When the Survivor The medical team calls for an evacuation, this is never taken lightly and in season 49 this call came after contestant Jake Latimer was bitten by a venomous snake, a sea krait. The incident forced the medical team to remove the “Shoe Bandit” from the match, marking the 20th medical evacuation in the 25-year history of the CBS reality show and a stark reminder of how real the danger can be in Fiji. In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Survivor Showrunner and host Jeff Probst goes behind the scenes of the emergency that unfolded in the October 8 episode.
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What is the protocol in the event of an animal bite? Should the player call for help or is someone from the medical department immediately called?
The level of involvement of our medical team always depends on the severity of the injury. If it’s a small reduction, their involvement is minimal to non-existent. But when something more serious, like a snake bite, occurs, our medical team responds immediately. The player has no say. Our biggest concern during production is the integrity of the game and the safety of the players. In this case, the call to the doctor was immediate and the response was just as quick.
Hearing the medical team ask as Jake approaches the boat dock, “Is he breathing?” It was a bit terrifying. What did you think when you arrived because most of the time we see the medical team at the beach and not at the base camp?
The reason there was some uncertainty as to whether or not Jake was breathing was that while Jake was being transported by boat to base camp, we lost communication with them. So when they arrived, we didn’t know what condition he was in. When I arrived at our medical center, it was very clear that this was as serious as we feared and that Jake was receiving the best care he could hope for, for someone bitten by a snake in the middle of the ocean. He had our full team of doctors, nurses and paramedics.
Jake Latimer (center) here with competitors Matt Williams and Jawan Pitts on Survivor.
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Have you considered skipping the immunity challenge? If the Hina or Uli tribe had said they didn’t want to take on the challenge, would it have been ignored?
We never considered not taking on the challenge. The game is progressing. Always. But it’s a really interesting question when you put it in the players’ hands. I don’t know how we would have handled your imaginary scenario. It’s very unlikely that we would have done anything differently, but every situation is specific and I certainly would have listened to their ideas and gone from there.
This is the 20th time a player has been medically evacuated from the game. What makes this one different and what do you think these evacuations say about the difficulty Survivor East?
Well, one way to look at it is that this is our 20th evacuation. The other way to look at it is the 751 people who played Survivor in 25 years, only 20 have been evacuated. That’s just over two percent. What any vent says about this game is that it’s real. People still ask me all the time if Survivor is real. I don’t know if it’s because other unscripted shows don’t seem real and so people assume Survivor it’s not, or it seems so unlikely that this kind of adventure show could actually exist. But for anyone still wondering, it was a real sea krait, it was a real bite and it was a very terrifying situation.
Tell us about the camp safety guide that Alex mentioned. I don’t think most viewers know anything about it or even that it exists.
We always give tribes a safety booklet that highlights things like which types of nuts or berries are safe to eat and which are not. It also includes things like snakes to watch out for and other helpful ways to help them navigate the jungle. What interests me most is how few players refer to it. It’s similar to the number of people who come to play Survivor without ever having picked up a flint. What it always reminds me of is that Survivor is ultimately a social game. If your social game is great, you never need to win an individual challenge, make a fire, find an idol, or read the safety guide.
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New episodes of Survivor Season 49 airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.
