'Biggest Loser' contestant claims she died while filming challenge as weight loss show reenters spotlight
A three-part documentary, which premieres on Netflix Friday, covers the inception of the show and the successes contestants had, but also its controversies, like urging contestants to eat less than 1,000 calories a day to lose more weight and bizarre "temptation" challenges with rooms filled with food.
In the trailer for the documentary, contestant Tracey Yukich admits that "being on the 'Biggest Loser' is just like winning the lottery," but she later noted her "organs started shutting down" during the show.
"I don't remember a lot. I remember hearing the helicopter. I just felt like I was floating, and then my grandpa was there. And then I saw darkness. But then I saw light," Yukich said while being interviewed for the Netflix documentary "Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser." "So, I knew. I knew I died that day."
Yukich, who was a contestant on Season 8 of the reality fitness show, had to run a mile on a beach along with all the other contestants for the first challenge of the show. They were told anyone who didn't finish would be eliminated.
As she was running, Yukich's body began to shut down, and she fell to the ground, attempting to crawl toward the finish line. Eventually, her teammates carried her across the line in a show of camaraderie, but people quickly realized she was seriously ill.
"She collapsed right there on the other side of the finish line, and that's when I realized there was a real problem," "The Biggest Loser" host Alison Sweeney said.
Fellow teammate Danny Cahill agreed, saying he "knew something more serious was happening because she was really not responding.
"When the helicopter came, we were all scared to death."
WATCH: Former 'Biggest Loser' contestant says despite suffering heat stroke on first day of the show, it was rewarding
Yukich said when she arrived at the hospital, a doctor told her if her legs didn't drain, they'd have to cut them open to drain them.
"I didn't realize that I had rhabdomyolysis, and rhabdomyolysis is your body's way of saying I'm going to shut down on you," Yukich said. "It started with my liver, then it went to my kidneys and then it goes to your heart. And that's where I almost died."
When the show's medical advisor, Dr. Robert Huizenga, went to see her, he said she was "incredibly ill" and assumed she would go home.
"When I was beginning to wake up in the hospital, I felt dirty. I felt sandy. I could feel the grit in my fingernails," Yukich said.
She said she couldn't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
Huizenga said he told Yukich she was getting better and that she would be going home, "and she was upset. She was angry. She didn't want to go home."
Yukich explained she was in an unhealthy marriage, and infidelity was just a "snippet of it."
"I thought it was my fault because I was fat," she said. "I knew I had to make some changes in my life in order to be the best version of what I wanted out of life. I don't want to be disrespected. I don't want to be yelled at. I don't want to be harmed. I don't want you to tell me what I can do and can't do. I had to put myself first to do that."
Eventually, she decided to stay on the show.
"I needed to change my life," she said. "I just cheated death, completely cheated it. Didn't die. It's on."
Yukich opened up to Fox News Digital about her experience this week.
"As you know, I had a heat stroke the first day I was there," she said. "I was hospitalized for shy of almost four weeks. So, I wasn't there to kind of make those connections with everyone else that they did in the beginning."
She said she felt like a fish out of water when she returned to the show, trying to catch up with everyone else.
"My experience was extremely hard. I wasn't able to do what everyone else was doing, and I really felt isolated when I was there."
But she said the show was rewarding for her because she learned how to feed her body and even how to be a better mom.
"Things that I didn't realize made an impact on them as well because they told me, they're like, 'Mom, if you hadn't done that, we probably would have never learned some of the things that you did teach us about calorie counting and how to care for our bodies and how to exercise better," she said.
"So, my experience was extremely hard. It was very lonely. And I hated every day of it. But, at the same time, I wanted to be there. So, it's hard to explain that aspect of it, but that is the truth. … I hated everything about it, but I wanted to be there."
Cahill told Fox News Digital his experience was "good, bad, ugly, everything."
"It was like life, you know," he explained. "Things come at you from different directions. You don't know exactly what you're going to get into. But I'll tell you what, I didn't know what I was going to get into because the workouts were the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Still to this day, I don't know how I did it."
Still, he called it one of the "highlights" of his life.
WATCH: Former 'Biggest Loser' contestant says the show was real but didn't tell the whole story
Yukich said it was a challenge trying to understand why her body "wasn't working."
"Never been sick like that before," she said. "And realizing like, 'I'm a young woman.' I was only 38 at the time, and I had such an accident and something that almost ended my life. And I (was) constantly, every day trying to fight for my body to work so that I could stay there."
"For me, I would say that what you saw on TV, it was real," Cahill told Fox News Digital. "It was reality. It was real, but there was a lot of drama and a lot of things that were left out."
He said Yukich was misunderstood on the show because little was revealed about what she was going through health-wise.
"And those big weight loss weeks, you're not going to do that at home," he added. "So, you can't think that 'I'm going to do what they did on the "Biggest Loser."' And then, you know, when I got home, I actually found that out. It's harder, especially when you have a job, and you've got kids and you've got all that. That six months and three weeks or however long it was that I was there, all of my priorities were me.
"You just don't get that in real life. But I will say this. The relationships that I formed on the show still thrive today, and I have a new family. And I wouldn't change a thing."
Fox News Digital has reached out to NBC for comment.
"The Biggest Loser" ran for 18 seasons. "Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser" is streaming on Netflix now.
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If you have a story to tell but prefer to stay anonymous, you can check out this anonymous form! Besides, who knows — your comment could be included in a future BuzzFeed article. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Solve the daily Crossword
