Former "Baywatch" star Mike Newman is opening up about his 16-year battle with Parkinson's disease.

The 66-year-old retired actor, who played lifeguard Mike 'Newmie' Newman on the hit NBC action series, told People Magazine that he first received his diagnosis in 2006 when family and began noticing changes in his movements and asked him to consult a doctor.

Newman recalled that he was prescribed a medication that treats the symptoms of Parkinson's and was later diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disorder. 

"Everything changes," the former firefighter said. "All those things that you thought you were going to do with your children and grandchildren, pictures we were going to take, all the plans I had… stopped."

Newman appeared on 150 episodes of "Baywatch" from 1989 to 2000 but stepped away from Hollywood after concluding his run on the show.

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"If you didn't have to be there, why would you be?" he joked to People.

However, Newman is set to return to the small screen for the four-part docuseries "Baywatch: The American Dream," in which he will detail his diagnosis and life with Parkinsons.

Newman told People that he was initially reluctant to discuss his disorder in the docuseries since he didn't want to be known as "the guy with Parkinson’s." He said that he decided to share his story after spending time with the series' director Matt Felker, with whom he has developed a close friendship.

"Baywatch: The American Dream," which also features interviews with former cast members Pamela Anderson, David Hasselhoff and Jason Momoa, will take an in-depth look at the long-running TV phenomenon and its lasting cultural impact. 

In his interview with People, Newman recalled how his real-life experience as a lifeguard helped him gradually earn a larger role on the show. He remembered providing advice on water rescue scenes to the show's writers in exchange for more speaking lines and volunteering to perform stunts that others couldn't pull off.

"I was too useful for them to get rid of me," Newman said with a laugh. "I basically started off as a stuntman, and after seven years of being out of the opening credits, I finally was anointed and allowed to be in the front of the show."

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Newman explained that he has remained active and exercises for 45 minutes every day, which he said was the "best treatment" for Parkinson's. He told the outlet that his routine includes swimming, kayaking and running on the beach.

"I’ve been training for this," he said "Somebody that was 65 and not very athletic, if they got the news that they got Parkinson's, it wouldn't turn out as well. I got them all beat, I guess, if we could call it 'beat.'"

However, Newman described Parkinson's as a "sinister" disease, adding that the symptoms "march forward so slowly that you barely notice that they're changing." 

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"It’s a slow burn," he said. "Parkinson's disease doesn't wait for you. It keeps on plowing in."

Newman told People that he agreed to participate in the docuseries with the condition that the production team will work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Cedars-Sinai to raise funds for others struggling with Parkinson's. 

"This may not help me," he said. "But it's going to help someone down the road."

The California native said that he hoped sharing his experience with Parkinson's in the docuseries will comfort and encourage other people who are battling the disease. 

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While Newman said that there are "a lot of things" that he would have done "differently" in his life, he expressed his gratitude for his family, the "good people" that he met during his career and the experiences that he had during his years starring on "Baywatch."

"Where would I be without it?" he said of "Baywatch." "Well, it would've been kind of a boring life, I guess."

Almost 1,000 songbirds died in a single night after smashing into the windows of a glass-fronted exhibition center in Chicago.

"It was just like a carpet of dead birds at the windows there," said David Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Chicago Field Museum.

Willard has been checking the grounds of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center for 40 years, but Thursday's check was "a shocking outlier."

"A normal night would be zero to 15 (dead) birds. It was just kind of a shocking outlier to what we've experienced," Willard said. "In 40 years of keeping track of what's happening at McCormick, we've never seen anything remotely on that scale."

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Experts say a perfect storm of rain, migration conditions and window-lined walls were to blame for the mass feathered fatalities.

"You had all these birds that were just raring to go, but they’ve been held up with this weird September and October with temperatures way above normal," said Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor and avian expert. "You had this huge pack of birds takeoff."

Experts say that hundreds of millions of birds die in window strikes in the United States each year. In 2014, research suggested anywhere between 365 million and 988 million birds die in window strikes every year across the US.

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Unfortunately, birds don't see the clear or reflective glass and dive headfirst into it, killing themselves in the process.

Temple said that small birds wait until darkness to migrate in an effort to mitigate air turbulence and run-ins with predators, adding to the risk factor of running into buildings in cities across America.

Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Audubon Society, said such incidents are "really common".

He explained: "We see this in pretty much every major city during spring and fall migration. This was a very catastrophic single event, but when you add it all, it's always like that."