Just a Man His Will to Survive

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

BY MICAH DREW

Mike Gabler, a 52-year-old heart valve specialist from Meridian, has been a lifelong fan of the popular game show Survivor—a 43-season-long competition that drops voluntary castaways off on a tropical beach and pits them against the elements and each other. The castaways slowly vote contestants off the island until a sole survivor is chosen. It makes for great television—and comes with a prize of $1 million.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

When Gabler turned 50, he decided it was time to finally audition for his favorite competition.

“Being a survivor out here [in Idaho], like the big bears that live out here, you’ve got to be smart, you’ve got to be opportunistic, you’ve got to get along with the other folks,” Gabler said in his audition tape, which can be viewed on YouTube. “Life is short, and life is now,” he said at the conclusion of the video. “It’s an adventure and I’ll basically hike it, try it, eat it, do it, and at the end of the day, I’ll survive it.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

His audition, and his age, proved intriguing enough for the showrunners and Gabler soon found himself leaving Boise during a spring snowstorm bound for tropical Fiji.

Meridian’s Mike Gabler won the 43rd season of Survivor, which aired last fall. He made quite the impression on his fellow competitors and on viewers when he announced his intention to donate his million-dollar winnings.

Spoiler alert: Gabler, 52, won, becoming the second oldest to win a season of Survivor—and he largely attributes his victory to his age.

“My life experience definitely helped prepare me,” Gabler said. “Whether that experience is that I’ve been a son, a father, I’ve had a career, work in an operating room, deal with high pressure—even being married 30 years, there is lots of experience I didn’t have when I was younger that helped me survive.”

Gabler, a heart valve specialist, is the second oldest winner in the show’s history.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

While watching the show, it might seem that Gabler had a relatively smooth ride through his month-long stint as a castaway—winning challenges, ending up in the majority of all votes, and never having a vote against him—he readily admitted that he struggled in the first few days, even asking his tribemates to vote him out.

“The first week of Survivor is the hardest. It’s the week you show up and all of a sudden the faucet is turned off,” Gabler said. “I went from leaving Boise in a snow flurry to an island with 100 degrees and 90% humidity and no food. I sweat all the salt and minerals out of my body. If that’s not enough, I was sunburned during the day, freezing at night, and had bug bites on my bug bites.”

“It’s like a punch in the face,” he said. “Forget four weeks, it’s how can I make it to tomorrow.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

In addition to the physical adaptations that Gabler had to undergo, he also had to work through mental hurdles, the biggest of which was practicing patience. Ultimately, Survivor is a game and the contestants are playing against each other, not against the elements. Building relationships, scheming betrayals, and crafting a coalition among competitors to keep from being voted out is key, and creates the kind of unscripted drama that has pulled in viewers for more than two decades.

“Trust is the currency in the game of Survivor. If you’re not patient, you’ll lose your ability to gain trust,” Gabler said.

Gabler’s family have been Survivor fans alongside him, always marveling at the organic nature of how each season unfolds and the human elements at play. He characterizes them as “active players” who watch each episode together with the pause button at the ready to stop and debate what course of action they think is about to unfold.

Gabler attributes his success to his breadth of life experience, including 30 years of marriage to wife Joanna.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

It was no different in September, when the 43rd season began airing on CBS. Due to the NDAs required by competitors, only his wife knew the result, so they watched the season as they always did, though the personal tie made for an interesting spectator season.

“It was weird to hit pause when dynamic situations were happening that I was involved in,” Gabler said with a laugh. “Sometimes my daughters would say they’re betting on another castaway right in front of me.”

“Sometimes I’d get all caught up in the stories, just like normal, and I’d forget it was me up there until I’d say something cringe worthy or give a ‘Gabler pep talk,” he added. “The whole experience was really funny, pretty fantastic, and completely surreal.”

Gabler, who dropped considerable weight on the show, is again enjoying the luxuries of modern life.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

Prior to his departure, Gabler spent time talking with his wife and some friends about what he was about to go through. At one point, talk turned to the inevitable: what will you do if you win the million bucks?

“It was very tongue-in-cheek at first, but then we said, ‘Well, what if we donated it to veterans in need,’” Gabler said. “As soon as we said that, it sounded right.”

Gabler’s father was a Green Beret and he has friends who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq—he has seen firsthand the mental health struggles many veterans go through after returning to civilian life. When he reached the latter days of the contest and realized he was nearing a position to win, Gabler threw all his thoughts and strategy behind the idea that his win was bigger than himself.

There were hungry mornings, stressful days, and painful nights on that island when the thought of the people who needed this money—not wanted it, but needed it—that thought got me into another gear.

“There were hungry mornings, stressful days, and painful nights on that island when the thought of the people who needed this money— not wanted it, but needed it—that thought got me into another gear,” he said.

Gabler never announced his intention until after the final vote tallied him the sole survivor, shocking his competitors into an awed silence before bringing on a collective outpouring of emotion over his decision to bring the season to a historical finale.

On an early episode, Gabler beat out 11 other castaways to claim the immunity necklace, recreated here by his daughter. He won favor with viewers with his minute-by-minute dedications to those who had inspired him.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE GABLER

“I was so blessed and grateful to be chosen to go on this adventure,” Gabler said. “But doing it for the right reason, doing it with this idea of donating the money was important.”

When his wife met him at the airport upon his arrival, she was the only one he could disclose the result to.

“She hugged me—it was the first time she could ever fit her arms around me cause I’d lost so much weight, and I said ‘Darling, I won, so I hope you’re okay with what we decided to do with the prize, cause I did it,’” Gabler said. “Survivor is really just the gift that keeps on giving.”