Sleep deprivation might have caused 24-year-old Ricky Vega to drop out of the Hands on a Hardbody contest Thursday morning and kill himself, local psychologists and doctors said.

"Very rarely would people in this competition go to the extreme this person did," said 20-year psychologist, Dr. Craig Moore. "This is pretty extreme, but sleep loss can cause perceptual distortions. Anything can happen."

Dr. Rekha Reddy at the Good Shepherd Family Health Center said sleep deprivation interferes with cognizant function and impairs a person's judgment.

"It causes an alteration in mental status. They're disoriented and may not know the date or time or what they're doing," Reddy said.

Moore said sleep loss can also trigger pre-existing psychological illnesses, such as bipolar disorder and major depression. It can lead to sudden psychosis, he said. A person suffering from those disorders would have trouble thinking clearly, communicating effectively, understanding reality and behaving rationally.

Sleep expert Stacey Stansbury, with Healthworks Sleep Diagnostics in Longview, last year explained how long periods without sleep would eventually affect some contestants.

"Their eyes will get bloodshot, it will be harder for them to focus, mentally and visually, and it will impair their judgment," she said.

Thursday morning, Stansbury was saddened, but not surprised, by Vega's suicide.

"He might of did it out of desperation," Stansbury said.

"When you're that tired, you'll do anything at that point just to rest," she explained. "It's an instinct anybody has. Your body will trick your mind. It will crave sleep."

After 24 hours of being awake, she said, a person's body already shows signs of mental and physical fatigue. For every eight hours after that, she said, "it is torture on your body and mind."

Vega lasted 48 hours before walking away from the contest, breaking the window of the Kmart across the street, stealing a shotgun and killing himself.

Two-time contestant Kelli Mestas, 33, of Longview agreed that when she lost the contest in 1995, lack of sleep caused her to be "mentally unstable."

In 1995, just like this year, the contest started on a Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. By 1:30 a.m. Friday, Mestas said she was in a daze when she removed her hands from the truck and was disqualified from the contest. She said the loud noise from a judge's horn momentarily woke her from her disillusioned thoughts. Then, reality struck.

"I lost," she said Thursday. "It's a lot to know that you've got through that long and you just lost."

Out of anger for losing, Mestas said she slowly walked around the truck and then suddenly took off running. She said she jumped over the fence separating the McCann Street Grill from the Nissan dealership and ran almost to the Longview Mall, a few miles away. Drivers angrily honked at her.

Mestas laughed, recounting the day "she lost it." Her ex-boyfriend, she said, had to tackle her to the ground at the corner of McCann and H.G. Mosley Parkway.

"You shut down and you have no control," she said. "I was so mad, I just didn't care."

Mestas said her disappointment is what caused her to flee.

"I let them down," she said of her loved ones. "I didn't want to face them."

Even the next morning, at 6 a.m. when she awoke, Mestas said she was still depressed, ignoring phone calls from her family.

"You cannot be weak-minded at all and be in this contest," said 2000 contest winner Warren Hearne, who now lives in Houston. "If you have problems at home or anything, you need to get out of this contest."

He was a contestant for three consecutive years and holds the record of 125 hours, the longest a person has endured the challenge.

In a 1997 documentary film made by S.R. Bindler, contestant Benny Perkins shared his views of the endurance competition.

"It's a contest, they say, of stamina. But it's who can maintain their sanity the longest, and that's what it is. That's what it comes to. Cause when you go insane, you lose," Perkins said.

Mike Maris, a Hands on a Hardbody judge, said after long hours in the contest, "it starts playing on your mind after days of it. After 50 hours, it really becomes a mind game."

He's seen people become confused and not realize where they are. Contestants have told him they start hallucinating, he said.

On a few occasions, he's seen contestants become angry, but that's very rare, said Maris, a Channel 7 advertising representative. He's even seen contestants taunt one another. But he's "never seen anyone get violent," he said.