Have you ever suspected that contestants on “Survivor,” the ninth edition of which debuts at 7 p.m. Thursday on CBS, have behind-the-scenes help in their efforts to survive?
You’re right. They do.
“I call what I do pre-hospital medicine,” says Dr. Adrian Cohen, a 43-year-old Australian physician who has been on the scene of every edition of “Survivor” since the show debuted in 2000. He got his start in what’s also called “adventure medicine” by volunteering with Sydney’s helicopter rescue team. Soon, he was leading the medical teams that treated the racers on Mark Burnett’s “Eco-Challenge” program, which led to work on the reality kingpin’s signature show, “Survivor.”
Cohen and his “Survivor” team (an additional doctor, three paramedics and three nurses) have no power except what’s supplied by generators, and only the supplies they lug into the field–or jungle, as the case may be.
And as viewers of the show know, it’s not all fun and games for the “Survivor” contestants. Jeff Probst, the host of the show, was bitten by a scorpion when the show was filmed in Africa and was stung in his, er, bathing-suit area by a jellyfish during the first edition of the show in Borneo.
“People watching at home have no idea of the authentic danger that is there,” Probst says. The grossest thing he’s ever seen, he says, is a bug in Thailand that burrowed into the skin of several crew members; soon each injured party had a golf-ball-sized growth, which contained a worm that had to be surgically removed.
There have been more serious incidents too. On the second edition of the show, set in Australia, participant Michael Skupin suffered serious burns when he passed out and fell into a fire. Contestant Paschal English experienced heart difficulties on the set of the fourth edition of the show, which was set in the Marquesas Islands. Contestants with high blood pressure, thyroid conditions and heart conditions also have competed on the show. A contestant with an amputated limb will compete in the upcoming edition, which was filmed on the Pacific island of Vanuatu.
The keys to making sure the contestants go home healthy, Cohen says, is putting each one through intense mental and physical screenings before they leave; those medical reports give treating physicians a baseline from which to work if anything goes wrong.
And if something does go wrong, the “Survivor” medical team has a plan–and on-call helicopters–in place.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
