Fan or Favorite, it doesn’t really matter when you can’t walk. The torches were involuntarily snuffed for Jonathan and — for the most part — Chet on a double elimination Thursday. While Jonathan Penner, an alum of Survivor: Cook Island, had to be dragged away from the game with a puss-filled, infected mess of a knee, Chet Welch (left) also couldn’t let his own foot wounds fester any longer. Ewww. Healthier and with some distance, both ousted players talked to PEOPLE.com. – Jonathan Stern
Both of you went home at the same time with injuries. Could you have even stayed if you wanted to?
Jonathan: I told everyone, “I’m not quitting this game.” They told me I could leave on my own two legs or be carried away on a stretcher. I think the doctor regretted she let me stay in as long as she did.
Chet: I was going through the same thing in a much slighter way. The pain in my foot was almost unbearable at times. He needed his leg and I need my foot to play Survivor. If I didn’t get voted off I was going to be pulled that night.
Chet, as a fan of the show who got the chance to play, what was one of the misconceptions you realized you had about the show?
C: When you don’t eat and don’t have the proper shelter and are getting rained on every night, it takes a toll on you. You’re wet for pretty much 39 days.
Food is a huge issue on Survivor. Was anyone squeamish about “fresh” chicken?
J: We couldn’t wait to kill it. If you haven’t had any meat … you boil the whole damn thing. You get the fat and marrow out of that bone, you eat the eyeballs, you eat the comb. It’s life itself you put into your body.
Every Survivor had their weakest link, and the cast of Micronesia thought it was Chet. Did you know they had it in for you?
C: We knew what we were getting into. When you play football you know you have a chance of getting physically hurt. When you play Survivor you have a chance of getting physically and mentally hurt.
If you had to be stuck on that island with only one of your fellow survivors, who would you pick?
J: Chet!
C: That’s right. Jonathan.
Well, one of you is going to have to learn first aid.
C: We learned a lot about medical stuff. Now I can start an IV on Jonathan, and he can start one on me.
Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS
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