'Naked and Afraid' Premiere Adventure Interrupted by Hurricane Irma

The ninth season of the Discovery Channel's Naked and Afraid got off to a rocky start. Maybe [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

The ninth season of the Discovery Channel's Naked and Afraid got off to a rocky start. Maybe taping the show in Florida during hurricane season was a bad idea.

The episode "Category 5 Survival" first aired on March 11, and starred Duke Brady and Amal Alyassiri, who were dropped off in the Florida swamp to test their survival skills. They never met before they appeared on the show, and first met while they were both naked.

The 34-year-old Alyassiri is the first Muslim participant of the show and a mother of three who lives in Iowa with her three children. Meanwhile, Brady is a 36-year-old wilderness guide from California.

During the first two days of the adventure, they were met with torrential downpours, providing a hint that something big was coming. The two were not aware that Hurricane Irma was moving towards Florida.

Behind-the-scenes, the crew monitored water levels, preparing to cut the adventure short. At one point, Brady tried to redirect the water away from their shelter. Winds began picking up, and he started expressing concern over their safety.

Irma continued to gain strength, and the only road to them became flooded. At one point, the crew had to pull them to safety. Eventually, they were allowed to go back to their shelter. Surprisingly, it mostly survived the storm.

When they got back, Brady said he was a little afraid of the animals being more hostile, especially since their habitats were ruined by the storm. During the middle of the night, Brady tried to scare off a bear!

One of the other scenes after the hurricane showed Brady getting stung by a yellowkacket on his genitals. After he got home, Brady told PEOPLE after the episode was filmed that he first felt a "sharp pain," which became a "dull, throbbing pain."

"It started to swell up, which really freaks you out to see such an important part of your body swollen like that, when you're out there in the wilderness by yourself," the survivalist told the magazine.

According to the "Uncensored" version of the episode, the swelling lasted about 12 hours.

The two also had trouble finding food sources after the hurricane. It reminded Alyassiri of being hungry in a refugee camp in Iraq. Brady was disappointed in himself for his lack of preparation, but he then agreed to eat bugs. Alyassiri refused to eat them though. Eventually, they found a snake, which was good enough to eat.

After that, they needed to navigate five miles to a road, just to get their extraction point. The journey did not have many landmarks to help them out, and there were plenty of dangers along the way. Eventually, they found their way to a point, after spending a half hour in the water.

Alyassiri lost 10 pounds, while Brady lost 26 pounds during the adventure.

Five months have passed since "Category 5 Survival" was filmed. Alyassiri provided a check-in on Twitter, telling viewers, "I still got a few scars here and there, but they're battle wounds so it's okay."

New episodes of the series air on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of