Survivor, health or game?
Louisa McClintock‘s family didn’t know where she was, until television producers called the teenager’s family to tell them she was sick in the Nicaraguan jungle.
McClintock liked to think she was in with a chance on Survivor, but the Cheviot teen had to make a choice between her health and a game. She chose her health.
The 19-year-old fell ill with a debilitating infection that left her unable to eat or walk. She started slipping in and out of consciousness only to wake up to dry-retch into the sand, her tribe mates said.
McClintock was taken to a local hospital overnight, where she received treatment before being flown back home. The teenage farmer, who lives with her grandfather and colleague Joe, hadn’t even told her family she was off to compete on Survivor. It came as a surprise when television producers called to tell her family that their daughter had been hospitalised in Central America.
The last time her tribe and viewers of the show saw McClintock, she was being loaded into the back of a van. Survivor New Zealand‘ s medical officer, Robert Gibson, had made the call to evacuate her for diagnosis and monitoring in hospital.
McClintock wouldn’t say what exactly had hit her, but said a ‘‘bacterial infection’’ made her leave the show.
‘‘I wasn’t in any state to be going back on the show, I was severely sick, my body wasn’t happy or cooperating with myself. If I went back on the show, I would have been pulled off the next day,’’ she said.
McClintock thanked her tribe and the Survivor medical team and series producer Tim Lawry for looking after her.