My 600-Lb. Life Star Pauline Potter Dies at 62 After Car Crash

Pauline Potter, known for appearing on season three of My 600-Lb. Life, has died. She was 62. 

On Nov. 29, the reality star’s son Dillon Brooks shared the news on YouTube, going on to detail the “pretty bad car accident” that contributed to her various health struggles. 

“Unfortunately, my mom passed away this past Thursday, on Thanksgiving,” Brooks began in the video before recounting their January car crash. “We were driving early in the morning, it was still dark outside. We were driving on a dark two-lane highway and there was a truck and trailer that was stopped in the middle of the road and we did not see it because they didn’t have any lights on.”

Alleging that the driver of the truck claimed he had run out of gas at the time, Brooks said that their car hit the corner of the trailer at around 50 miles per hour while he was asleep in the passenger seat. The impact allegedly spun the car around until they were facing the “opposite direction on the opposite side of the road.”

Along with an immediate gash on her left leg and pain to her hand and wrist, Potter later discovered that the incident had also left her with a few broken ribs. She also began to experience “severe chest pain.”

Around five months after the accident, Brooks said his mother began to experience “digestive issues” that prevented her from keeping any food down. And even after going to the hospital two or three times, he said that doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. 

By August, however, another trip to the hospital revealed that Potter had tested positive for COVID-19 and that she also had a “blockage in her esophagus” that was preventing food from passing through.

“I was thinking they were just gonna keep her overnight while they treated her,” Brooks recalled. “But they ended up keeping her longer. So August 20 was the last time she was at home and she has been in the hospital since then.”

After a week or two, Brooks said that doctors attempted to perform a procedure on his mother which landed her in the ICU. They had also discovered a “severe” wound on her back that she allegedly hadn’t told anyone about. 

“Her health was not in a good state for her to keep doing surgeries, they couldn’t do all these tests and surgeries and procedures that they wanted to do because there was always something wrong,” Brooks noted.

Although Potter then spent a few weeks in a rehab facility in an attempt to get her nutrition levels up, she was moved to hospice care at his aunt’s house on Nov. 19. 

“We knew there was a very strong chance she might not make it through this,” Brooks said, adding that she was beginning to show signs of heart failure and respiratory failure. “They didn’t think that she’d survive through any surgeries or make it much longer.”

While on his way to his aunt’s house on Thanksgiving Day, Brooks said he received the news of his mother’s death. He has since created a GoFundMe to raise funds for Potter’s cremation and memorial services.