Passmore grew up on a farm in Grand Forks, British Columbia, and drank the water from a nearby creek. But what he didn't know was the water supply flowed through an abandoned mine site and as he refreshed himself with glass after glass of water, he was slowly poisoning himself. He was later diagnosed with a rare condition called environmental heavy metal poisoning.
"My body was chock full of heavy metals - copper, arsenic, manganese - and the readings were practically off the charts when (doctors) tested me," says Passmore. "I remember looking at the doctor and saying 'heavy metal what? I've go too much what in my system.' "
Passmore is a graduate of the Western Hockey League's Kamloops Blazers and was a late draft pick by the Quebec Nordiques in 1992. The Nordiques sent him to the Edmonton Oilers in 1994 and Passmore ended up in the minors, playing for the Cape Breton Oilers in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
By this time, the poison was slowly taking its toll on Passmore's body. He didn't know it at the time but he had no lithium or calcium in his system, which led to very severe muscle cramping. After games, Passmore's hand was so cramped it was locked in the position of being curled around the stick, forcing Passmore to use the crossbar to bend it flat.
"There were a few games when I was carried off the ice because I physically could not move. It was a pretty scary time in my life and the biggest scare was we did not know what was causing it," he says. "It is one thing to get diagnosed with something and move on. But when you are not really diagnosed with something . . . that was part of the toughest part, not knowing."
Passmore spent two years being a guinea pig, going from hospital to hospital trying to figure out what was wrong. Nobody could give me an answer. At one point, he even tried epileptic drugs and he ended up at the Mayo Clinic, which is one of the top medical facilities in the world.
But as much as Passmore was poked and prodded with needles, he remained a medical mystery.
His troubles soon became more complicated.
Just as the hockey life he'd worked for was being stolen away, his father died and his longtime girlfriend dumped him. Passmore was depressed and thought about taking his life. But he was brought back from the brink of suicide by the efforts of his sister Shane and mother Paula.
"There were times there when I was ready to throw in the towel, especially right at the end," he says.
Passmore quit hockey and moved to Calgary for three months. With little money, he worked two jobs and also drew on what little financial support his family could provide to pay bills.
He kept seeking medical help and a Calgary doctor suggested a treatment called chelation, wherein an IV push injects chemicals into the body. Essentially what doctors were doing was injecting millions of magnets into his body and sucking the heavy metals out of the cells.
Three months later, Passmore was told the poison had been flushed from his system and he could resume a normal life.