David "Davey" McLaughlin, an expert woodsman who appeared on Discovery Channel's American Loggers reality series, died late Friday due to apparent complications from diabetes. He was 45.

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"He could not control his diabetes. He was having problems," McLaughlin's employer Gerald Pelletier -- whose family's Gerald Pelletier Inc. logging company is featured on American Loggers -- told Maine's Bangor Daily News on Monday.

"We had to release him [from work] from time to time so that he could get his health on track. It used to really concern me when we were out in the woods working."

While a spokeswoman at Maine's medical examiner's officer said McLaughlin's body had not been autopsied, his sister Charity Rudge told the Daily News the family assumes he died due to complications from a severe diabetic condition he had since he was 14.

She added a coroner's report wasn't due until Tuesday but that new insulin seemed to cause McLaughlin's blood-sugar levels to drop suddenly.

"Davey had switched his insulin recently and he wasn't very comfortable with it," Rudge told the Daily News.

Despite suffering from diabetes from an early age, Rudge said her brother never let the condition keep his spirits down.

"He was very special. He could win people over within a minute of meeting them," Rudge told the Daily News. "He loved to laugh and he loved to talk, talk and talk. He would get you on the phone and say goodbye a dozen times and then the conversation would still continue."

McLaughlin is survived by two sons -- 18-year-old Ryan McLaughlin and 23-year-old Adam McLaughlin -- and longtime girlfriend Laurie Carey.

"He is probably one of the best dads," Adam told the Daily News. "He would do anything for anybody. He had a big heart."

Funeral arrangements have yet to be made.

American Loggers, which follows the Pelletier family's Maine business as it supplies paper mills by traveling the treacherous "Golden Road," premiered on Discovery in February 2009. Its second season subsequently aired last summer.

"He liked it whenever we had to go on appearances and meet people," Pelletier told the Daily News about McLaughling.

"He was actually the star of the show. Everywhere we went, people wanted to know how he was doing."

Pelletier added that McLaughlin had recently been temporarily laid off due to Maine's mud season but would have been called back to work in a few weeks, the Daily News reported.
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