The behind the scenes journey of Kacie Cleveland’s fight for survival on Discovery Channel’s “Naked and Afraid”

Story by ANNIE CROOKSHANK | Photograph by OCTOBER YATES

For the first time in 21 days, Kacie Cleveland lay clothed and in a bed at an environmental research institute in Belize.

Waiting for sleep to overcome her, Cleveland felt the Dermatobia herminis, or human botfly, larvae writhe in exasperation on her right hip as it suffocated beneath the duct tape she had placed over it.

A Belize local, bot flies are known for their invasive nature and aggressive bite, therefore it is of no surprise that Kacie walked away with an unwanted souvenir.

Although the larvae’s desperate squirming under her skin was uncomfortable it didn’t hold a finger to the past three weeks she had spent in the untamed jungle of Belize.

A Challenge Like No Other

Kacie is no stranger to challenges.

In 2005 she experienced heart failure, a rare side effect of her birth control. Later, in 2007, Kacie was diagnosed with compartmental leg syndrome, rendering her unable to run and putting an early end to her college track career at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

A lifelong athlete, Kacie turned to Crossfit in 2008. She now owns and coaches at the well-known Bellingham gym Kulshan Crossfit.

In 2012, Kacie continued her athletic pursuits with an inline skating trek across the United States that she completed in a record-breaking 47 days.

It wasn’t until spring of 2015 when Kacie would be faced with her next challenge — one testing her psychological strength as much as her physical stamina.

Kacie received an email from a producer with Discovery Channel’s TV show “Naked and Afraid” inviting her to be a contestant.

The producer explained they had a male contestant, a stay-at-home dad, and wanted a female athlete as his counterpart. Through research online, the casting team had found Kacie.

“I first read the email and just laughed, shut it and just thought ‘hell no,’” Cleveland says.

The more Kacie thought about the invitation, the more intrigued she became. Where would they send her? What would it be like? Could she make it?

Ultimately, Kacie’s mantra to never live her life with regret was what made the final decision for her.

“The main way I make decisions in my life is based off of regret, not off the feeling of accomplishment,” Cleveland says. “I don’t like the feeling of regret; I would do anything to avoid the feeling of regret.”

Kacie went back to her computer and responded to the producer’s email with one word.

“Sure.”

The producer called Kacie five minutes later and the process began. Her life became a whirlwind of preparation.

Each night her husband taught her a way to make fire and her sister prepared a PowerPoint on the vegetation and wildlife of Belize where her episode would be taped.

As per “Naked and Afraid” protocol, Kacie took a personality test, underwent basic survival training and consulted with a expert survivalist.

Three weeks later, she found herself in the bed of a truck bouncing down the back roads of the Belizean jungle.

Welcome to the Jungle

Ten sets of eyes and lenses focused on Kacie as she jumped out of the truck and began to remove her clothes, her bare feet sinking inches into the live jungle floor beneath her.

She took tentative steps as foreign ecosystems squirmed below her feet while a producer urged her off road and into the dense brush towards her partner.

The first time Kacie met Aaron Phillips they were both naked.

Aaron, 38, a stay-at-home dad and nature guide from Florida, would be Kacie’s only support system for the next 21 days — yet they were complete strangers.

Each step taken had to be executed carefully as they couldn’t be sure what animal’s home they may be stepping on.

The pair took extreme caution when stepping over logs to avoid interactions with fer-de-lance, Belize’s most dangerous viper.

Belize is home to 62 species of snake, with eight of those being venomous. This fact did not bode well for Kacie who has feared snakes her entire life.

Just two weeks before Kacie left for Belize, “Naked and Afraid” producer Steve Rankin was bit through his hiking boot by a fer-de-lance snake during production in Costa Rica.

That single bite resulted in Rankin nearly losing his foot after the venom melted and rotted his flesh where the viper’s fangs penetrated his arch, leaving his bone and muscles exposed.

Knowing this, Kacie and Aaron took no chances. They slowly made their way to a part of the jungle near fresh water that they could call home, with a full production crew in tow.

The most shooting was done on the first day, but contrary to what skeptics of the show may believe, the production crew in no way picked the location of their camp.

“They did not help us, they did not direct us,” Kacie says. “Each night they would leave and drive an hour and half back into town.”

The first night was hardest for Kacie.

She lay on a stiff shelter made of branches with a blanket of leaves and foliage next to a man whom she did not know in suffocating darkness.

The dense canopy above did not lend them any starlight, and miles away from civilization there was no hope of light pollution.

Their first night in the jungle, they were the spectacle. They were in animal territory, and every creature wanted to have a look at the new invasive species.

Noises came from every direction, but nothing could be seen — not even your hand in front of your face.

Aaron’s experience in creative writing and parental nature began to kick in as he told Kacie fictional stories to distract her from the jungle and lull her to sleep.

“[Aaron] would tell me those stories, and keep me calm all night long by telling me these creative, made up stories and that’s how I fell asleep almost every night,” Kacie says. “He was calm when I was scared.”

The next 19 nights would not be much different: strange noises, darkness and Aaron’s stories.

Most may be able to overcome the lack of sleep, but the true struggle for Kacie and Aaron was their lack of food.

One of the streams near their campsite was home to several schools of minnows, which ended up being their primary source of nourishment over their duration in Belize.

With the bug net Kacie brought as her only survival item, she and Aaron would catch two-inch long silver minnows by the dozen and bring them back to camp. Initially they would cook minnows over the fire, but it required too much energy. Kacie and Aaron began swallowing minnows whole with clean water from a nearby stream

Through all of the adversaries they faced in the jungle, Kacie and Aaron’s companionship became vital to their mental endurance.

“[The cast and crew] wanna see you break down, you don’t really have friends. Aaron was my best friend out there, he’d tell me these amazing stories, and we’d stay positive,” Kacie says.

Talking to one another every day helped keep their minds off of their starving stomachs and homesick hearts.

“Having Kacie there to talk to was monumental,” Aaron says. “…having someone to laugh with and crack jokes with, we did a lot of that, that was huge.”

Aside from their hunger, they still had one large obstacle to overcome together: fighting their way out of the jungle after 21 days of inadequate food and sleep.

Kacie and Aaron fashioned shoes and snake guards for their shins out of palm frond, bug netting and vines.They hiked several hours through unknown parts of the jungle, delirious from lack of sleep and constantly on edge to avoid fer-de-lance snakes.

After arriving to their extraction point on a river bank late in the day, Aaron collapsed from exhaustion and was put on an oxygen tank. This scene was not included in the final cut of their episode.

Kacie felt a rush of emotion as they stepped into the boat to take them down river and out of the jungle.

“That was probably the most amazing thing, sitting in that boat. I just remember feeling like, ‘It’s done.’ I had pushed pause on my emotions, I pushed pause on everything, and I made it,” Kacie says.

When they arrived at the research institute where they would stay before flying out the next day, the crew made Kacie waffles and sausage while she took an hour and half long shower.

After only a few bites she made a crew member drive her over an hour into town so she could call her husband. When he answered the phone, her eyes began to fill immediately with tears..

“I remember telling him ‘I need you to buy mint chocolate chip ice cream, hot fudge and whipped cream,’” Kacie says. “You end up being kind of crazy out there… that’s what I had thought about for the past two weeks.”

As he had promised on the phone, a mint chocolate chip sundae was waiting for her when she returned home.

Welcome Home

Kacie went into the challenge with 12 percent body fat, by day five she had lost it all. Her body had then began breaking down muscle for energy, resulting in a kidney infection that took months to heal.

Every day she was in the jungle, producers called to ensure a helicopter was ready to airlift her out, knowing Kacie would only leave Belize if she completed her challenge, or collapsed from it.

“The producer told me afterwards that they had never thought anyone was actually going to die on the trip until I was on it, because I never complained and that terrified them,” Kacie says.

Kacie runs her fingers over the bump on her hip where the bot fly larvae once grew. The small mark, no larger than a few centimeters, a daily reminder of the challenge she survived.

“I know I can do anything [now]. If I can sit naked out in the woods for 21 days in the rain with a stranger, then I can skate a inline marathon, I can do a 10k run,” Kacie says.