The two-hour Survivor 48 premiere was filled with drama. Drama over a mysterious cryptogram puzzle. Drama over how long someone should spend looking at the stars. And drama over throwing someone’s name out to the wrong person. But there was also some drama that occurred just minutes into the game that did not make it to air.

During the opening marooning challenge, viewers saw Kevin Leung injure his shoulder going under a muddy net, but what actually transpired was much more involved than what aired on TV. Entertainment Weekly was on location in Fiji for filming when the injury went down and watched it happen up close, and that injury was a painful separated shoulder.

Kevin was in so much agony that the challenge had to be stopped by host Jeff Probst, who brought in the medical team to pop his shoulder back in place in a scene eerily reminiscent of what happened to Stephenie LaGrossa doing the opening marooning challenge of Heroes vs. Villains, which I captured at the time on location in Samoa (see video below).

EW spoke to Probst in Fiji right after the first Tribal Council about Kevin’s injury and the stop in play. “What’s interesting about Survivor is it’s so unpredictable that you can’t worry about trying to predict it,” Probst says. “So I don’t ever even think there might be an injury. It never occurs to me, but in the back of my mind, I’m aware there could be an injury at any given moment.”

For Probst, it was another example of how he has to keep track of multiple moving parts while calling a challenge. “Kevin kind of surprised me because I happened to be standing near him when he suddenly said, ‘I’m in pain, I’m in pain.’ And I said, ‘Can you hang a second? Can you wait a second? ‘And he said ‘No.’ I was like, ‘Okay, so he’s really in pain,”.’

In that moment, there was a cloud of tension and uncertainty as players were told to stop competing and Kevin’s fate in the game hung in the balance. “I slid the other players out of the way, called Dr. Will in, and at that point now you just lean in and go, ‘What’s happening?’ Because at that point you don’t know. Is this a serious injury that might result in him being pulled out, like Matthew had to be pulled out a couple of seasons ago, or is this something you can fix quickly like we did with Stephenie LaGrossa?”

Fortunately, it was the latter. (Check out my premiere recap for a full account of how the medical intervention went down.) Not only did the host learn something new about Kevin’s resilience in finishing his leg of the competition with a separated shoulder, but he also learned about a little something in the medical field as well. “I learned that Dr. Will had a thing called the green whistle,” Probst says. “I’d never heard of a green whistle, and I’ll be completely honest. When he said, I’m going to give him the green whistle, I said, ‘Hang on, what is the green whistle?'”

So what is the green whistle?  “He explained that ‘It’s just a temporary pain reliever so I can do something that’s going to be very uncomfortable without him feeling it.’ I thought, ‘that’s why Dr. Will is here.’ It worked! He gave it to Kevin, took a nice deep inhale, and then he quickly popped it in without even really giving Kevin much warning and Kevin went, ‘Oh, instant relief!’ And he appears to be fine. I mean, today’s immunity challenge was really physical and Kevin was right there.”

While the medical intervention was teased in the Survivor 48 teaser video, it did not end up making the final episode, so we checked back in with the Hostmatser General to find out why. “Kevin had a shoulder injury that was severe enough that we had to call in medical,” he says. “We stopped down the challenge. They said he was fine to carry on. It did hurt, and I think it limited him in the challenge, and we fully intended to put it into the episode, which is why we put it in the promo in the first place.”

So why did it not end up in the premiere? It turns out like pretty much everything that ends up on the cutting room floor, it just came down to a matter of time. “This first episode is so packed that our very first cut was very long, and you have to get Survivor to time. And so you start asking yourself a series of questions, and the first one is: What can we cut that does not impact the vote? And that’s where your most painful cuts are going to come, but you have to be able to make them. And ultimately, Kevin’s injury didn’t directly impact the Tribal. If Kevin’s voted out, it’s not because of his shoulder. It wasn’t serious enough to impact him that way. So that’s why we removed that scene.”

If anything, the fact that the dramatic medical intervention did not make the final cut bodes well for the chances that Kevin’s shoulder will not continue to be an issue moving forward in the game. “In Kevin’s case, he did recover pretty quickly. I’m not saying it wasn’t bothering him, but it was not so severe. We’ve seen in seasons past where you think the player is now not able to help their tribe, but this was more of an annoyance. So the decision to pull it came from the fact that yes, it’s dramatic and it speaks to how intense Survivor is, but in terms of everything else that was happening, it was not that impactful.”

Check out the rest of our post-Tribal conversation with Probst below, where the host weighs in on the Sai vs Steph drama, Kyle breaking the water jug, if Lagi will continue to dominate in challenges, and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Okay, you just finished filming your first Tribal Council for Survivor 48. What did you see in there?

JEFF PROBST: I saw a really confident group of people, great talkers, clearly great game players, and I got to admit — I was pretty engaged. You always kind of have a sense after the first episode, after you’ve spent a little bit of time with all 18 players. Every season is completely different, but this one feels like it’s going to be kind of sparkly and fun, and I think probably some big gameplay down the line.

Why is Stephanie out of the game?

I think Stephanie’s out of the game because weirdly, going back to what I said in the marooning, you have a decision to make when you hit the sand. You either commit and attack, or you hesitate because you want to get a lay of the land, but if you hesitate, you do risk getting left behind. I think Stephanie got left behind. My guess is everybody else was popping around and talking, and she was evaluating and doing astrology and thinking about maybe a bigger-picture look, and the game evaporated in front of her.

You got a little spice there between Stephanie and Sai in terms of philosophies, but it seemed to get a little personal — not mean, but a little personal. What did you make of that interaction?

I love how direct Sai was. I don’t know how it will bode for her in the game. We’ll see. But the fact that she didn’t hesitate to say, “If you’re out here looking at the stars, you’re looking at the wrong thing” — that’s a bold statement when there are so many other people who might be out here for lots of reasons, and I think that indicates that Sai does not pull any punches. She’s going to play the game on her terms.

People have done that and won, and people have done that and annoyed people and gotten voted out. I love Sai. I loved having her at Tribal tonight. She doesn’t hesitate. She’s a really great talker. She explains her thoughts really well. I liked it, and I thought it was interesting that three days in, two players are already going at it and it’s a philosophical discussion about how to play Survivor. We’re in our 48th season and we’re still having players debate how to play!

I don’t know if you caught it or not because you were dealing with snuffing Stephanie’s torch, but Sai shot Mary an absolute dagger over her vote.

She now knows “Somebody voted for me. It couldn’t have been Stephanie because she played the Shot in the Dark. The only person I didn’t talk to was Mary, but I thought we were on the same page.” So I think Mary is now struggling back at camp, most likely trying to figure out how to get out from under this group of four that she’s on the outside of. So I think Sai’s reaction — that’s just Sai having a big reaction to getting a vote. I think the bigger story is, now, what does Mary do? Because she’s the one who should have the reaction. She’s the one who was on the outside.

What’s your sense on this tribe? Are they in trouble?

I think it’s too early to tell because Cedrek is really sharp. I think Justin seems to have a really good vibe about him. Kevin is an energetic. Sai is a powerhouse. Mary, we don’t know yet. So I think it’s too early to tell, as getting rid of one person can change the entire dynamic and I’ve only been out here as long as you and I don’t have all the insight to everything that’s happened. But if Stephanie was an outsider and wasn’t gelling, then getting rid of her might allow this group of five to play the kind of game they want to play. And sometimes that’s all it takes.

What do you make of the situation with Kyle getting disqualified in the fight for supplies challenge?

It was interesting that the two guys who thought they’d screwed up in the challenge volunteered to go do this additional challenge. And the rationale was: We want to make it up to the tribe. And I’m still trying to figure out what that means. You’re the two people who you said just cost your tribe and now you’re going to go out and try to do something else for your tribe? So their logic was interesting to me.

What I really love about the whole event is it was designed and produced so well that you had a great showdown at the end. Either guy could have won, and then Kyle showed some character by being a little overzealous, he played a little too hard, he got a little sloppy, and he broke the challenge, therefore ending the challenge. But what I loved about the ending was this is the mark of a good player. Kyle immediately realized, “Okay, I’m not going to get the tribe supplies. What can I get out of this? Maybe a relationship?”

And so he immediately said to Kevin, “Let me help you finish. You’ve already won, but you have to finish. Let me just help you with some of the labor. In that moment, I think Kyle realized: I wanted to win the tribe supplies. I didn’t, but here’s my new opportunity — bonding. That’s how you got to play Survivor. There’s opportunity everywhere if you can just stay open to seeing it in a new light.

Lagi dominated in both challenges. Is that just coincidence, luck, or are they a force?

Here’s the thing, Dalton: When you try to divide the tribes, we spend so much time, we look at physical strength, IQ, how are they at puzzles? What was their swimming test like? What’s their personality? And it really is literally 18 players on a table and you start sliding them around. You go, “Well, what if we put her and him, and him and her, but then that’s a lot of big IQs. Okay, let’s put her over here.” And you do this math and then you get out here and you see what you got because you can’t tell.

I’ll give you a perfect example. I didn’t think Thomas would be as physically dominating as he is. I misread that, and when he hears this, he’ll probably go, “Oh, you underestimated me.” And he’s right! So even me, who has spent a lot of time with these people, we see him in the challenge and it’s like, “Okay, so he’s strong, and you got Joe who’s strong, so they’ve got a couple of strong guys.” But Survivor is more than just strength. This challenge for immunity, the puzzle, ended up being what sent the tribe to Tribal.

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