By Desiree Salas (media@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Jul 09, 2014 03:16 AM EDT

On the Fourth of July, professional competitive eater Joey "Jaws" Chestnut successfully defended his title for the 8th time in a row when he won the annual Nathan's Famous Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, New York last week, Time reported. He managed to down 61 hot dogs, which was actually 8 less than what he consumed in last year's competition.

However, in another Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, this time in western South Dakota, a man was not as lucky as Chestnut. Not only did he lose the competition, he also lost his own life in the process.

"Walter Eagle Tail, 47, of Custer, died at a hospital Thursday after attempts to save him at the scene failed," ABC News reported. "The Custer Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the contest, canceled a pie-eating contest scheduled for Friday."

"There was someone doing CPR when we arrived," Custer County Sheriff Rick Wheeler told Rapid City Journal. "Basically, he probably just suffocated. It got lodged in his throat and they couldn't get it out."

"It all happened within minutes. I think everybody was pretty well shocked about it," Wheeler added.

Meanwhile, Dave Ressler, Custer Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, said that this is the first time that someone got hurt in the event in the few years that the local competition was organized.

"We are at a loss for words. We are mourning for Walter and his family right now," Ressler said.

George Shea, who heads Major League Eating, a global competitive eating organization that supervises all professional eating contests, said that his team gives safety a very high priority to prevent casualties during such events. MLE was not involved in the South Dakota competition.

"We discourage anyone doing contests without emergency medical technicians. We keep the duration of the contest short. It's in the sweet spot so they're not stuffing their faces too much but not going too long," he told Time.

"Deaths during competitive eating contests have happened in the past," Radio City Journal observed. "A Romanian man choked to death during a sausage-eating contest in 2013 in that country, and in 2012, a Florida man choked to death after eating dozens of live cockroaches during a contest."

Currently, funeral arrangements are still pending for Eagle Tail, a man described by friends as "a fun-loving, kind and caring man."

"Walter was just being Walter, having fun when he entered this contest. He was just having a good time," a local, Ardis McRae, commented.

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