How Jeff Probst Almost Died Filming A Stunt For Survivor

Summary

• Jeff Probst almost died during a stunt for Survivor: Vanuatu.
• Probst's parachute didn't open properly, but he managed to fix it at 4,400 feet.
• The safety instructor who jumped after Probst to rescue him ended up in peril as well.

For most Survivor fans, the show is associated with strategy, betrayal, challenges, and tribal council. However, once fans move past the point when they are trying to figure out which season to watch first, they realize there is more to the show than that.

Unfortunately, one of the worst parts of Survivor is that players can be injured during the game and suffer health crises once filming is over. What many fans don't realize is that even Jeff Probst almost died once while filming for the show.

This article will reveal how Jeff Probst almost died while filming a stunt for Survivor. Then, the article will look at the crazy-sounding Survivor stunt that Probst once filmed which never aired.

Jeff Probst Almost Died While Filming A Survivor Stunt

Throughout Survivor history, players have been involved in more dangerous situations than most fans can believe. Despite that, there haven't been any Survivor players to date that have suffered any major injuries they couldn't recover from.

On the other hand, it has always seemed like Jeff Probst simply stands by and watches players as they go through dangerous situations. Despite that, it actually turns out that Probst once found himself in an incredible amount of danger.

While filming the ninth season of Survivor, Jeff Probst was asked to perform a stunt. Many years later, Probst revealed how close filming that stunt came to ending his life.

After many years hosting Survivor, Jeff Probst decided to spread his wings a little bit while creating more content for the show's fans. Probst did this by becoming one of the co-hosts of a podcast titled "On Fire with Jeff Probst".

What did Jeff Probst tell Entertainment Weekly were his Survivor favorites?

For any true Survivor fan, the first season of "On Fire with Jeff Probst" is a must-listen. The reason for that is that during the early episodes of the podcast, Probst revealed many fascinating facts about how Survivor gets produced. Arguably, the most fascinating thing that Probst ever revealed was about how he almost died while filming a stunt for Survivor.

During some of the early seasons of Survivor, they would shoot footage designed to make it look like Probst traveled straight from the final tribal council to the reunion. For example, Probst was infamously seen riding a jet ski toward the venue where the reunion was held.

During the reunion for Survivor: Vanuatu, Probst was seen hacking his way through a forest with a machete. After that, Probst was shown in a plane that he jumped out of with a parachute. During an episode of his podcast, Probst revealed that he became too confident in skydiving and engaged his parachute late.

"I check my altimeter, and then I look at the horizon, and I decide to take in beautiful California. So I'm just looking at the horizon and thinking, 'this is amazing'. And I look down at my altimeter and it says 4,500 feet."

Even though Probst was instructed to engage his parachute several hundred feet earlier, 4500 feet was still high enough that his life shouldn't have been at risk. The problem is that things didn't go well for Probst from there.

As Probst went on to explain, he looked up and realized his parachute didn't open properly.

"The next thing they teach you is to ask yourself two questions: Is it there, meaning, is your parachute above your head? And is it square? Is it there and is it square? I look up. Is it there? Yes. Is it square? No, meaning it doesn't have four points. It has not opened. This is no lie."

In order to ensure his survival, Probst realized what he had to do to get his parachute to open up properly.

"In that case they said to scissor kick. So I'm at 4,400 feet. I'm quickly getting close to the ground, and I scissor kick, and the chute opens."

Considering that Probst's parachute was engaged late, it is fortunate that he was open to get it to open so quickly. After all, he didn't have that long to fix it before he would fall to his death.

Unfortunately for the safety instructor who jumped after Probst to take care of him, something else went wrong. During the podcast episode, Probst revealed the safety instructor tried to come to his rescue and wound up in serious peril because of it.

When the safety instructor realized Probst was late to engage his parachute, he tried to rescue the Survivor host. When the instructor flew down to engage the parachute himself, he arrived at the exact moment Probst punched the chord. As a result, Probst punched the safety instructor in the face at the same time he engaged his parachute.

"He said he had a brown out. He said, 'For a second, I passed out and then I came back.'" If the safety instructor didn't wake up quickly enough, he wouldn't have engaged his own parachute in time to survive.

Jeff Probst Had Another Failed Survivor Stunt

In December 2014, Jeff Probst spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the stunts he used to film for Survivor. As Probst explained, there was a plan for him to be shown performing stunts as he supposedly made his way to the reunion during another season. However, the footage that was shot was never shown after one of Probst's planned stunts went awry.

As Probst explained to the outlet, he was supposed to be shown pulling off a skateboard trick on his way to the reunion.

"This was the plan: I walk past the skate park and I go, ‘Hey, kid. Can I have your board?’ And the kid looks at me like in that Mean Joe Greene commercial…the Coke commercial, and he goes, ‘Hey, you’re the Survivor guy! Sure!’ And he throws me his skateboard."

Probst continued, "And I’m going to hop on the skateboard, jump a curb, and then kick the skateboard up into my hands and hand it back to the kid and say, ‘Thanks, kid. See you around.’”

While that plan would have been epic to see come to life, there was a problem with the plan that resulted in none of the skateboarding footage that was shot airing.

"So we have this idea and I go, ‘But the only thing is, guys—I can’t skateboard. But I’ll try to learn.’ We hire this guy. He says, ‘Oh, I can teach you to do a couple of tricks.’ And I go, ‘But I didn’t grow up in California. I’m not a skateboarder.’ He says, ‘No problem.’"

Probst continued, "We get out there for about three hours and they guy is like, ‘Listen, here’s what you do: You ride the board and you use the leverage of your weight to hop it up onto the curb, skid across…’ And I’m looking at him, like, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! I can’t do this! So we never aired it, and that was the last one.”