Survivor star’s shock: I’ve lost the most important woman in my life
Australian Survivor All Stars contestant Lee Carseldine has spoken out about the shock loss of the woman he loved most in the world, and the devastating way he received the news.
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LEE Carseldine can survive just about anything.
Weeks spent on an isolated island living in brutal conditions with a lack of food, sleep and shelter.
The toughest of physical and mental challenges testing him in the most hellish of ways.
He’s staged miraculous comebacks despite a broken body weakened by injuries and crippled by potentially deadly infections.
All of it, the former Queensland Bulls cricketer, 44, has survived.
But it was the news of his beloved mother’s sudden death that brought the strong man to his knees.
Of all the things that could happen to him while he was in the jungle, 34 days into the game of Australian Survivor: All Stars, this was the cruellest. Having a producer hand him a phone with a call from home to say his mum, Beth, 77, had suffered a catastrophic stroke.
Cameras filming. No family to hold close. No easy way home. No strength left to cope.
Carseldine best tells the crushing heartbreak that led to his shock exit from the show in a diary he wrote in the days following his mum’s death in September last year.
He’d never been much of a writer before but with no one to talk to, the only way to cope was to put his emotions on paper.
“I get pulled over from field producer, Josh, he says it’s a call from home,” he writes.
“He hands me the phone … My sister, Rachel, is on the line. Hysterical. She can barely get any words out but all I hear is ‘mum’ and ‘hospital’. She passes the phone to a doctor … all I can filter out of the information she is telling me (is) ‘massive stroke’.
Mum’s life, my Survivor campaign, me being a son to an amazing mum. Everything was about to end. In the blink of an eye.”
Five months on from his mother’s death, with Survivor filming late last year, Carseldine lived through the tragedy again on Monday night when the episode went to air.
As Carseldine talks to U on Sunday at his home in Greenslopes, in Brisbane’s south, he’s a man still grappling with grief. He’s also still, quite visibly, picking up the pieces from what he describes as the most challenging year of his life.
A nightmare 12 months in which he endured a public relationship breakdown, the loss of his mother and shocking health battles when a horror infection took hold.
Holding on to his sons, Jake, 14, and Sam, 12, closer than ever, Carseldine’s mind settles on a question: How did he survive?
Everything began unravelling in March last year when his relationship with fellow Survivor contestant El Rowland broke down.
The pair met as competitors on the 2016 Australian Survivor, in which Carseldine came runner-up, and were together for three years before they called it quits.
“There were cracks, we started drifting apart from each other, it was also the first relationship we’d both had that was public, that was tough to manage as well,” says Carseldine, opening up publicly for the first time on their split.
“Like any break-up, it’s emotional … that was probably part of the reason 2019 was such a big year.”
It came months after Beth was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in January last year, a cruel condition that would slowly take her mobility and freedom but she was determined to beat it. She had to – she was the family’s strength and the primary carer for Carseldine’s dad Stu, 77, who suffered a stroke 13 years ago leaving him with speech and cognitive delays.
Stu needed her, they all needed her.
All Stars was Carseldine’s chance not only to rebuild his own life but help his parents.
He wanted to win the $500,000 prizemoney to contribute to their rising medical bills.
Weeks into the game, having made the top 10, he was in with a chance of taking home what he came for. Until everything came crashing down.
It was Carseldine’s 34th day on the island and he’d just returned to camp after losing a reward challenge, stripping him of the heavenly chance to eat burgers – his first proper meal in almost five weeks.
He’s a shadow of his former fit and healthy self, shedding 11kg from the brutal Survivor diet; two bowls of rice a day, a few rations of beans and the occasional coconut or pawpaw.
He’s barely slept, maybe three hours a night at best, with a bamboo mat to sleep on top-to-tail with the rest of the tribe.
But most nights, he’s been sitting on the beach. Lying down is uncomfortable after he hurt his shoulder in an early gladiator-like challenge. But for now, he’s coping.
He’s also coping with an infected spider bite on his leg. With no soap or shampoo, they’re all filthy. The constant exposure to dirt, mud and murky water is making the infection on his shin worse, his leg is ballooning. But in All Stars, the stakes are high and the game is harder than ever.
He’s not about to give in.
He’s up against the fiercest competitors from past seasons and even if his body is breaking, he’s not willing to show weakness.
He’s watched 14 of the strongest threats be brutally picked off and strategically voted out before him. As a popular player dominating challenges, he could win this game.
As he settles back into camp in the late afternoon and lets those thoughts swirl around his mind, his focus suddenly snaps to the producers. They’re normally invisible. But now they’re passing him a phone with devastating news from home.
On an island far from home, Carseldine says he’d never felt more alone.
He asked the producers to grab the man he was closest to on the island, Toowoomba farmer Mark “Tarzan” Herlaar, hoping for comfort.
“I don’t think I actually got any words out, I just sunk into his big barrel chest and cried and cried and cried,” says Carseldine softly, as he recalls the memory. “At this stage mum hadn’t passed but it looked like she wasn’t going to make it.
“I walked into the campsite and everyone was in tears. I told them what had happened, that I had to go, I had to get out of there and I had to go straight away.”
He’s pulled out of the game, hoping he can make it home to say his final goodbyes to mum. But tragically, an hour later, Carseldine received a call from his cousin, saying his mum had died. He was too late.
“I have no mum and nothing I do will ever bring her back.”
Among the most honest and harrowing emotions he details in his diary is the moment he speaks to his dad over Facetime at the airport on his long journey home.
“No one likes seeing their dad cry, it makes a son feel helpless,” he writes.
“But as dad shows me a picture of him holding mum’s hand in her last moments, the colour of their skin clearly defines the difference between life and death.
He breaks down again uncontrollably … I worry for dad.”
In a cruel twist, the blows kept coming for Carseldine as his body began to shut down.
Instead of going to see his family on the Sunshine Coast as soon as he arrived home, he was forced to spend the next week in hospital after his infected leg turned into an aggressive Group A Strep infection.
Doctors told him if it got any worse, he not only had a chance of losing his leg but his life.
Alone in a hospital bed, Carseldine’s mind dipped into a dangerous darkness.
He was also dealing with the complexities of being thrown back into everyday life after living almost in isolation for weeks and being told he would need a shoulder reconstruction.
In the kitchen of his home, Carseldine is still recovering from his horror year.
But as he makes a coffee while his dad, who is staying a few days, potters around him, it’s clear the family bond is how he’s managed to survive.
“Our family rallied together and (I) had so much support, it was amazing,” he smiles.
“It was just about trying to get through each day.” And those days can be chaotic.
Between dad duties, he’s presenting on Seven’s Queensland Weekender and is busy with his drone business, Droneit, which he launched in 2014.
A large noticeboard covers the kitchen wall, and on it are the comings and goings of their busy household; sports trainings, events, travel plans.
As he shares custody of his boys 50/50 with their mother and his ex-wife, Tanya, Carseldine charges through life at a hectic pace.
Right now, he’s got a small window of down time before he picks the kids up from school and launches into dad mode.
But the love that comes with being a father – and a son himself – is what has helped him cope.
Stu flashes his son a warm smile and looks down at the inside of his wrist.
Inked on his skin in cursive writing is “Beth” with a small red love heart. His first (and only) tattoo at 77.
It’s his way of making sure she’s always with him, but inside Carseldine’s home those reminders are everywhere.
Family photos are dotted around the living room, the faces of Carseldine and sister Rachel smile widely next to their parents and a large painted portrait of Beth and a previous family dog, Phoebe, lines a nearby wall.
“That was painted a while ago now,” smiles Carseldine.
“It’s such a beautiful picture of her, isn’t it?”
He’s right, it is. Pearl earrings, perfect bouncy hair and a smile that fills you with warmth. And it’s that warmth and comfort Carseldine misses the most.
Growing up on the Sunshine Coast, Carseldine was always a sporty kid. Sport was his life and it continued to be as he went on to play cricket with the Queensland Bulls for 13 years.
It was a remarkable career which ended when he retired in 2011. Across the decade, he proved his strength and became one of the toughest cricketers Queensland has ever seen.
With a career peppered with injuries, he endured several back operations, and spinal fusion surgery in 2005, which resulted in complications. He was left with potentially deadly bouts of septicaemia and golden staph.
It could have been career-ending but Carseldine staged an incredible comeback and in the 2008-09 season, went on to top Australia’s domestic Twenty20 run charts.
By his side, helping him through it all, was his mum.
The woman he loved riding his bike next to as she went on afternoon walks around the neighbourhood. The woman who let him dream big. The woman he’d chat endlessly to about life and faith. The woman he misses everyday.
“She had such a love for people and was so generous,” says Carseldine with a smile.
“Being positive and checking in with people who are struggling, that was a huge characteristic of mum.
“Her giving nature is something I want to continue.”
And he is, on a grand scale.
This week, alongside his Survivor mates, Carseldine launched the towel challenge, to raise money and awareness for The Stroke Foundation.
The campaign, an initiative of Carseldine and fellow Survivor contestant David Genat, encourages everyone to grab a towel, wrap it around you, take a picture and post it in black and white to social media using #towelchallenge. Much like the viral Ice Bucket Challenge, it’s a novelty act with a strong message and he’s hoping it will gain traction.
“Close to half a million people have been affected by stroke who live in Australia,” says Carseldine, who will also feature alongside Survivor contestants and stroke victims in a towel challenge-inspired calendar to raise funds for the foundation.
“I know now with our towel challenge, it is something tragic I can turn into something positive.
“The fact I have something to talk about that’s moving forward helps me talk about mum.
Hopefully we can make a big impact and touch some lives.”
Carseldine knows his mum, who always wanted to start her own charity, is no longer here to make people smile, as she so often did.
Nor is she here to help fight for causes in a bid to make the world a better place. But her son, a tough survivor, will be.
Show your support at towelchallenge.org.au
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