Who Is Terry Burns from Alone Season 9? What Happened

Spoiler note: this covers how Terry Burns's season 9 run ended.

Terry Burns is a commercial fisherman from Homer, Alaska, who left a decade-long construction career behind to build a life centered on wilderness living. He was 31 when he competed on Alone season 9 at Big River in northern Labrador, per his contestant page, and that Alaska fishing and outdoor background is the kind of resume this show tends to reward, at least up to a point.

His run in Labrador

Burns finished seventh of ten, lasting 42 days before he was medically evacuated for a combination of low BMI from excessive weight loss and a parasitic infection. That double hit, a caloric deficit compounding with a gut parasite, is a rougher exit than a straightforward tap-out, since it took the decision out of his hands once his numbers hit a threshold the show's medical team was not willing to let him push past.

His gear list is fully sourced on this site: an axe, sleeping bag, bow and arrows, fishing line and hooks, ferro rod, paracord, a 2-quart pot, trapping wire, multitool, and a crosscut saw. Choosing a crosscut saw over some of the more common tenth-slot picks suggests he was planning around shelter and firewood processing as much as food acquisition.

Detail	Terry Burns, season 9
Placement	7th of 10
Days lasted	42
Location	Big River, Nunatsiavut region, northern Labrador
Reason for ending run	Medically evacuated for low BMI and a parasitic infection

Season 9 was a rough one medically across the board. Alongside Burns, eighth-place Benji Hill was evacuated for a giardia infection, fifth-place Jessie Krebs for stomach inflammation, and ninth-place Igor Limansky for heart palpitations after prioritizing a heavy shelter build over securing a reliable protein source. Four of the ten contestants that season left via medical evacuation rather than a voluntary tap-out, which puts Burns's parasitic infection in context: it was not an outlier so much as one version of a pattern that showed up repeatedly at that Labrador location.

Life since the show

As of mid-2026, Burns is reported to still be based in Homer, Alaska, working as a commercial fisherman on the deck of a salmon seining boat. During the roughly seven-month off-season from fishing, he reportedly spends his time on expeditionary backpack hunting and fishing trips, with reports describing trips across all 50 states and multiple continents. That is a fairly direct continuation of the life he already had before the show, rather than a pivot built around his time on Alone.

His exit due to a parasitic infection is also a useful data point for anyone studying how contestants get evacuated on this show: it is a less common cause than starvation or injury alone, and it underscores how much unseen biological risk (untreated water, wild game, insect exposure) sits underneath even a well-provisioned 42-day run. For more on how other Labrador cast members fared, our contestant page on third-place finisher Teimojin Tan covers a longer run from the same season, and our alone-rules page explains how medical evacuations are decided.

Burns's background as a commercial fisherman who traded a construction career for a life outdoors is a genuinely different path into this show than the guides, veterans, and survival instructors who make up a lot of Alone casts. Given that he is reportedly still living the same kind of life he had before season 9, his 42-day run reads less like a career-defining moment and more like one hard season inside a life that was already built around wilderness and physical risk.