THOMASTON — To say this season of Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid XL challenged Thomaston resident Charlie Frattini is a tremendous understatement. 

In fact, the experience, which was his third appearance in the Naked and Afraid series, which sends naked survivalists into jungles around the world to test their survival skills in the competitive survive-or-die jungle environment, nearly killed him and forced him to, once again, exit the Discovery Channel show for medical reasons. 

During his time in 2017 on the third season of Naked and Afraid XL, which sends groups of survivalists (compared to only two in the non-XL version) to compete for bragging rights, Frattini exited the competition four hours after starting, a moment he described as embarrassing, when he severed his quadriceps tendon as he twisted his leg on a steep slope in attempt to avoid a swarm of hundreds of ants that attacked him for stepping on their nest. 

The first time Frattini appeared on Naked and Afraid was in 2015 when the show shipped him off to Colombia as a contestant on its show featuring but two competitors. Frattini returned to the series to compete on the “XL” version of the show in 2017 as part of a larger group of competitors competing over a 40-day period in Ecuador’s Amazon basin. 

Following his 2017 injury, he immediately fell to the ground, landing in an ants’ nest and providing the ants the opportunity to attack his entire body. As he attempted to run away, he again fell to the ground within four to five feet, unable to run with a snapped quadriceps tendon. 

His injury, however, did not provide an excuse to forego all that he learned while in the military. 

Frattini refused the production team’s offer to remove him on a stretcher and instead spent the next two days hobbling in intense pain with no painkillers until he was out. 

Doctors operated on him nine days later and again six weeks after the initial procedure. 

With his quick exit, he was determined to return for his shot at redemption — a shot he received in late 2018. 

Frattini returned to the Naked and Afraid XL competition for its fifth season in search of redemption after a way-too-early exit during the show’s third season in 2017.

This season, Frattini nearly made it to the finish before he was forced to medically tap out, a decision Frattini repeatedly insisted was not the result of him not knowing the limits of his body and not the result of him sharing his rations with other contestants. 

Three days before on embarking on a 6.5-mile hike, Frattini noted was not feeling well, but was nowhere near ready to medically exit. 

In fact, to avoid a forced exit, he hid from the show’s doctors who check on contestants’ vitals twice a day by always pretending to be sleeping when the doctors came around in the morning and evening, knowing they would not disturb him if he was asleep. 

During the tail-end of the experience, Frattini would be bitten by a centipede, which resulted in excruciating pain from his fingers to elbow and entire body numbness. 

The excruciating pain, which prevented him from even sitting down, was not enough to force the former marine to tap out, despite being immobile for nine hours. 

On the hike, he became delirious, which many viewers chalked up to him behind dehydrated or pushing his body way past its limits. 

Frattini’s condition became so severe he had no choice but to see the show’s medical team, though he cannot recall actually walking to the medical tent or receiving an IV at the tent. 

Though he cannot recall it, Frattini said he was pleased to see he made it to the medics on his own two feet and not carried. 

“Nobody will ever carry me,” he said. “If I lose a leg, I will limp out.” 

With a heart rate constantly hovering around 130-145, rather than its normal rate of 60, and a fever, the show’s doctors forced him out of the competition. 

Upon his exit, he was transported to a hospital, where he would spend nine days after fainting in the hospital’s bathroom. 

Though he was in a hospital bed for nine days, he has no memory of his first three days and only recalls portions of his fourth day. 

Later, he would learn his medical problems stemmed from a mosquito bite that infected him dengue fever, described by Frattini as an ongoing crisis in the Philippines. 

Frattini had the first of three strains of dengue fever with the first strain, he said, having a mortality rate of 54 percent. 

His heart expanded to twice its size and took over his left lung, making it difficult to breathe, and dropping his blood count extremely low. He also suffered from a double hernia, a parasite living in him, failing kidneys and the onset of stage two heart failure. 

His health was so bad, doctors refused to operate on his double hernia in fear of him experiencing a heart attack on the operating table. Earlier in his life, he had already experienced two heart attacks and doctors feared that a third could be what killed him. 

After finally being cleared to return to Maine, he spent 8-12 hours in a Portland hospital receiving more examinations before swinging by a McDonald’s for his first real meal.  

Now on daily heart medications, Frattini may one day need open heart surgery. 

He spent five months following his hospital discharge to get healthy again and add some weight to his body. 

For awhile, he was not able to exert himself for fear of having a stroke. 

He will spend this year on medications and will be reevaluated in the coming months to determine next steps for his medication. 

Just because he ran into some medical complications does not mean he is slowing down. 

While currently a candidate for a Thomaston select board seat and building the new Rockport Library, Frattini plans to spend the winter working out and possibly doing some mixed martial arts training. 

In the spring, he plans to meet up with fellow Naked and Afraid XL contestant Dustin “Duck” Campbell to ride on the back of an alligator and noodling for catfish. 

If presented the opportunity, Frattini intends on competing once more on Naked and Afraid, in large part because he felt like a 20-something-year-old marine running around the jungle during the show. 

“That was my jungle,” he said. 

In the meantime, however, he is in talks with the Discovery Channel for other shows, possibly to include some new original programming revolving around his life. 

Reach George Harvey at: sports@penbaypilot.com.