Simi Valley resident is a true survivor
By Michelle Knight

Bruce Kanegai

Bruce Kanegai voted for Danielle DiLorenzo, but in the end Aras Baskauskas won the $1 million.

These three people may be well-known across the country to avid television viewers of "Survivor: Panama-Exile Island." But in Simi Valley, Bruce Kanegai is a hometown hero.

Besides competing in the latest edition of the "Survivor" reality series-which aired in 14 episodes starting in February and ending May 14-the Simi Valley resident has taught art for nearly 40 years to Simi Valley High students and martial arts to thousands of the area's youth. The sixtime Teacher of the Year holds a fifth-degree black belt in karate.

Even so, the 58-year-old trained for six months before even applying to be on "Survivor."

When they arrived on Pearl Island off the coast of Panama in October, most contestants weren't prepared mentally or physically for the rigors the survivalist show put them through, Kanegai said.

For the first several days they had very little to eat, only a few bites of coconut, he said. Through competitions, they earned items that made life a bit easier-flint and steel to build a fire and decontaminate water for drinking, for example.

When a contestant was banished to Exile Island-Kanegai was sent to the small neighboring island twice-he or she was given only a rusted machete, flint and a bucket of contaminated water.

Kanegai's experience in backwoods backpacking helped him adjust.

"I came in the game with a lot of outdoor wilderness survival training," the Eagle Scout said. During one trip to Exile Island, a storm packing 60 mph winds forced him to perform karate movements for six hours to keep warm and ward off hypothermia.

Living for 39 days in primitive surroundings took its toll, however. Kanegai suffered more than 2,000 bites from fire ants, spiders and mosquitoes. The crab population took a pinch of his flesh as well. He had a dozen cuts, one so deep it went to the bone.

Nonetheless, Kanegai managed to outlast nine competitors despite being the smallest and oldest there.

His true grit was revealed in one episode, when he was hit in the mouth with a machete and lost a tooth. He refused to see a doctor because any assistance would disqualify him. He's used to scars and bleeding wounds, he said.

But it was during the 10th episode that severe constipation cost him not only the competition but nearly his life. After days of being so sick he could hardly walk, he asked for medical treatment and was airlifted to a hospital in Panama City. He was just hours away from death, he said.

Kanegai stuck it out until the pain was unbearable because he felt a responsibility to do his best for the groups he represents- Asian Americans, senior citizens, the city of Simi Valley, the high school and his students.

"I went in there not for the money, but for the challenge itself," Kanegai said. "I wanted to do it for the little guy who always got picked on. So that was a lot on me. That's why I wouldn't give up."

It was nearly two weeks after he arrived home in December that his wife, Nancy, by chance found

Bruce

out about his "Survivor" trip to the emergency room. Kanegai y room. Kanegai didn't want to tell his wife of 28 years because she'd add it to the list of trips she's made to emergency rooms with him.

It was on trip 35, while they waited in a Palm Springs emergency room after Bruce had torn ligaments in his ankle in a minia

ture basketball game at a friend's house, that Nancy began listing them.

"He tends to sort of be accident prone," she said.

The trip to the Panamanian hospital was No. 40.

What's Bruce Kanegai's next adventure? He's writing two books-one on the history of Shotokan Karate of America and the other about his adventures- seemingly sedate undertakings. Nancy Kanegai remains wary, however.

"You'd think golfing on a golf course would be safe, too, and that's where he got bit by a rattlesnake," she said, referring to hospital trip No. 37. "A normal thing could be a problem."

Bruce Kanegai may also try out for the reality-based television show "The Amazing Race." Could ER trip 41 be on the horizon?