Kate Gosselin Relives ‘Special Forces’ Scare With Eye-Opening Third-World Hospital Experience

Kate Gosselin regularly does “storytime” on her TikTok, which is gaining popularity as the reality TV personality shares her personal life. One question many followers ask the former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star involves her time on season 1 of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. In the very first episode of the Fox reality competition series, Gosselin had to withdraw for medical reasons. Sounds straightforward, but the scary experience was anything but easy behind the scenes.

Kate Gosselin’s scary neck injury on ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’

In January 2023, Kate Gosselin appeared on the eagerly anticipated reality TV show Special Forces. Production filmed in the Wadi Rum Desert, a valley situated in southern Jordan near the border of Saudi Arabia. The grueling desert environment created additional strain on the contestants as they competed in quasi-military training challenges.

The first challenge involved jumping approximately 20 feet into a body of water, combining Gosselin’s two major weaknesses. She has a fear of heights and can’t swim. When it was the mother of eight‘s turn to complete the mission, Gosselin was “scared to death,” as she told her TikTok followers.

Gosselin explained that a military instructor told her how to jump properly, which she did not do. “I totally passed out — blacked out on the way down to the water,” the now 50-year-old said in the video. “I don’t remember it; I just remember hearing the bubbles in my ears and resurfacing. So that was really scary. I also remember absolute neck pain as I was surfacing.”

Gosselin injures her neck and enters a local hospital

Gosselin said she realized how badly her neck hurt once she got back to land. She was “very nauseous” but tried to hide it. Cast member Nastia [Liukin] saw her dry heaving as her pain worsened. The former Olympic gymnast told her, “Are you gonna say something to them, because if you don’t, I’m going to.” Gosselin approached the large team of crew members, who weren’t allowed to talk to the cast. They determined that she needed to go to the hospital based on the location of her pain. “Basically, where my spinal cord met the base of my skull. Dangerous.”

Gosselin donned a neck brace and rode in the “tiniest” ambulance over dunes to a nearby hospital where “nobody speaks English.” She said Special Forces sent an interpreter with her. Production had reserved the “royalty wing” of the hospital, which they implied was “pretty nice.” “Oh my gosh, I would have hated to see what the ‘regular’ hospital looked like,” Gosselin said.

The Dancing With the Stars alum said she had “no idea what was going on.” But her interpreter was “amazing” and kept consulting the doctors who spoke a “totally different language” and relaying the info to Gosselin. Throughout the experience, the reality star detailed the “ancient” machine they used to scan her, the vomit in the hallway, and the “very old” hospital beds.

A registered nurse herself, Gosselin got hooked up to an IV. “The nurse knew no English,” she explained. “But [the nurse] must’ve known a few words because all she kept saying was, ‘So dehydrated, so dehydrated.’ And they were like dumping fluid into me.” Gosselin said she received drugs throughout her stay, but didn’t always know what they were giving her. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and didn’t know that Middle Eastern hospitals have no food service. They also don’t provide hospital gowns or clothing for patients.

Gosselin still has neck pain to this day

By the next afternoon, when she was discharged, Gosselin was starving and felt like she’d been there for “48 million hours.” By then, Dr. Drew Pinsky had entered the same hospital due to heat exhaustion. Her castmate had survived the jump but began experiencing concerning symptoms later in the day. Gosselin said she met up with the  addiction medicine specialist immediately after their hospital stay, where they commiserated about the “shock” of being in a “third-world country hospital.” She added that the experience “made me very grateful that we live in America.”

To add insult to injury, Gosselin began developing COVID-19 symptoms on the long flight home. “I’m positive I got it in that hospital,” she said, mentioning that the facility did not use masks during her stay.

Two years removed from Special Forces, Gosselin still feels discomfort. “My neck still bothers me sometimes,” she told People. “It is muscle. I do tend to carry stress in my neck and shoulders. So I do think that that probably was a factor in it, then hitting it smack dab on the water.”