For immediate release: September 19, 2003
For more information, contact Susan Griffith at 216-368-1004 or susan.griffith@case.edu

CLEVELAND—If the new orthodontic student at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry looks familiar, chances are he is. Jed Hildebrand was a cast member from the CBS Survivor Thailand show.

As 22 million viewers watched, Hildebrand (a member of the Sook Jai team) battled team Chuay Gahn through temperatures of 112 degrees, extreme humidity, mosquitoes, snakes, foodless days, rainy nights and other dangerous island encounters.

photo by Susan Griffith Jed Hildebrand

It was a year ago, when the senior-year dental student from Baylor University took an unexpected and sudden leave of absence for two months "to travel and do mission work" and disappeared from his hometown of Dallas, Texas, to fly thousands of miles away and be dropped off on a remote island in Southeast Asia where he competed against 15 other individuals for a $1 million prize.

Hildebrand is no stranger to the outdoors and is an avid outdoorsman, with spending summers as an adventure tour guide in Maui. He also was no stranger to Thailand either. He comes from a family of dentists (father and two brothers) and following the example of his father, who visits Romania and other countries on dental missions, Hildebrand and his brother Sloan had visited orphanages and children's hospitals in Cambodia, Thailand and India for a month to do lifesaving work on children in refugee camps who had never gone to a dentist.

Upon his return from filming the show, friends may have pumped him with questions as to why his hair was longer, where he had gone and why he had grown a beard-and needed to clean up a bit. But he stayed tight lipped. Answers came shortly before Survivor started its new 2002 season and announced its cast in newspapers and on television. Within 30 minutes of the announcement, Hildebrand's friends filled his answering machine and e-mail with congratulatory messages and the all-important question, "Who won?'

While filming Survivor, Hildebrand's oldest brother, who is in the orthodontic field, helped narrow down the list of graduate dental programs and highly recommended Case. He said Case became his number one match choice, because of the clinical experience associated with the orthodontic program.

When the show aired it premiere, 1,000 people from his past-from preschool through dental school-filled a Dallas movie theater to see the first Survivor V episode.

Six months before the show aired and three days before the audition deadline, Hildebrand's friends encouraged him to apply. He did, and CBS invited him as one of the 80 hopefuls from 100,000 applicants to come to Los Angeles for two weeks of interviews and psychological and personality tests. While in the hotel, he saw future cast members but was not allowed to speak to anyone but the CBS crew.

After being notified that he was selected, Hildebrand and his parents signed $5 million confidentiality agreements, and then he had a month to organize his life.

photo courtesy of Jed Hildebrand Jed Hildebrand had visited orphanages and children's hospitals in Cambodia, Thailand and India for a month to help children in refugee camps who had never gone to a dentist.

For his 40-night stay on the island, he was allowed one bag with a change of clothing, a canteen of water and one personal item. He selected a Frisbee inscribed with 25 Biblical verses to inspire him and his teammates through the rough times ahead.

"My goal was to be myself," said Hildebrand, adding he did not want to come home and have the reputation for the rest of his life as "the dentist who was deceitful on Survivor."

The first night on the island, he put his camping skills to use and got the fire started and later restarted it when rains dowsed it. He also was the one of the few cast members to find food, but the eight crabs was little fare for the hungry team that off camera began literally dropping from lack of energy. He also single-handedly won the team immunity in the first two challenges, but his strength may have been his downfall as his team voted him off in the third segment as the team eliminated the strongest players at first.

"What surprised me was the extent of the hunger that we were having after a few days. There was no food and by the third day people were fainting. You would try to stand up and would instantly blackout and fall down," he explained. He added that pictures of that never made it on the air.

He also said the confined camp, which was on about one acre of land, began to feel like a jail sentence after a while.

"But this is what makes the show," he continued, "Everyone is irritable and edgy because they are tired and hungry and have low energy. As the show goes on, it became harder to put up a front, and it was easier for your inner dialogue to let go."

He pointed out how the second cast member voted off lost 16 pounds in six days. One of the final survivors lost 42 pounds.

But nine days without food was enough time, according to Hildebrand, to understand hunger. It was also long enough to understand the challenges of the psychology of being thrown into a group of strangers for this "intense slice of life" and how he discovered how he would react under the 24-hour scrutiny of the television camera. The Survivor crew taped 72 hours for each segment of approximately 20 minutes of air time for each team.

Hildebrand said the Survivor experience has been life changing. While he did not win $1 million, he gained respect for his television behavior and has been a sought-after speaker for church groups and school children. Around Dallas, he is a celebrity, and on a recent vacation to Mexico, 40 people lined up to get their photo taken with him.

He added that he appreciates all the things that he has in life and now can understand how can slightly relate to the thousands of children he saw during his missionary work, who have suffered from hunger, thirst and lack of shelter.

Would he do it again? Hildebrand said it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he would be ready to go again.

–Case–

 

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