5 Times ‘Alone’ Cast Members Had to Be Medically Evacuated
Alone is a reality show like no other. The History Channel series challenges contestants to survive completely on their own in the wild with a minimum of resources. Each season, the person who lasts the longest goes home with $500,000. But claiming the half-million-dollar prize isn’t easy.
Hunger, cold, and loneliness lead many Alone cast members to decide to exit the competition, aka tapping out. Others are forced to go home because of illness or injuries. That’s what might happen to Alone Season 10 cast member Wyatt Black. A teaser for the show’s upcoming August 3 episode hints that an infected wound might take out the 50-year-old from Ontario. If the show’s producers determine it’s no longer safe for him to continue, it would be this season’s first medical evacuation. But it wouldn’t be the first for the show overall. In the past, producers have sent contestants home because of gruesome injuries, dangerously low weight, and more.
An ‘Alone’ Season 2 cast member cut herself with an ax
Mary Kate Green was a fitness instructor and mom of two living in Alaska when she competed on Alone Season 2, which took place on Vancouver Island. A week into the competition, she cut a tendon in her arm while attempting to chop firewood. Unable to care for the injury on her own, she called for help, which meant she had to leave the show.
According to Mary Kate, the injury was far worse than it appeared on TV.
“It looked like such a minor injury … It was a little bit more than that,” she said during an appearance on The Alone Podcast.
Mary Kate was taken to a clinic where a doctor manage to treat the injury – without anesthesia.
An ‘Alone’ Season 3 contestant was starving, even though he had food
Alone ventures to South America for its third season. Dave Nessia was one of 10 people fighting to survive in Patagonia. He lasted an impressive 73 days in the wild. But the show’s producers ultimately determined that he couldn’t continue because of his alarmingly low weight.
At the time he was pulled, Dave actually had quite a bit of food stored away, including 42 fish, as well as peanuts, flour, green, and duck fat, and wild mushrooms, he shared on Facebook. But he wasn’t eating enough.
“I was regularly eating these items and storing them for long-term use. I felt great mentally and spiritually and did not realize how far I had deteriorated physically until I looked in the mirror at the hospital,” he shared. “They were right to pull me.”
The ‘Alone’ Season 7 runner-up was pulled because of frostbite
Callie Russell came close to becoming the first-ever woman to win Alone during the show’s seventh season. However, the severe conditions on Canada’s Great Slave Lake eventually did her in. After a stunning 89 days in the wild, she was medically evacuated because of frostbite on her toes. (Roland Welker, who lasted 100 days, ended up winning season 7.)
She admitted it was difficult when she learned she had to go home.
“It was hard to leave when I did because I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, I had fallen in love with that land and that experience,” she shared on Facebook. As for her toes, “they healed up better than expected. They have permanent nerve damage and will always be sensitive to cold and more susceptible to frostbite, especially my big right toe that had it the worst.”
This ‘Alone’ Season 8 cast member lost 86 pounds before he was medically evacuated
Colter Barnes did everything he could to survive on Alone Season 8. That included farming maggots and spending hours hunting and fishing during his 67 days on the shores of Chilko Lake in British Columbia. But in the end, he couldn’t get enough to eat. He went 20 days without food, he said in a post-show interview with The Madras Pioneer.
By day 67, Colter had lost 86 pounds – nearly one-third of his body weight. During a medical check, the show’s producers determined he couldn’t safely continue in the competition, and he was pulled. One he returned home, he regained the weight he lost, and then some. He said he’d happily go on Alone again.
“Mentally and emotionally, I was loving it, loving being out there, hunting, fishing and trapping every day, and I was loving the ride,” he said.
Another season 8 cast member also went home because she’d lost too much weight
Colter wasn’t the only Alone Season 8 contestant sent home because their weight was too low. Two days after his exit, fellow cast member Theresa Emmerich Kamper was medically evacuated because her BMI was too low. The experimental archaeologist had lasted 69 days in the wild just eating wild plants. Like Colter, she had no desire to go home.
“I was enjoying myself,” she said in a post-show interview shared on the History Channel website. “I loved every minute out there.”
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