How was your health before last night’s reward challenge? There were no signs that you were feeling ill before this episode.
I felt good. I felt strong. Back home, I compete in men’s fitness physique, kind of like bodybuilding shows. I diet when I need to diet and I fuel up when I need to fuel up. I was prepping for a show at that moment before I got the call [to play Survivor], which was unexpected. I had about three weeks to prepare. I was at eight percent body fat at that point. But I didn’t want to pass it up. Survivor was all I talked about while I was on Big Brother. I wanted to do Survivor. The opportunity was here, so let’s do this. I had three weeks to prepare. The first few days, I started getting hungry. A guy who eats seven meals a day at home, out there eating maybe 100 calories a day? So the first few were easier. I was just waiting to eat that dang chicken. That was my go to. As far as health and energy, I was full of all of it. I was energized, ready to rock and roll, ready to do whatever my tribe needed me to do, whether that meant climbing up a tree and getting coconuts, or go fishing, or whatever it may be. I was ready to go. I felt good, healthy, energized, and ready to do any challenge they threw my way.
They throw this challenge at you, and all hell breaks loose. Talk me through it from your perspective, as much as you remember.
Jeff had called out before we even started: “This is literally the hottest day in Survivor history. It’s 120 degrees. It’s steaming hot. The sand’s hot. I hope you guys are drinking water.” We were all standing there thinking, “Yep! This is hot!” And the challenge hadn’t even started yet. We knew it was going to suck.
Going into the challenge, I was full force rock and rolling. Going in and under the beams, crawling under the log and the sand. When it got to digging for those sacks of balls in that circle thing there, it just seemed like it was never ending. You gotta think in 120 degree heat, digging in a circumference that big with just four people non-stop, 100 miles an hour, and you’re not finding them… watching the show you can see we were sitting around digging for them at one point. They were laying down digging, kicking the sand. It started to get really difficult. Energy levels are going down. I know they showed 45 minutes as a lapse on there, but we were digging a whole lot longer than 45 minutes.
How long were you digging?
That was just the lapse, which took us to the digging right before I found our last bag, and Nick had found another bag… you’re looking at close to an hour or a little bit more. All of that, just digging and digging and digging and digging, two feet down in this huge circumference… it started wearing all of us down. But the mentality of not quitting, because if you lose you go home, was set in my brain. Your whole tribe can quit and sit in the shade because they need it, but you won’t be the one who does that, no matter the consequences — obviously. That’s what was in my brain. “We just gotta keep going.”
I was having a hard time breathing. My tongue was sticking to my mouth. I’m getting cotton mouth over here. Everything’s going to plan that I figure would be happening. I stopped sweating, which obviously meant I was dehydrated.
We finally found the balls, and started rolling them, and it was tough. It’s not like your average Chuck E. Cheese skeeball game… well, it’s kind of like that, but…
…if you were playing at the Chuck E. Cheese in the middle of Hell.
Yeah, pretty much! But there’s no little Chucky running around, no mouse doing dances trying to make you laugh.
Except for the ones you start hallucinating.
Right. [Laughs] I was like, “Man, there he is! I see Chucky running around my little area!” But I made the first three, then we switched. I needed a break. I was rolling too hard, so they were skipping over the boards. I felt someone else needed to go. So two or three other people went, and Nick was stuck on that one. In my brain, I said, “I can do this.” I had this feeling. I had this Curry feeling that I could swish a three-pointer. So I went back in and ended up making that roll. I fell to my knees, then onto my back, and I was so exhausted, but so happy that it was over. “Thank God. Now we can get water and sit in the shade.”
But when I fell, this exhaustion hit me. I started getting dizzy. My eyes were blurry. I did not feel well. I stood up, walked over to the little bit of shade I’d seen, and when I collapsed, that was it. I just fell. In one of Julia’s interviews, she says that she was standing over me and saw my eyes roll into the back of my head. That was it. I don’t remember much else other than a few heres and theres of Jeff talking to me. The heat exhaustion hit me when I was done. It probably hit me during the challenge, but I had so much adrenaline going that I couldn’t stop. I was going and going until I made that last ball, and when I made it, I relaxed my body, and that’s when it really sunk in.
What’s the next thing you remember?
I remember Jeff. He said, “Can you hear me?” And I heard him, but I didn’t have any energy to do nothing. He could see the fog hitting my oxygen mask, so he knew I was trying to speak, and he kind of moved it. He said, “I can’t hear you, bud. I’m sorry, but I have to take you from this game. Doctor’s saying you’re in bad shape and we gotta get you out of here, so I called you a chopper.” I shook my head no. I couldn’t say “no,” but I heard him say “chopper,” I heard him say “you’re done,” and in my mind, I’m thinking, “No! I want to stay! Don’t take me!”
Then I woke up again in the helicopter. Doctor Joe’s hand was on my chest. I don’t know if he was holding a bag of ice or what he was holding. Maybe a saline bag or something. I’m not sure. I remember reaching for my necklace. It was my girlfriend’s, my fiancé now, and it had her birthstone ring on it. I remember reaching for that to hold it.
I woke up in an ambulance after the helicopter, and I was pretty much awake from that moment on. I was freaking out. I just about started judy-chopping people. I was out. I was unconscious. I woke up and there’s a bunch of Cambodians in masks staring at me. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, they’re about to cut me up!” Coming from that, I had just woken up and now they’re staring at me speaking in this weird language and I’m like, “Okay. What’s going on here?”
But that was an emotional moment, because that’s when I knew I was done. In the helicopter, I really had no clue what I was doing. But in the ambulance, I knew that I wasn’t looking at Jeff. I’m not looking at Doctor Joe. I’m not looking at Tai standing above me trying to kiss me. I’m looking at a bunch of Cambodians, and I’m all alone. I must be done-done, and headed to a hospital somewhere.
What was the recovery process like? Did you stay in Cambodia, or were you flown back to the states?
When I got to the hospital, they said that my muscles were really hurt. My lungs were hurt. My liver was attacked really bad. A part of my heart was attacked. They kept me in ICU for about five days [in Cambodia] until my vitals and testing … they checked me every day to see the numbers and how good I was doing in 24 hour periods. They would test me, then come back in 24 hours and test me, and so on. On the fifth day, the doctor was like, “Man, I just feel like I need to hold you another day.” I guess my muscles… I was so dry that I had no fluid in my body. They started sucking water from my muscles, so it was shrinking and tearing my muscles down to pull water from them. Those numbers from that testing, I don’t know what it’s called, were horrible. He said, “I’ve never seen this in my life. I’m going to be honest with you. If you didn’t have the muscle you have on your body, you would be dead. Your muscles were holding enough water to get you by, so it’s good that you’re fit and in shape and healthy. Thank god you had that significant amount of muscle or you would’ve been gone.”
So they let me out on the middle of the sixth day. It turns out a family emergency had happened pretty much at the same time in this process. I spoke to my mom at the hospital — I called to tell her what had happened and that I was okay — and she told me that an unexpected death happened in the family. It sucked. That, on top of what had happened to me… when I got back to Ponderosa, they just felt it was best if I went home. Even at Ponderosa, it was 100 degree heat, and this had just happened from the heat stroke, and there’s no way to get around it, even in the shade. There was no air-conditioning… so they ended up just sending me home due to everything.
And despite all this, everything you endured, you still want to go back?
Yeah, you know? It’s just the heart that I have. It was unexpected. In my mind, I’m a lion. I can’t allow something like that to stop me from doing what I enjoy. I honestly think I had a really good chance of making it far in that game, if not winning the game. I was in a good spot when I was there. I planned on being in a good spot all the way up to the end and just win every immunity challenge they threw at me. So it was unexpected, I wasn’t happy about it, and if they give me a chance to come back for a second chance or an all-stars [season], or whatever it may be, my bags will be packed as soon as they call me. I’ll go back out there, give it my all, and make my family and all my fans happy, and show them that I don’t quit. I won’t let it stop me from going again. I just can’t. It’s not the type of heart that I have.
