Back at tribal council for the third time after another lousy puzzle performance in an immunity challenge, Aganoa faced the prospect of dwindling numbers and withering trust.
Earlier in the episode, Phoebe was upset that Rohan, who found the hidden immunity idol, wouldn’t let her hold on to it as previously agreed upon, and Kat was distressed to overhear that she would leaving even though she thought she was in an all-girls alliance.
But the hapless tribe got a reprieve, even after they aired out their grievances, when host Jonathan LaPaglia told them that Saanapu’s Peter had quit, nagged by a dangerous lack of appetite stemming from a pre-game illness.
“I don’t think they want to admit I’m becoming a liability,” Peter said about his Saanapu family on Day 9. He also searched for the hidden immunity idol with close mate Kylie but was unable to help her even though he knew she was on the outs with the rest of the tribe. By Day 10, “Fiegs” was done and called for Jonathan to pick him up.
Who spoke to Peter Fiegehen, a 62-year-old air traffic controller from Canberra, about becoming the fourth person to leave Australian Survivor.
Q: First of all, how are you doing?
A: I’m very good. After I came home, it remedied very quickly. In fact, I didn’t even need medication — just normal food. In probably about five days, I was just about back to normal, increasing weight, but you’ve got to be careful after you’ve been starved for about 12 days. You actually have to go on a re-feeding program, which I did myself, because if you eat too much too quickly, you can actually harm yourself as well.
Q: How much weight did you lose?
A: While I was in Samoa, over the 12 days, I lost 8 kilograms. It’s called the Samoa Diet! [Laughs] I think half a kilo a month is a good diet, but I went in to the game slightly heavy. Like a lot of people, you carry an extra couple of kilos because you know you are going to lose some, but I think some people lost a lot more than me but over a longer period of time.
Q: You attributed your discomfort to something you ate two days prior to the game starting in Samoa. What did you eat and did you assume any pain would go away?
A: We were eating all the time, but at some stage, I had a meal that had something extra in it. They had soups and salads and all that sort of thing, and yeah, straight away, as you know with food poisoning, you know within about an hour or so that something was wrong. I’m calling it gastro, but obviously I’m not a doctor, but I had gastroenteritis-type of symptoms, with all of the colourful aspects of that, and that lasted about two days.
Q: Did you feel better after you got to the Saanapu camp?
A: Because I wasn’t eating, there were no more symptoms. But I had no inclination to eat after that. We hit the beach two days after that and I tried eating a couple of times, small pieces of banana or rice, and it made me feel very sick. I threw it up. I lost interest in eating, which is really weird for me because if there is something to eat, I’ll eat it. I’m like a beagle. If there’s food around, I’ll eat it, whatever it is. So that was quite out of character for me.
Q: Did you say anything to the show’s medical staff about how you were feeling?
A: The medical and psychological staffs that were provided were fantastic. The medical staff was there primarily to look at first-instance medical care for cuts and bruises, but we tried to come up with solutions for this but to be extracted from the game means you leave the game, so if I had to go into hospital to have tests or something like that, it would have meant I had to leave the game. It was difficult for medical and production. They didn’t want me to leave and I didn’t want to leave. We went for 10 days [there] and 12 days from when I contracted this to find a solution but we didn’t.
Q: Even with the hardship, were there things you enjoyed about your time in the game?
A: It was a fantastic, fabulous, unbelievable experience. I had so much fun. I did everything I wanted to do during that period except for compete in a couple of challenges. The last challenge last night, I really badly wanted to be a part of that but as I said, ‘Guys, if I’m a part of this, you’ll probably lose, but if I’m not, you’ll probably win,’ and yeah. It was tough not being a part of those things. That’s what I love doing.
Q: Were you surprised when Bianca left instead of you during Saanapu’s first tribal council?
A: Up until lunchtime that day, I had set things up to vote me out and then that afternoon, I noticed the body language was changing and it is very difficult to have confidential conversations with people in Survivor and I was trying very hard to find out what was going on and I couldn’t and there was no eye contact, so I thought, ‘Something’s going on here!’ And when it happened, I was shocked. I became really quite angry, which is not in my personality, and we got back to the campsite, it was pitch black and I was sulking in the background and I was very deeply disappointed that they didn’t do what I asked them to do. And then, in the morning, Kylie asked Sam to have a chat with me and he explained the rationale between the five of them. They wanted to keep me in, so Bianca can rest assured it wasn’t so much eliminating Bianca but them wanting to keep me in for emotional reasons, I think. But they weren’t really aware of what I was going through.
Q: Speaking of which, you had Matt crying when you left, Kylie devastated, and the whole tribe sad to see you go. Did you know how emotional they would get?
A: We all got very, very close, very, very quickly and I think we will be forever. I’m not surprised because when I first suggested to the tribe that if and when we go to tribal, I think they should eliminate me, even at that point, everyone was quite emotional. But when we won that last challenge, I had to then make the decision to leave because any longer would have seriously affected me to a greater extent and would have seriously affected the tribe’s performance to a greater extent and my focus, and my belief, was that the tribe needed to stay together and stay focused to be strong.
Q: You are a fan of the show, too, so was it doubly hard to have to leave?
A: It’s unusual for people to leave Survivor by their own choice and the aficionados of Survivor find a little discomfort with people leaving by their own choice. I knew that at the time and knew there would be some comeback from the people who are deeper into Survivor about that, but you know what? You have to walk in someone else’s to understand what it’s really like.
Q: So if you got another chance, would you do it all again?
A: When the show started, I was astonished, and I’m not getting paid to say this, at the production quality. I was very impressed with the cinematography, which shows off Australia and Samoa so well. I was disappointed I didn’t get a lot of airtime, but I didn’t realise the strategy in the show was to keep me almost invisible but build up the last two episodes. I think it was quite clever because last night you saw a lot of me and it really explained, rather than a sad old guy sitting on a rock saying ‘I’m sick of this’ after Day 2 with no more information, they explained the deeper aspects of what was happening with me. I would go back to Survivor in a heartbeat. I would love to.
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