Jude Wilken was the third person to leave Survivor SA when she took herself out of the game in Sunday nights Episode 3 after spending the day sleeping under a mosquito net, citing health problems resulting from low blood pressure as the reason she needed to leave.
She said her goodbye's to her Aguila tribe at Tribal Council and just as they thought they were safe from casting a vote they were ignited when Mark them told they had to vote for someone else.
This they did and unanimously voted for Nico, with no explanations whatsoever. Instead of being voted out Nico returned with the tribe and has one vote as a mark against his name for future episodes.
On Monday morning after the show I caught up with Jude to see how well she could negotiate herself out of her quittage:
Tashi: Hey Jude - how are you?
Jude: I’m better now.
Tashi: How long has it taken you to recover?
Jude: It took longer than I thought – probably until the end of July.
Tashi: So how long was that in total?
Jude: About six weeks.
Tashi: Gosh. Your leaving the game was very disappointing firstly because somebody else who entered could have done it instead and stayed in and also you were set up to be a popular and kickbutt contestant. Why did you enter the show if you knew you had a blood pressure problem knowing that Survivor’s all about not eating?
Jude: The thing is it was never a problem for me. I always had low blood pressure but it was explained by my doctor that it’s a healthy condition, healthier than normal blood pressure, I’ve never had problems with it before.
It was also lower than normal because I’m fit and active and that was always the reason I was given about why it was lower than normal. I thought it would help me because I get cold very quickly but heat I can stand.
Tashi: What about the medical checks they do before the show? Didn’t they do them?
Jude: I did the medical checks and I was given up as above average fit.
Tashi: So what actually happened?
Jude: I wasn’t getting enough salt. In my normal diet I don’t go out to make sure that I take enough of this and this and this - I’ve never had an issue with pressure. It was the first time in my life that it became an issue. I didn’t know it was going to drop even lower than what it is, that’s the thing. I thought it would stay how it was, I don’t take supplements, nothing like that.
Tashi: When you left and said your goodbyes did you feel that: “Flip, it’s a pity that I’m doing this when were so many other people who entered?”
Jude: No, I actually didn’t think of that at all. I don’t know if you want to call that selfish but I only thought about the tribe members, that I wasn’t staying in and wouldn’t be the cause of them losing because of me being weaker. I was thinking of Aguila when I left and not about myself or other people who wanted to enter.
Tashi: Did your leaving have anything to do with fearing that you wouldn’t make the long haul for reasons besides your health? What was the emotional impact on you?
Jude: You know, I’ve always finished what I start and to me this was one of my biggest disappointments in life. I always go back and see I started this - whatever project it was - whether it was competing in athletics or whatever the case may be.
I’ve always finished what I’ve started myself without handing it over to someone else to complete so for me to leave the game ... my mind was still strong and tried to convince me to stay but I knew that my body wasn’t responding and that was my biggest concern.
Tashi: When did you feel it starting to happen?
Jude: Just before we had the Reward Challenge where we had that dive for the peg where Sanele won for us. I was supposed to compete that day and then Brigitte came to me and asked if she could go in because she had something to prove to the tribe now that Sam was off.
I said: “Okay, go in and do it,” but I also knew that she was going to be faster than me which is why I let her go. I could feel at that stage already that I was going down.
Tashi: If you were to go back and do it again - would you quit again?
Jude: No definitely not. When I got back and I saw my doctor with it he said to me that I could have drunk some sea water - I had the whole ocean right next to me.
Tashi: Yes! - that’s what I was gonna say you should have done when you said you needed salt.
Jude: If I’d had this condition or problems with it before I would have known what to do to. I had the ocean right next to me, I could have just drank some of that but I didn’t know.
Tashi: If you hadn’t left who would you have voted for at Tribal Council?
Jude: We would have voted for Nico.
Tashi: Now you have to tell us - what is the story with him? The vote for him just came totally out of nowhere. Why does everyone loathe him so much?
Jude: It’s not a question that we didn’t like him. In his interviews you can see that he’s always chirpier than the others, more outspoken if you want to call it that and also he was always giving negative comments.
We would sit by the fire and we would speak about Rana and he would speak negatively about them. About how this girl was taken out of her … he would pick on people and say negative things and when we had a challenge he would question the judges saying things like: “Are you checking Rana because everyone’s just checking Aguila,” and stuff like that.
We were scared we might get disqualified if he carried on like that. On our way back from that Immunity Challenge I heard Mzi and Sanele say that they wanted to vote Nico off because he’s startng to be really negative and was wearing them down - they used different words - and then the word spread because Nico was very self-confident.
He didn’t think that whoever was whispering was whispering about him and you can also see in his voting that he voted for Brigitte, which was our previous weeks plan - that Sam would go first and if Brigitte didn’t pick up the game she would be next, so he still had that plan.
Tashi: Judges at a challenge? Do you mean he asked Mark to check that everything was fair?
Jude: The guy that worked out all the rewards and challenges - he was always present to make sure that the rules were met with and Nico was always questioning this guy saying things like: “Make sure that you also check Rana.” This was during the time when they setting up the game so it was off-camera.
Tashi: We haven’t seen any of that obviously, but what we have seen from Nico is that he's mentioned things in what seems to be a tongue in cheek way when he talks about people. Do you think it could have been him adding to the drama of things and not being totally serious all the time?
Jude: I think that’s his personality. He’s a showman, he’d always make up something to make it more interesting, he’s not a dull type of person. We got along well but the last two days he was starting to be
really negative – probably because of him not having his cigarette’s. He’s a chainsmoker and I think that really got to him, making him irritated quickly.
Tashi: It's interesting you mention that because he hasn’t talked about not smoking and I’ve been wondering about how it's been impacting on his mood. Like whether he’d start smoking the trees or something.
Jude: Hell no, luckily he didn’t try that but he was irritated a lot - in the evenings when he couldn’t sleep and stuff like that.
Tashi: Do you think he should have been voted out immediately instead of being given this second chance?
Jude: No - I didn’t want him to be voted off because then we would have lost two members. Had I stayed he would gone. We would have voted him off but I wouldn’t have wanted Aguila to lose two tribe members in one day, that would have defied the purpose. I wanted to go to have him stay because he was stronger than me.
Tashi: Suddenly there’s all sorts of things that Aguila’s been whispering about - are there any other secret discussions going on that we don’t know about? Is there anything else happening under the surface that we haven’t heard?
Jude: No, I think they kept the bit about Nico silent to have this as a better surprise but next week you’ll understand more of that.
Tashi: Did you fear what was going to happen in the future, once the merge happened and you were solo and needed to turn on each other?
Jude: No I was actually looking forward to it because I knew I was strong and that’s the reason I left when I did. If it were after the merge I would stayed because only I would suffered and it wouldn’t have affected the tribe.
Tashi: Do you feel disappointed in your experience and in yourself?
Jude: No, not really a disappointment in myself but what I do have is a slight - you know anybody who knows anything about blood pressure could have just mentioned the salt. But nobody knew anything about it so no - I went out for the right reason and at that stage nothing was known by me to fix it.
It’s no point going: “I could have, I could have … “ It wasn’t available to me at the time. It's one of my worst disappointments but you get to go on and work through it.
Tashi: Since then what have you been up to?
Jude: I stayed home for about ten days and everything got back to normal and then the show started and people at work started making me crazy asking questions so I took more leave. I’m still on leave and I’m only going to go back next week. Everybody wanted to know: “Who wins?” “Who did this?” “Who did that?” Asking me questions I’m not allowed to answer so it was just easier to stay home.
Tashi: So what’s happening with all the hostage negotiating? Who’s taken over that job?
Jude: No. it’s not a question of anyone taking over. There are five negotiators on stand-by for the same week and I’m on stand-by every second week.
Tashi: This could be a cunning device you have up your sleeve. Whoever’s got hostages will know you’re from Survivor and just go: “Ah! it’s you,” and stop causing trouble.
Jude: Maybe it’s a good thing I went out as early as I did so that after this week of interviews and whatever, hopefully in two weeks it’ll blow over and nobody will remember me any more. Maybe that’ll be a good thing. You don’t want to be negotiated by Jude from Survivor so I’ll probably keep a low profile for a while.
Tashi: It’s like the police woman Amy in Survivor Guatemala who said every time she wanted to arrest criminals they were finished that they knew who she was.
Jude: Ja, I’ll probably just be in an advisor and secondary negotiator for a while.
Tashi: Who's your fave for the win?
Jude: Mzi obviously. We got along very well and I hope he did well.
Tashi: You don't know how he did?
Jude: No I don't even know who got voted off after me. Now I'm a viewer too.
Ends