Finally, a Survivor

Lindsay Carmine ’04 has been a diehard fan of Survivor since the reality show premiered on CBS in 2000. As a film studies major at NC State, Carmine would cut out photos of contestants on the show to put on the walls of her apartment on Western Boulevard. She was still in school at NC State when she applied – unsuccessfully – to be a contestant during the show’s second season.

Even as life got busy after college with marriage, nursing school, kids and a career as a pediatric nurse, Carmine never wavered in her love for the show. So when her husband, also an NC State alum, suggested a couple of years ago that she should do something for herself, Carmine knew what she wanted to do.

“I still want to play Survivor,” she thought. “That isn’t a dream that goes away.”

And, this year, Carmine’s dream came true. Nearly two decades after she first applied, Carmine was given the chance to play Survivor. She was one of 18 contestants who flew to the islands of Fiji this year to test themselves at tasks ranging from starting fires to competing in physical challenges. Carmine was initially selected to be on the show last year, but was bumped when she tested positive for COVID 12 hours before she was scheduled to begin her Survivor journey.

“I felt for a year that I had missed my opportunity,” she says.

But Carmine was given another chance, and she found that being on the show was everything she thought it would be during all those years of watching it on television. “I’ve never had more fun in my life,” she says.

For those not familiar with the show, Survivor divides a group of contestants (of varying ages and backgrounds) into tribes, which then must construct their own rudimentary shelters, forage for food, and build fires for warmth and cooking. Tribe members, all strangers coming into the game, form friendships and alliances as they try to figure out who they can and can’t trust. The tribes are pitted against each other in physical and mental challenges, with losing tribes forced to vote one of the contestants off the show.

Carmine, 42, who lives with her husband and two children on 3.5 acres of woodlands on the outskirts of Philadelphia, PA, says she was not daunted by the prospects of living outside on a tropical beach. “For me it was fun,” she says. “I had been dreaming of living off the land since I was a little girl.”

Carmine was surprised, though, by how tough the physical challenges against the other tribes were. “When you’re training for the game, you can’t factor in how tired you will be, how not eating will affect you, how the sun will affect you,” she says.

But there was nothing better than the satisfaction of winning a team challenge. “My favorite moments,” she says, “were hugging my tribe members after wins.”

The most difficult moments for Carmine were the hours after her tribe lost a challenge, leading up to the vote that night that got her booted off the show nine days into the competition. “For nine days, I felt like I could really trust my tribe,” she says. “I wasn’t fighting with anybody.”

Carmine wishes she could have stayed on the show longer, but still says the experience was special. She wasn’t able to “check everything off my Survivor bucket list,” but she did leave with some nice mementos of her experience, including a “tribe map” with specks of Fijian sand on it that she had framed.

She was also able to teach her 11-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter the value of not giving up on the things that you want in life. “If you want something bad enough,” she says, “dreams can come true.”

All photography by Robert Voets/CBS.