New Zealand drag queen Spankie Jackzon had a real flash of mortality as she lay on the sand, surrounded by the Celebrity Treasure Island crew as she clutched her heart.
"I can't breathe," she panted, as medics ran in. Grabbing her heart, she keels over and gasps: "Am I dying?"
The nearly 40-year-old collapsed in the Coromandel on the set of the reality TV show back in March - the event aired on TVNZ this week. She made the tough call to quit the competition in its second week. Jackzon wept as she watched the episode from her home in Feilding.
"It was a horrible, terrifying experience. It was probably one of the first times in my life where it's that mortality flash, I guess. Where you just go, 'What am I doing? Like, is this that?'," Jackzon told RNZ.
She copped the rib injury during a rough game of beach rugby in which she took a shoulder from fellow contestant, JP Foliaki. It was far worse than it looked on screen, she said. And then living the life of an exhausted castaway, surviving on rations and then jumping in to swim in ice cold sea water during a subsequent challenge pushed her body to the limit.
"I might be a 6ft 4 man but like, I'm a delicate peach." Photo: Supplied, TVNZ
"I just could not get the breath in because of the rib... then I just went into full panic attack... I just couldn't breathe and then I went numb and my lips went numb. And my body started going numb.
"My thought process through that whole thing was like, 'Ok, well, if I'm in this position now, what do I look like at the end?'
"I just felt so ashamed, to be fair, that I was leaving in such a way that like I was playing the game really well."
The Ru Paul's Drag Race Down Under 2022 winner was also aware that she had contracts to fulfil, and money to earn. She needed to recover so she could lace her body back into corsets and get back on stage.
Jackzon had to pull out of the show in its second week. But she has no regrets. Photo: Supplied, TVNZ
"I need to be bringing money in so that I can help out where I need to too. And we're in a cost of living crisis... This is my job... What physical position would I end up in?
"I was just like 'I would love to do this for charity, but I just, my body can't take it'."
She headed back to her parents' place in Feilding and had to empty her drag calendar to rest for seven weeks.
"I needed a break too. Like I've been on the road, ever since Drag Race I haven't stopped. So it was also... probably more a warning sign of where my body was. That was kind of what the realisation was for me at that point too.
"I might be a 6ft 4 man but like, I'm a delicate peach."
She forged solid friendships with fellow castaways including Carmel Sepuloni and Wairangi Koopu. Photo: Supplied, TVNZ
She has recently returned to "hardcore" entertaining - that's often performing two drag shows a day, for weeks on end, while touring Australia and New Zealand. Next up the Palmy Drag Fest in early October, before a summer of sets, during which time she will turn 40.
"The break was definitely needed," she said upon reflection, with no regrets.
"But it's all healed now, I'm all back to normal. I'm back to high kicking and flipping... that's the main thing really and just, you know, focusing on being a Christmas tree and spreading joy."