Survivor: Caramoan

Erik Reichenbach: removed at the final five on day 36

Erik Reichenbach was removed from Survivor: Caramoan on Day 36, at the final five, minutes after the Tribal Council that voted out Brenda Lowe. He told his tribemates he felt dizzy and disoriented. The show's doctor diagnosed a starvation state, put him on an IV and took him out. He finished fifth.

Confirmed The removal, its timing and the placement are established by contemporaneous finale reporting and by Reichenbach's own account. The starvation-state finding is the show's physician's diagnosis as reported at the time. No medical record has been released.

Erik Reichenbach Erik Reichenbach Brenda Lowe Brenda Lowe

What the record shows

  • Confirmed Reichenbach was removed from the game on Day 36, at the final five, inside the Survivor: Caramoan finale episode, moments after the Tribal Council at which Brenda Lowe was voted out.
  • Confirmed He told the other players he felt dizzy and disoriented. The show's doctor diagnosed him as being in a starvation state, put him on an IV and removed him from the game.
  • Confirmed Reporting on the removal also cites low blood pressure alongside the starvation state.
  • Admitted Reichenbach has said he was so out of it at that Tribal Council that he thought a different player had been voted out.
  • Confirmed He was credited with fifth place and stayed on the jury. Medical-evacuation indexes record his as the only removal to happen during a Survivor finale.
  • Unverified What treatment followed once he was off the island, how long it lasted and whether anything lingered are not established. No medical record has been released and no source reviewed here fills that gap.

What happened at the final five

The sequence is tighter than most summaries make it. Survivor: Caramoan reached its finale, "Last Push", with five players left on Day 36. Tribal Council was held and Brenda Lowe was voted out. Minutes later, back at camp, Erik Reichenbach told the four remaining players that he felt dizzy and disoriented.

The show's doctor examined him, diagnosed him as being in a starvation state, put him on an IV and removed him from the game. Reichenbach was credited with fifth place and stayed on the jury, so he was still in the building for the vote that decided the season.

The diagnosis belongs to the show's doctor

"Starvation state" is not a phrase this page can verify on its own, and it should not be read as an independently confirmed clinical finding. It is what the show's physician said on camera, and it is what contemporaneous reporting on the finale carried. Low blood pressure is reported alongside it.

No medical record has been released. Nothing beyond that on-site diagnosis and the IV has been published about his condition, and this page does not extend the description any further than the doctor did.

He did not know who had just been voted out

Reichenbach's own account fills in the part the episode could not show. He has said he was so out of it during that Tribal Council that he came away thinking a different player had been voted out than the one who actually was.

That detail is worth keeping because it is the clearest measure of how far gone he was, and it comes from him rather than from an interpretation of the footage. It also explains why the removal reads as sudden on screen: by the time he said anything, he had already sat through a Tribal Council in that state.

The only one inside a finale

Survivor has removed players for medical reasons many times, and the show's medevac indexes list Reichenbach's as the only one that happened during a finale episode. Every other removal came earlier in a season. Being pulled at the final five, with four players and three days left, is what makes this one an outlier rather than an entry on a list.

Caramoan had two medical removals in total. Shamar Thomas was taken out earlier in the season with an eye injury and finished 17th. That is a separate incident with a separate cause, and the two are often merged in retellings of the season.

Fifth place twice, Day 36 twice

This was Reichenbach's second season. In Survivor: Micronesia in 2008 he handed his individual immunity necklace to another player at Tribal Council and was voted out immediately after, finishing fifth on Day 36. In Caramoan he was removed on medical grounds, finishing fifth on Day 36.

Two seasons, the same placement, the same day, and two entirely different exits. Nothing connects the two beyond the coincidence, and no source treats one as a cause of the other.

What this page does not say

Three framings travel with this story and none of them are supported by the record. Nothing here says the production starved him. Nothing here says anyone allowed a player to reach a life-threatening state. And nothing here establishes that a warning sign was missed, because no source reviewed sets out what production knew or when.

One wording correction is worth making, since it is the version that has spread. Reichenbach is often described as collapsing. Contemporaneous accounts have him telling his tribemates he felt dizzy and disoriented, and being examined and removed on that basis. The removal is documented. A collapse is not.

People in this story

Questions people ask

Why was Erik Reichenbach removed from Survivor: Caramoan?
He told his tribemates he felt dizzy and disoriented on Day 36. The show's doctor diagnosed him as being in a starvation state, put him on an IV and removed him from the game. Low blood pressure is also reported.
When exactly was Erik Reichenbach pulled from the game?
During the finale episode, "Last Push", at the final five on Day 36. It happened minutes after the Tribal Council at which Brenda Lowe was voted out, not before the finale.
Did Erik Reichenbach still make the jury?
Yes. He was credited with fifth place and remained on the Caramoan jury, so he voted at the final Tribal Council that decided the season.
Has any other Survivor player been medically removed during a finale?
No. Medical-evacuation indexes record Reichenbach's as the only removal to occur during a Survivor finale. Every other medical removal came earlier in its season.
Did Erik Reichenbach collapse?
Contemporaneous accounts do not say so. They have him reporting dizziness and disorientation and then being examined and removed by the show's doctor. The word collapse comes from later retellings.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.