Survivor since 2000: Reliving the game’s greatest moments year by year

Survivor 2016: Caleb Reynolds almost dies

We previously showed the first example of a player going home, but the harshest example of why Survivor will likely never make its way back to Cambodia is because of the brutal weather in Kaoh Rong. The heat is immense, enough to take three players out at one challenge.

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One player found their bearings quickly, another was down in the dirt for a while but ultimately stayed in the game. Caleb Reynolds fought hard, digging up sand for a bag of balls for close to an hour, draining all of his energy and running up a temperature of 107. He fell, losing all functionality in his body and coming extremely close to death.

That’s not an exaggeration. In interviews that were posted once his medevac episode aired, he revealed that doctors had to scrape parts of his muscle to squeeze water from them. Had he not had the muscle mass necessary to rejuvenate him, he would have legitimately died.

His courage and conviction is nothing short of remarkable.