Discovery's hit Naked and Afraid pushes survivalists to their limits as they try and endure the elements in some of the most brutal places on the planet with very limited resources to help them build shelters, hunt/gather food, and find clean drinking water. And in the case of 31-year-old EMT and Naked and Afraid all-star Dani Beau, she also had to endure bullet ants during her latest venture on the series, and her description of the pain may discourage others from heading into bullet ant territory. Especially naked!
Dani Beau stripped down and headed to the Ecuador rainforest in the Season 13 premiere of Naked and Afraid on Discovery, partnered with fellow Naked and Afraid veteran Fernando Calderon, a 40-year-old firefighter. Despite their previous experience with all things Naked and Afraid, bullet ants were something that they just weren't able to avoid. Beau explained the sensation of being bitten by bullet ants, saying:
It seriously feels like someone took a wide gauge needle and just shoved it through your bone. How can something so small hurt so bad?
Between Dani Beau and Fernando Calderon, Beau was the first one to be bitten by ants in Ecuador, and it unfortunately happened on the bottom of her foot. Appearing on Naked and Afraid of course means no shoes just as much as it means no shirts or pants, so there were limited ways for her to get any relief for the pain. Considering the size of ants, the comparison to a "wide gauge needle" is enough to keep me away from any and all bullet ant habitats for the foreseeable future!
And Dani Beau didn't just stop at the needle comparison when it comes to explaining how it feels to be bitten by bullet ants. If anything, she just got more descriptive as she went on about the sensation, and the gist is that it feels very, very, very bad. Beau said:
I’m not gonna be able to sleep if this is what it’s gonna feel like the whole night. It feels like someone took a hammer and smashed my left foot into a thousand pieces, and then I stepped on charcoal.
The good news is that Dani Beau didn't give up because of the pain, and instead went about fashioning herself a pair of shoes with what she could use around her that wouldn't make her situation worse. That was all well and good for her, but Fernando Calderon wasn't able to avoid getting a bite of his own.
Dani Beau's Naked and Afraid partner sustained a bite from a bullet ant on his hand, with Fernando Calderon describing it as "pulsating" and "hurts like hell" when it became so swollen that he could hardly even bend it. Still, Beau and Calderon haven't become Naked and Afraid all-stars because they give up just when things get uncomfortable, even if the bites just made everything worse than they anticipated.
Not only did the partners last 21 days in the rainforest, but they made the journey to the extraction point, and I can only imagine went home to shower, eat, drink, and avoid anything creepy and crawly that might take a bite out of their exposed flesh. Now I just wonder if the ant bites were enough to discourage Dani Beau and Fernando Calderon from ever returning to Naked and Afraid on Discovery again.
