*Spoilers for Survivor season 49*
One of the biggest personalities to emerge on season 49 of Survivor has been 36-year-old Jake Latimer. In the pre-season, Jake made headlines because his wife was due to give birth to their first baby while he was on the island. Jake’s reasoning for playing was that his dad has glaucoma and will be blind by the end of the year, so he wanted to play in the last season that his father will have his eyesight for. Jake got a lot of screentime over the first three episodes. He was in the dominant alliance on Kele, the perpetually losing tribe, and decided to cause playful chaos by moving his tribemates shoes around, dubbing himself the “Shoe Bandit.”
Jake was at the center of Wednesday’s episode, and it wasn’t in a good way. While hanging out at the ocean’s edge, he got bitten by a black and white banded sea krait. A sea krait’s bite can be deadly. Its venom is reportedly 10 times more potent than a rattlesnake’s. In a very dramatic sequence, Jake was immediately taken to production’s base camp where it was ultimately determined that he’d gotten a dry bite (no venom). Out of an abundance of caution, however, he was removed from the game.
On the Oct. 8 episode of “Survivor,” a contestant was bitten by a venomous snake on the beach in Fiji, prompting medical personnel to pull him from the game. A sea krait bit the right foot of Canadian correctional officer Jake Latimer, 36, while he was sitting by the ocean. The show’s medical team evacuated him from the island to a base camp to be examined by a doctor.
Luckily, the reptile did not inject any poison into Latimer’s system, which “Survivor” host Jeff Probst called the worst case scenario. While the Saskatchewan native started to stabilize after receiving fluids, a doctor said it was not safe for him to return to camp and continue the game, in which players compete in physical challenges and vote each other off.
“Jake is obviously emotionally upset, as anybody would be. But (we) felt like we should bring you inside this so you really know what’s happening and can see that we are absolutely focused on taking care of it,” Probst told viewers. “We’ve never had anything like this happen.”
At the start of the immunity challenge, Probst informed every contestant of what happened to Latimer, prompting tears across the Season 49 cast. He also assured everyone that snake bites are not only rare in the game but also in the islands of Fiji.
“For a little perspective with the sea krait, it’s really rare for their bites to have venom; they usually just want you to go away, but it took a physical toll and an emotional toll,” he told the players. “He’s an expectant father. There was a lot going through his head, so there was no way that our medical team could even consider putting him back into the game with no food, no fire, in these conditions.”
There have been at least two other very scary medical evacuations on Survivor (Russell Swan and Caleb Reynolds), but this may have been the scariest one. I cannot believe how casually Jake called out, ”Hey, come see this! A snake just latched onto me!” I would have been losing my mind. The entire sequence was just so intense, especially when the medical team met his boat at the dock, shouting, ”Is he breathing?!” I read a bit about the sea krait after last night’s episode, and holy moly, Jake is so lucky that it was a dry bite. We did get an update during the episode that Jake made it home in time for the birth of his baby boy. So, the Shoe Bandit gets bit in the foot, which sends him home just in time for his kid’s birth, and his dad still gets to see him play on Survivor? That is some Universe sh-t right there.
Oh, and I think it’s messed up that they still made Kele go to tribal council. I know they probably already had the challenge set up, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth. They’ve canceled tribal councils before after medievacs, most recently when Randen was evacuated in season 46. I was pretty bummed to lose Jeremiah and his wicked witch cackle. We were robbed of the opportunity to see him use astrology to analyze the other players at the merge.
Here’s the video sequence of Jake, the snake, and his medevac. They do not show footage of him being bitten, but do show it slithering away.
Oh wow. I do hate when Jeff is butting in the whole time and then makes the guy immediately talk about how he’s feeling at such a vulnerable moment. Just letting it play out, giving him space, and interview later would be so much better. Plus, let the DR care for him without getting in the way!
I know Jeff is also thinking about the show and the story, but he’s the only familiar face in the room with this man. If I weren’t sure whether I was going to live or die, I wouldn’t want to be alone in a room full of strangers. The doctor wouldn’t have allowed him to do anything that interferes with his treatment; she may have even asked for help keeping his head calm and distracted while she and her team focused on the rest of his body.
Motherf*cker. That is the stuff of nightmares. Anyone into snakes knows sea snakes are chill but DEADLY. That was such a close call… oh my god. And to think there was no Safety control on set to at least, you know, brief on the local deadly residents of the island? HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT WAS A DANGER NOODLE. I would sue the bejeesus out of them.
The contestants are given a safety manual that includes info about, e.g., which local plants and sea life are safe to eat and which animals are dangerous. On this episode, after the snake bite, they even showed the actual binder, which had a prominent photo and warning about the sea krait.
Hmmm. Well, I guess that’s… better? Just surprised there’s wasn’t more safety oversight, especially since the snake just seemed to be hanging out on the beach, even after the offending bite.
But I work in a high-risk field, so I’m used to Safety EVERYWHERE.
Even though we don’t enjoy the company of deadly venomous snakes.