the death throes of COVID was to do it immediately. Whether you have it now or not was a separate issue, and I'm going to come to that, but I really think it's a problem when you run away from the information and from the people who want to help you. I'd rather call you Dr. Oz with good news than bad. Yeah, but my job, my calling is to help people when they need help, not to celebrate the next party we're going to. I mean, the reason I'm concerned is if you really had COVID, and you might actually have had it, and that's why I think it's really important to get tested, but if you really had COVID, you could be in an ICU with a breathing tube and irreversibly ill by now. Is that a message you're hearing? Yes, I understand that. Yes, absolutely. Did your illness change your thoughts about the vaccine? Because I know you had some trepidation. Well, yes, and you know, my age, I'm getting up there, and so I've lived through the days of polio where we were in the second or third grade, and they brought us a little sugar cube, and you know, my mother, being Native American, was a little skeptical, but I took it, but I remember some of the kids would not get in line for it because their parents said, you know, it'll give you this, the government will be able to track you, it'll give you this and give you that, and it is exactly the same thing that they said, you know, back in, pardon my going back, but in the 50s, where, oh my god, the government, it's a conspiracy, and don't take it. So, I have taken the flu shot for probably 10, 11, or 12 years because I do not like to get sick, and I've never had the flu since I started taking it, so I'm not afraid to take it. I know you've taken it. Anything you do, doc, I'll get behind you, but you know, I know that a lot of people, hi, mucka mucka, big shots, like you have taken it, and you wouldn't take it if you didn't feel it would help. So, as I was getting sick, or while I was sick, of course, it hasn't been available here in Colorado to people like me. I was thinking, oh my gosh, I wish I would have gotten this. So, there's an old saying about Christianity, where people say, well, I don't believe in hell, and the Christians say, well, after you're there five minutes, you will. So, the people that say they don't believe in that, in the antidote of COVID, well, after you have it, in five minutes, you're going to wish you would have got it. So, I'm all for taking the shot to avoid catching COVID. Good. Thank you for making that clear, both to me, but all of America, because people follow you, dog. They trust your common sense judgment. You do your homework, and you're brave enough to admit what you really feel. All right. Now, let me shift to smoking, which is the reason I initially was going to have you on. So, in a perfect world, you'd be smoke-free for about a month, right? So, when was your last cigarette? Well, I am smoking the first time in my whole life, about five to six a day, and there are, I'm studying this, okay? There are certain things that set me off to smoke, for instance, after I eat or in the morning when I drink coffee. So, I'm at that point now, but I have never, dog, since I was 12, had only four or five cigarettes a day. So, I'm almost completely there, and believe this or not, and I love you, but it's not why I'm saying it. I don't want to disappoint you, and I don't want to disappoint my fancy. So, right there, that right there will overcome anything. So, I'm using all those antidotes to be able to say, yeah, I'm smoke-free. I quit smoking. So, your description of triggers is exactly what hurts most people. So, let me share something with the entire audience. A lot of people don't realize this, but this is how powerful you are in the face of addiction. Before Dog was a household name, he was battling a crippling crack addiction. I mean, this is a big problem. Crack is not easy to get off of. Now, Dog sometimes even visits rehab centers to help others suffering from addiction. So, Dog, what were your lowest moments when you were deep in the throes of your struggles with crack cocaine? Well, you know, let me give you an excuse first. My mother passed away in 1994, and we were best friends. It was unexpected. They called me, and she won't wake up. So, I was dating a girl that said, this is called freebasing, and it will help you, you know, get over your mother. And I had no idea, lived in Hawaii, what crack was. Dr. Oz, I woke up a year later. I missed the Super Bowl. I missed my birthday. I was like, oh my gosh. And then Beth, you know, was my girlfriend then, and I showed it to her, and she goes, you idiot, this is crack. And I said, no, it's freebasing. She goes, no, what are you, and she called the cops on me. And, you know, I threw it all away, and that, I was like, smoking crack is easier to quit than cigarettes. Is that right? Because I never thought cigarettes were more difficult than crack cocaine. So, coming up, I've got more to discuss with you. Oh, yes. I've got a little help from Dog's fiancée, Francie, and I have something very important to show you. Are you ready for this? Yes, sir. All right. It could be the life-saving surprise Dog needs. Stick around. I am back with my good friend, Dog the Bounty Hunter. He's at a crucial crossroads after stumbling at his attempts to live 2021 completely smoke-free. It's an especially critical time for him to quit cigarettes because he just turned 68, and he's in the midst of another health scare. So, his fiancée, Francie, and I teamed up behind his back, which I love doing, and we called in the big guns. Now, this is important, because this is how I actually think people get past addictions. We call in the people who love the person who's struggling. Dog's kids and grandkids are with us. They have a very important birthday message for him. Happy birthday, Dad. I just wanted to wish you happy birthday from Hawaii. Happy birthday, Grandpa. Love you. Hey, Dad. Happy birthday. Hi, Grandpa. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Dad. I just wanted to remind you how incredibly proud I am for you almost stopping smoking. I want to remind you to keep it up. I'm extremely proud of you. You've come so far, and I'm so happy that you're doing so well. Don't quit, because we need you around for a long time. No pressure, but you are the only parent we have left, and I would like to keep you here with us for many more years. I love and miss you so much, and I can't wait to see you. So, Dog, when you're lying in the bed thinking about COVID, how much did you worry about that beautiful family you just saw? Oh, Dr. Oz. When's your birthday, brother? Thank you so much, Dog. Thank you so much. There they are. Do you worry about them? Do you worry that you won't be there for them because of the smoking or the catching COVID or the combination? Well, you know, since Beth passed, yes. I know, like Bonnie said, you're our only parent left, Dad. So, I do right now. I never thought of this, Dog. You just gave me a new reason. We talked about those triggers you mentioned earlier. It has been the only real effective way. No, I'm serious. No wonder you're a doctor. It's what's worked every time. I always bring the loved ones into the office of the person who's smoking. You know, I don't operate on smokers, and I don't operate on them because I love them. I care about them. I know it's my one chance to get them to stop, but I always bring someone who cares for them into the office, and I say, sir, that person, that woman next to you, she loves you dearly. All I want you to do is love yourself as much as she loves you, and you'll realize you don't want to put that in your mouth, whatever it is. It could be food, too. It could be, you know, crack cocaine, but in your case, it's smoking. Right. Okay, here's why smoking and COVID together really worries me a ton. All right. Now, I got some images here. These are pictures of lungs from a smoker and from someone who's got COVID-19. All right. Now, I just want to point out a couple of things. Look at the smoker's lung. There's these areas over here that's really dark. That's what emphysema looks like, those little patches, but the lung itself is sort of scarred in. It's got these little white things that aren't supposed to be there. That's a smoker's lung. We don't want to see that, right? But look at this COVID lung. It's a lot worse. You've got scarring all over the place. You've got pockets of air and fluid because there's so much edema and swelling in this person's lung. So, this COVID-19 lung looks a lot worse than this smoker's lung. That's just a direct comparison, but actually, there's something more important I want to show you, and this is going to blow your mind. There's new research that shows that smokers are twice as likely to end up hospitalized for COVID-19 as those that don't smoke. So, this smoke comes into your lungs. Let's look at what happens more carefully. When you inhale that smoke, the lungs get irritated, and they unleash the immune system to fight back. They're trying to defend themselves as the smoke goes in and attacks them. So, what happens? Coronavirus infections on top of that can surprise you. The virus can attack more readily because your immune response is already all over the darn place trying to defend you against the cigarette smokes. Now, here's the part that really got me. At UCLA, research has found that the airway tissue of a person who's a smoker versus a nonsmoker are very different in how they react to COVID. In fact, in nonsmokers, these little green areas, that's infected cells. When you have cigarettes in the lungs, like this sample, and you have a COVID infection, there's a lot more green. The green reflects the infection from COVID. Look at this. Nonsmokers' lungs, if you put COVID in there, they get a little infection. In a person who's a smoker, a ton of infection. So, the same virus, the same amount, the same burden of illness causes a much bigger problem if you're smoking, which is what I want to focus you on. Do you know that according to the CDC, eight out of 10 COVID deaths have been in people over the age of 65, and cigarettes are a huge risk factor for it? It's crazy, isn't it? Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. Amazing. So, between your smoking and your age-related risk factors, there's stuff to be concerned about. There's actually quite a bit to be concerned about, but here's the great news. I checked in with nurse Katrina, your nurse practitioner, and she's a pistol, as you know. We've been working together, and she says that before you got sick, she says your blood pressure is much, much better. In fact, it's good. It was not good when I first met you. Your blood tests have normalized. God bless you. That means you've shaped up your diet. You're doing the right things in that regard, and she thinks you're happier than you have been in a long time, which means your emotions are going to be working for you rather than against you. It means you're in the perfect place to kick this deadly habit to the curb for good. Do you feel that way? I do now. Yes, sir. Well, I want you to keep fighting, and you are the exact kind of person who can make it happen and can be a role model for all of America. Yes, sir. That's what I stand for, Doc. Thank you very much. You make me cry every time. I'm a crybaby anyway, but thank you, bro. Like I said, no wonder they call you Doctor. Well, everyone cares a lot about you. You're about as upfront as it comes, and I'm seeing what you're going through, and I know it's difficult. So here's the deal for today. I want you to go get tested. I mean, right now. Seriously, the clinic is 12 minutes away. I MapQuested it. If you have not tested positive, then you're going to be able to get a vaccine very soon. I want to actually, if you don't mind, I like watching you in pain. Share the picture or the video of you getting the vaccine, so I know you're getting protected. And then on top of that, because of the risk that cigarette smoke is causing to you right now, at least for the next month or two, do your best to get off it. If you fail and you go down the road smoke again, but at least for these few months where this nation is being battered by COVID, you should stay safe as a role model. Deal? Yes, sir. And yes, sir, Doc, and I will not fail. I may backslide, but I am not going to fail. I am not going to fail. Again, I may trip, but I'm not falling, Doc. Doc, not only do I believe you, but I think you're worth it. Thank you, Dr. Oz. Thank you, brother.