Randen Montalvo shares health update after leaving Survivor season 46

Randen Montalvo shared an update regarding his health after being medically evacuated in the third episode of Survivor season 46, "Wackadoodles Win." He was the third castaway to leave the new season.

Part of the Nami tribe, Randen lost feeling down his arm and leg before the third immunity challenge. After being evaluated by the show's doctor, Dr. Will, Randen was allowed to continue in the game as they monitored his symptoms. Randen sat out the following immunity channel, which is tribe won for the third time in three challenges. When they got back to the beach, Jeff Probst and Dr. Will arrived to pull Randen from the game. There was concern that Randen had suffered a bulging disc in his back or neck that was cutting off his nerve and potentially something worse. He was scheduled for an MRI the following morning.

That's where the episode ended! After getting voted out, Randen caught up with EW's Dalton Ross and shared what happened immediately after getting pulled from the show. He revealed he went straight into an MRI the following morning where doctors found two areas of swelling.

Here's what he told EW:

"I had a very long MRI. It felt like hours and they kept on doing scans and I'm in a room with a bunch of neurologists on camera and it was scary as hell because you see my neck in 3D and you see everything and they're looking at a swelling pressing against a disc. And then I had another issue underneath my arm where it was it like a compression and all of it was leading up to temporary paralysis."

Luckily, the swelling wasn't bad enough to fly him to Australia for immediate care. They were able to get the swelling under control and avoid surgery.

"They looked at it and they immediately put me on anti-inflammatories and I went into therapy for my arm. And I would say within a couple of days the swelling started to go down and they started monitoring it. "

It's such a bummer that this happened to Randen. It looked like he had one of the fast tracks, barring any major twists, to a spot through the merge. There's no doubt he was going to turn that advantage into an idol when Nami eventually lost an immunity challenge. The other thing is, I don't know if they would lose a challenge. Hunter is clearly the biggest phsyical threat on the beach. He's one of the smartest players in the game, but he also has a lot of athletic ability that, simply, the others do not have.

With Randen and Hunter healthy, Nami had an advantage over the other two tribes. We saw, without Randen, how quickly they fell behind in the immunity challenge that combined a lot of strength, agility, and swimming before a final part of the game that required a lot of finesse. Hunter saved the day for Nami, but it was clear without Randen that they didn't have the physical advantage that they did in the first three challenges.

Overall, it's always sad to see a castaway have to leave the beach because of a medical emergency. We just hope Randen is doing well, is healthy, and gets another chance at Survivor in the future if he's interested!

Survivor season 46 airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS! You can also watch new episodes on Paramount+. Stay tuned for more news about the new season of the hit series.