Breaking Borneo
21 day challenge located in Borneo (Malaysian Archipelago) – Mountainous, rugged country, dense dangerous forest, with 13 feet of annual rain fall. Wild boars, leeches, and snakes.
| Julie Wright – Wilderness Expert/Instructor 30 years old – Washington Personal Item: Cooking pot Starting PSR: 5.5 Ending PSR: 5.0 Lost 30 lbs | Puma Cabra – Expert Outdoorsman 38 years old – Nevada Personal Item: Machete Starting PSR: 7.1 Ending PSR: 6.1 Lost 15 lbs |
The recommendations will be written in bold italics and the analysis is on the bottom.
Day 1: Downhill climb – 85°F
They climb downhill on rugged terrain in the forest.
11:51am 95°F – Julie finds boar tracks
4:03pm 95°F – They find water
7:22pm 90°F – Builds above ground shelter
9:45pm 76°F – Sleep
1:45am – Awakened by boar. They scare away the boar.
Day 2: Bow drill
8:45am 87°F – Puma attempts to build fire with bow drill. Julie continues to work on shelter.
2:00pm 95°F – Fire making attempts fail
5:04pm 95°F – Puma drinks water without boiling
1:00am 78°F – Julie is thirsty and dehydrated
Puma drinking water without boiling it can have catastrophic consequences. You must boil water in the wild before drinking it.
Day 3:
7:00am 80°F
Julie suffers from dehydration. Puma finds flowing water from an underground stream and Julie drinks it from a tap.
Day 4: Fire
6:45am 85°F – Julie tries to use the bow drill and starts a fire successfully. They boil water to drink.
Day 6: Lost Fire
Set traps couple days ago for crabs. They eat crabs and worms. Julie continues to weatherproof the shelter. No one was tending the fire, and Puma notices the fire is out. Julie is upset that the fire is out as Puma was supposed to be monitoring it. Part of the daily tasks is fire, which includes gathering firewood and constantly monitoring the fire. If someone kept an eye on it hourly, this would not have been an issue.
80-foot tree crashes down near their shelter late at night.
Day 8: Consequences
9:00am 86°F – Puma feels fatigued
12:00pm 92°F – Puma has a headache
11:52pm 70°F – Puma has fever, body aches and chills, later that night, Puma feels worse
Day 9: Medic
5:45am – They decide to bring in the medic to have Puma evaluated
6:45am 86°F – Puma is shivering, cramped, potentially have dengue or malaria or other viruses with a fever of 105°F. The medic puts Puma in the stream to cool his body down. Medic taps Puma out due to potentially multiple viruses contracted and needs a hospital to evaluate. This is what happens when you drink water without boiling it. Even boiling it, there is a slight chance of similar issues but likely not as severe. Julie gets a fire started and is relaxed and resting at night.
Day 10: Hungry
Julie lacks food and places fish basket/trap in stream. Puma still in the hospital for observations.
Day 12: Still no food
Julie checks fish trap to find nothing.
Day 15: Fire out
10:15am 92°F – Julie feels alone and scared.
Day 17: Hunger
3:25pm 89°F – Julie can’t get out of the shelter. She is feeling weak.
Day 18: Caiman
9:11am 81°F – Julie is no longer emotionally there to continue. Her body is starting to fail. She decides to tap out of the challenge.
My analysis:
There were some issues with this challenge that could have been avoided. Julie was more capable of her abilities than she thought. The problem started when Puma drank water without boiling it. Not tending the fire was another issue. This could have been a lack of communication, regardless, this is not good. Not attempting to find food on her own more caused her to weaken, thus both contestants failed this challenge. These challenges are much more difficult in real life than it is watching the show and commenting on a couch. These two survivalists were unsuccessful to complete the 21 day challenge. This shows, as a team, that they cannot survive Naked and Afraid.
