ORLANDO, Fla. – Season 35 of the hit reality show "Survivor" starts Wednesday night, and this year, Central Florida has a local contestant to root for.
Ashley Nolan, 27, a lifeguard for Brevard County Ocean Rescue and a lifelong Satellite Beach resident, is one of the show's newest cast members.
"From March until May basically didn't happen for me," Nolan said. "It was a big chunk of time I was basically non-existent for."
That all changes Wednesday night, though.
Nolan auditioned last year alongside hundreds of others at Port Canaveral during an event hosted by News 6. After a few months, CBS called her, and the next thing she knew, she was on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
When asked how she prepared to be in Fiji without much to eat, Nolan said, "There's probably a lot of good ways going about preparing for that, which I was fully prepared to take on, but as I got closer to leaving, it basically turned into eating everything I saw."
Nolan also developed a new appreciation for home and a new outlook on life.
"This is how some people live, and it's actually quite liberating," said Nolan. "Everything is simplified and what's really important in life is really magnified."
Watch Survivor every Wednesday night on News 6 WKMG.