Pat Cusack had to exit the 37th season of Survivor US in the first episode after a freak accident. Photo / screenshot
Pat Cusack had to exit the 37th season of Survivor US in the first episode after a freak accident. Photo / screenshot
WARNING: Disturbing footage.
A contestant on the current season of US Survivor has exited the show in the most dramatic circumstances, airlifted to hospital after a terrifying freak accident in the very first episode.
The 37th season of US Survivor debuted in the US and Australia yesterday, pitting two tribes against each other — the underdog "Davids" and high-achieving "Goliaths".
By episode's end, one contestant from the David team, 40-year-old property manager Pat Cusack, would be stretchered out via helicopter, his teammates left sobbing at the distressing medical emergency that had unfolded before them.
Pat is helped by the show's medical team. Photo / screenshot
Oddly, Cusack's accident was not caught on camera. It happened after the teams had completed a challenge at sea, and hopped into small speedboats for a routine boat ride back to camp.
It's the sort of short boat journey contestants on the show have completed hundreds of times before, without incident.
But as Survivor returned from a mid-episode commercial break last night — camera crews waiting on the beach as the contestants' boat arrived — it was clear something had gone horribly wrong.
Cusack was carried onto the beach via stretcher, convulsing and barely conscious.
He had suffered a back injury, the result of a hard landing as the boat went over the crest of a wave.
What followed was perhaps one of the most intense medical emergencies in Survivor history, as Cusack railed what was clear to all: He needed to be disqualified from the competition immediately to seek medical treatment.
"It can't end this way," he moaned. "I can't go out this way!"
Survivor host Jeff Probst rushed to the scene, as the show's doctors confirmed they had "no choice" but to rush Cusack to hospital.
Contestants were visibly upset at the accident. Photo / screenshot
"I have no recollection from the time the accident happened until I woke up on the helicopter at the hospital," Cusack told ET this week, after having watched the episode.
"I knew it was scary, but I didn't know how scary it was. And to just see how it was, with the convulsing and my eyes rolling back, and snot coming out of my nose, it was definitely very, very emotional to see."
Cusack suffered no permanent damage from the accident, which had compressed his spine and "deteriorated the bursa sac between my second and third vertebrae," he revealed.
