S32.E04: Signed, Sealed, And Delivered

[Special K]

Caleb's body fat percent didn't look a lot lower than many contestants who went all 39 days.  Jeremy last season springs to mind.  I think Jeremy is probably smarter about how to not get dehydrated and how far to push yourself (especially for a reward).  Spencer isn't muscular but he also must have a very low BF%. 

 

And I'm sure a number of the women in the past have dipped below the "essential body fat" range in the course of the season  -- Courtney Yates comes to mind, but there have definitely been others.   Didn't Elisabeth Hasselback lose so much weight that her hair was falling out?

[stillhere1900]

Wouldn't the "Good Samaritan " law apply ?  Is that just in the US ?

 

Bump:  Does anyone know this law ?

[Big Mother]

If courtney and elisabeth would push themselves the way caleb did, they wouldn't make it. Look how Cydney the body builder went down. Look how Debbie who was skin and bones went down.

[peachmangosteen]

Bump:  Does anyone know this law ?

 

"Good Samaritan laws offer legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are, or who they believe to be, injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated."

 

[stillhere1900]

So Peter would have been okay to give aid

[Rick Kitchen]

Good Samaritan laws only apply to certain states.  It certainly wouldn't apply to a foreign country.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Rick Kitchen

[fishcakes]

Even if Peter were protected under a Good Samaritan law, Burnett's production company and CBS certainly wouldn't be protected if they allowed Peter to provide any type of medical care and someone were more badly injured or died as a result. Considering that Peter was one of 12 people to participate in a challenge where three people went down with heatstroke, it would be incredibly irresponsible for anyone to assume he was competent to provide care at that particular time. My guess is that all the contestants were checked out by the medical team after the challenge and we just didn't see it.

[violet and green]

Yes, but it's not against the terms of the show to give a shit.

[Nashville]

I suspect that the test runs of the challenges are primarily done for feasibility purposes (i.e. is it even possible to balance/stack/hit etc.), rather than safety.  

 

I think most safety issues are a product of the intensity at which the players perform.  And even Burnett & Co. should realize that people who are allowed to test-run the challenges for fun (or even for a guaranteed paycheck) are not going to approach the intensity of contestants playing for a shot at $1 Million.  Especially given the character-pathologies that the show tends to cast.

 

Given that most of the elements of this challenge had been done on previous seasons, I wonder how much of a test-run this challenge actually got.

 

Valid points, all - especially the intensity part.  Unless beer were involved.  :>

[henripootel]

I suspect that the test runs of the challenges are primarily done for feasibility purposes (i.e. is it even possible to balance/stack/hit etc.), rather than safety.

I suspect that what they're mostly looking for are challenges that are visually interesting.  They do a pretty good job with that, I mean solving puzzles isn't inherently engaging, but these often are.  They do seem to skimp on the safety sometimes, and occasionally drop the ball entirely.  Anyone remember the giant ball they were supposed to push through a mud field, but both sides just ended up hanging onto, for like an hour?  Guessing we won't be seeing that one again.

 

I'm betting they tested this one with a bunch of fresh, well-hydrated recruits and it worked fine.  Then they re-buried the balls a bit too deep, the heat index went way up, and the half-in-the-bag-already contestants straggled in.  And it went downhill from there.

[laurakaye]

My issue is not that Peter didn't offer aid, it's that he was shown seemingly resting under an umbrella while medical crises were happening all around him.

 

I can give him the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he was told he couldn't help, and that he also might've been exhausted himself.  But he supposedly said something to medical about moving the patients to the water to cool them down and "they didn't hear him."  That seems suspect to me.  If they didn't hear him, did he repeat himself at all?  Or did he say it once, shrug, and sit down in the shade?

 

Peter has made a pretty big deal of telling us that he is a smart, successful (and apparently handsome) emergency room doctor.  Yet the edit shows him not coming to anyone's aid, nor attempting to even try.  If he had tried, I have to believe that Survivor would've added the three or four second bit of Peter trying to help if such footage existed.  They showed Tai hovering around Caleb with Dr. Joe firmly but nicely asking Tai to move aside.  So the only thing I can get from this is that there was no footage of Peter to show, nor an explanation as to why he didn't try to help.  This would've taken all of a few seconds to explain away, yet Survivor didn't do that.  It's a pretty basic question that Survivor had to have anticipated - why didn't the ER doc try to help?  And it would've been very easy to answer...unless he simply didn't try.

 

I'm talking in circles now.  PeterGate has me exhausted.  Time for more coffee.

Edited March 16, 2016 by laurakaye

[fishcakes]

It seems like Peter is getting criticized for two different things: for being a doctor who didn't provide medical assistance and for being a person who appeared not to care that others were in distress. As a doctor, I'm pretty sure he wasn't and should not have been allowed to provide assistance, and as a person, I don't see why he's getting singled out for not seeming to care when there were other players there who appeared to do just as much nothing as he did. Scot, Anna, Michele, Alecia, Julia, Nick -- we didn't see any of them do anything substantially different from Peter, and yet they're not being discussed at all. That doesn't mean they did nothing or didn't care and we didn't see it, but the same can be said of Peter. I don't even like the guy, but I'm willing to give him as much the benefit of the doubt as I am to everyone else who was there.

[LanceM]

It seems like Peter is getting criticized for two different things: for being a doctor who didn't provide medical assistance and for being a person who appeared not to care that others were in distress. As a doctor, I'm pretty sure he wasn't and should not have been allowed to provide assistance, and as a person, I don't see why he's getting singled out for not seeming to care when there were other players there who appeared to do just as much nothing as he did. Scot, Anna, Michele, Alecia, Julia, Nick -- we didn't see any of them do anything substantially different from Peter, and yet they're not being discussed at all. That doesn't mean they did nothing or didn't care and we didn't see it, but the same can be said of Peter. I don't even like the guy, but I'm willing to give him as much the benefit of the doubt as I am to everyone else who was there.

 

Well in terms of the Beauty tribe at the end of the challenge when Caleb walked off we saw Julia run up to him to give him water.  After he collapsed we saw Anna rubbing  damp buff on his face to try to cool him off.  When the doctor was attending him they needed to tell Tai to back off because he appeared to be trying to help. Nick of course held up Caleb's legs while the doctor was examining him though I am sure he was told to do that. As for the other, yeah Jason appeared to be the only brawn that was helping Cydney.

[peachmangosteen]

Yea the Beauty tribe were definitely all shown helping Caleb. On Brains everyone was shown at least feigning an interest in Debbie. The only people we weren't shown seeming to at least try to help were Peter, Alecia, and Scot. I think the reason why it's only brought up with regards to Peter is probably the fact that he's a doctor and people (myself included I guess) just expect more from a doctor in a medical crisis situation like that.

 

Although, come to think of it, I'd think Scot, being that he is a NBA Champion, would try to help out his injured teammate.

Edited March 16, 2016 by peachmangosteen

[Special K]

Isn't it great that it's Wednesday and in just a few hours, we won't have to talk about whether Peter is a good enough doctor or not?

[Rick Kitchen]

Isn't it great that it's Wednesday and in just a few hours, we won't have to talk about whether Peter is a good enough doctor or not?

 

Don't count your chickens ...

[himela]

Isn't it great that it's Wednesday and in just a few hours, we won't have to talk about whether Peter is a good enough doctor or not?

Oh God, after all this 5 pages conversation about Peter I just wish they'd had voted HIM out last week rather than Liz.

[Nashville]

Oh God, after all this 5 pages conversation about Peter I just wish they'd had voted HIM out last week rather than Liz.

...in which case we'd have been treated to a half-week of her self-entitled whining and pouting - along with a probable side dish of, "See??? These people wouldn't be dropping like this if Peter were still around...."

[LanceM]

Actually based on her nasty staph infection (see the Liz thread) we probably would have been treated to two medavacs last episode.

[AlleC17]

I think it will be interesting to see if peter's tribe mentions anything about his lack of caring.  If he was really uncaring I would think they would comment on it? 

[Big Mother]

Well, the Peter the doctor debate can be laid to rest after what we saw today with Joe's infected hand (another medevac foreshadowing? YIKES)

[ozlsn]

I don't think that prior post about "they train in AZ" meant the Survivor people.  I think they were talking about their own local sports team or something.  I think the Dream Team (interns) run the challenges in place.  

 

Yes, sorry, there was a post way upthread saying that the poster played football (I think?  Sorry, I thought I'd quoted it, but no) in the Arizona sun that I was referring to.  The challenges are run in place, and judging by the difference in shadows at about 9am rather than at midday.

I think the dream team's main purpose there is to test the challenges in place, in local conditions.  I think they could easily make things harder or easier while in Cambodia, if it didn't test out how they thought it would.  I doubt they monitor the interns medically.  I'm guessing they just ask them how hard it was, if anything injured them, etc.  

 

If the flags thing marking the bags is correct I think it's possibly just to get an idea of filming problems and timing.

 

 My conclusion: this was a production fuck-up from A to Z, and what we actually saw was shaded to draw attention away from this fact.  I almost wish the whole thing was a ruse, as watching people actually almost-die isn't entertainment.  Either way, I'm left feeling soiled.

 

Agree that this was a stuff up.  Apart from anything else the lack of shade and running it in the middle of the day was a really bad idea.

 

I think most safety issues are a product of the intensity at which the players perform.  And even Burnett & Co. should realize that people who are allowed to test-run the challenges for fun (or even for a guaranteed paycheck) are not going to approach the intensity of contestants playing for a shot at $1 Million.  Especially given the character-pathologies that the show tends to cast.

 

Given that most of the elements of this challenge had been done on previous seasons, I wonder how much of a test-run this challenge actually got.

I don't even think medical/production has to be told not interfere.  I think given Burnett's previously very publicly expressed philosophy about such things, there is a chilling effect on-set sufficient to deter anyone from getting close to camera frame.

 

I actually wondered how much leeway the medical personnel have to say "actually running this challenge now is a really stupid idea."  Because the contestants not being able to drink during the challenge together with running the challenge at midday in what was a fairly hot, non-cloudy day from the footage we saw - well, you'd hope that the medical staff would be able to step up and say "actually from a safety perspective it would be better to wait a few hours until it's cooler" and be listened to.  As I said earlier, this was an entirely predictable situation.

 

I don't think Caleb almost died out there, though. 

 

I don't know - a resting heart rate of 105 while the person is lying down with their legs elevated is really not a good sign.  Certainly I think if he hadn't been evacuated he would have been in quite serious trouble.

 

Mine only very briefly.  I mean jeez, what a mess.  My guess is that it happened much as we saw it, albeit with a lot of editing.  My point is that it should never have come to this.  What is this, season 32?  They're not new at this.  Does sound like they learned, well, a lesson - let's hope it's the right one.

Not much to choose from there, really.  I'm betting you're closer to the truth if only because production can (somewhat correctly) claim that they never said medical shouldn't interfere if they think something is wrong.  Don't have to, just fire anyone whose zeal for safety costs them one iota of filming time.  The mere fact that medical has to be summoned by Probst, a producer with no medical training we know of, speaks volumes about where the priorities lie.

 

Yeah, basically.  And frankly I think if they want to look at costs of filming time vs ICU and helicopter evacuation costs I think they'd have been better off listening to the safety people.  ICU isn't cheap.

 

I'm betting they tested this one with a bunch of fresh, well-hydrated recruits and it worked fine.  Then they re-buried the balls a bit too deep, the heat index went way up, and the half-in-the-bag-already contestants straggled in.  And it went downhill from there.

 

Fresh, well-hydrated recruits who were doing it first thing in the morning - seriously, go back and look at the shadow difference between the 'demo' and the actual contestants.  The contestants have tiny shadows straight under them, the recruits have longer and much more visible shadows.  I really hope that they have learned something from this, because that could have gone a lot worse than it did - how many helicopters do they have on standby exactly?  What would they have done if Scott and Caleb and (just because I can) Peter had all needed to be evacuated simultaneously?  Scary stuff.

[peachmangosteen]

Honestly the thing with Caleb was all very weird to me. It just seemed bizarre that all of the sudden, without much explanation, the doctor looked legitimately terrified for Caleb. It felt like it came out of no where to me and they didn't really explain what was going on like they usually do during a med evac.

Edited March 19, 2016 by peachmangosteen

[piequinn35]

Why did they pull you from the game and not the other contestants who fell down?

They were responsive; I wasn't. Cydney's heart rate went down; mine didn't. My heart was beating about 108 beats per minute, and then it went up to 118.

 

What was your temperature during that time?

My body temperature hit 107 at the worst. It was really dangerous. I'm lucky to be alive.

 

from here: http://www.people.com/article/survivor-kaoh-rong-exit-interview-caleb-reynolds

[peachmangosteen]

OK that sounds plausible, but this is coming from Caleb, who is both very dumb and a big story teller, so I wish we had more info from someone more trustworthy.

[Nashville]

OK that sounds plausible, but this is coming from Caleb, who is both very dumb and a big story teller, so I wish we had more info from someone more trustworthy.

 

Same here - but the only ones with anything other than nth-hand knowledge are Medical, and they're not going to say anything for a multitude of reasons (HIPAA, employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements, etc.).

[himela]

Fishbach said that Dr Joe is a touch person who does not get worried easily, like they could tell him "I think I have broken a leg" and he'd say "you are ok, go on" or something like that. So Stephen knew something serious was going on when he saw Dr Joe that worried and ordering an evacuation.

[Lamb18]

His heart rate went up to 111 on the monitor - I remember seeing that and wondering if it was his temperature.