Alone Injuries: Every Season's Closest Calls

Not every injury on Alone ends a run. Some contestants get hurt, or come within a few feet of disaster, and keep going anyway. This is the companion to our full evacuation list: that piece counts the pulls the medical team made, while this one is about the close calls, including the ones that never made it into an evacuation report because the contestant survived them and stayed in the game.

The encounters that didn't end runs

The single most dramatic near-miss belongs to Clay Hayes, who faced down a grizzly bear and tracked a mountain lion during his winning season 8 run and finished the season anyway, a bowyer by trade who never had to draw on either animal. On season 2, Jose Martinez Amoedo, a former Spanish special forces soldier, capsized the wooden kayak he had spent weeks building and was pulled from waist-deep water near hypothermia, yet still recovered to reach day 59 and third place, one of the deepest runs by anyone who had a genuine brush with the cold water. These are the injuries and scares that the format usually hides, because a contestant who survives one and keeps filming doesn't generate a medical headline.

The ones that did

Plenty of injuries did end runs, and they cluster around the same tools and terrain. Falls are common: Tom Garstang fell and injured his back and knee on season 9, out on day 43, and on Alone Australia season 1, Peter Athanassiou fell and hurt his knee just three days in. Sharp edges end more: Mary Kate Green split a tendon with an axe on season 2, Zach Gault cut his arm with an axe on season 3, and Carleigh Fairchild was evacuated from season 5 after a fishhook lodged in her hand. And then there is Cubby Hoover, first out on season 11 after driving a deep arrow wound into his own leg on day 4.

Contestant	Season	Injury	Outcome
Clay Hayes	US 8	Grizzly encounter, tracked a cougar	Continued, won
Jose Martinez Amoedo	US 2	Kayak capsize, near hypothermia	Continued to day 59
Megan Hanacek	US 3	Broke teeth on a rosehip seed	Tapped, day 78
Tom Garstang	US 9	Fell, injured back and knee	Tapped, day 43
Cubby Hoover	US 11	Deep arrow wound to his leg	Tapped, day 4
Carleigh Fairchild	US 5	Fishhook lodged in hand	Evacuated, day 5

The strangest injury on the show

The most unusual close call is also one of the most painful. On season 3, Megan Hanacek had reached day 78 and third place, deep into the endgame, when she bit into a rosehip seed hard enough to break teeth. The jaw pain, not hunger or cold or a predator, is what ended a run that was otherwise on track to go the distance. It is a reminder that on Alone the threat is almost never the thing you brace for. The people who last are the ones who avoid the small, stupid, unglamorous injury for long enough, which is the same discipline behind the biggest mistakes that end runs and the records set by the ones who made it furthest.