Steven Kelly went through a “crazy, crazy experience”
Steven Kelly from Bootle(Image: © 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.)
A Bootle man has put his survival skills to the ultimate test – spending more than a month in the South African wilderness while dodging lions and snakes.
Steven Kelly is set to appear on Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse, a new spin-off of the hit Discovery Channel series Naked and Afraid, airing Thursday at 9pm. The show drops 12 veteran survivalists into a scorched, post-apocalyptic landscape where they must scavenge for food, water and shelter with nothing but their wits.
Steven, who serves in 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery and specialises in survival, bushcraft and navigation, told the ECHO: “I’m absolutely buzzing. Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse is a once-in-a-lifetime spin-off that no one’s done before. They got 12 survivalists from all over the world, and I was one of them.
“They dropped us off in an area of South Africa which had been abandoned by people for years. We had no food, no clothes, no water, no shoes. We had to use wreckage and whatever we found to survive for 35 days.”
Steven standing in front of a shelter in makeshift clothes, while holding a knife(Image: © 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. )
The gruelling experience saw Steven face some of the most extreme conditions of his life. He said: “It was hard work, in a dry, desolate, apocalyptic area. The thorns were relentless. We got chased by lions and came across black mamba snakes, which can kill you.
“At one point, I was living off dung beetles – going through elephant poo and eating them.”
He added: “I’m really proud to be the only Brit to take on this challenge.”
Steven admitted even his loved ones thought he was mad to take part. He laughed: “Everyone thinks I’m crazy. My wife thinks I’m an absolute lunatic, but she’s proud of me. My work is proud too – it’s about showing what the Brits can do, showing these Americans what we’re made of.”
He revealed he had to bulk up before flying out: “I put on about 40lbs before I went in. I lost a lot of it during the challenge. It was just a crazy, crazy experience.”
Despite the harsh conditions, Steven says the positives outweighed the negatives. “The best thing was learning I had the mindset to get through something like that, and push myself to the limit.
“The worst thing was definitely the food. The whole area was desolate, it was burnt down, humans hadn’t lived there for years – sourcing food was really hard.”
Steven featured in the main series of Naked and Afraid earlier this year, where he was dropped naked into the Colombian jungle without any clothes and only a knife.
Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse airs on the Discovery Channel at 9pm this Thursday (October 2).