In a terrifying twist of events, an ambulance was called to the House Rules site last week.
While Mat was treated by paramedics for heatstroke and dehydration, New Idea can reveal that Carly was also silently struggling with some major health issues.
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“I actually hurt my back at that reno,” Carly tells New Idea.
“I bulged a disc and I shifted my whole tailbone. I knew I did something to my back, and it wasn’t until I went to a bone therapist and she checked me over I realised how badly I had hurt myself.”
Despite not revealing anything on the hit Channel Seven show, the 31-year-old reveals her injuries were so severe she was forced to consider withdrawing from the competition.
However, the tough mum-of-two explains that there was no way she was going to call it quits. “I still wanted to keep going,” she confesses.
“And the reason behind that is we’d already been away from our daughters for so long, and it’s like, we’ve just got to keep pushing. But we did make a mental note to ourselves and to each other that our want is still being able to come home and pick up our daughters and give them a hug.
“I don’t want to hurt myself so badly that I’m not going to be able to heal.”
The down-to-earth Queenslander jokes that she’s like a Staffordshire bull terrier.
“I’m like a Staffy,” she says.
“We’ve got a Staffy at home and they just keep going. They don’t know when to stop until literally they’re passed out and I think sometimes women and mothers can be the same.
“Even though your body tells you, you need to stop, like Mat that day. That was really hard to see. And I can tell you right now, I honestly had to stop quite a few times because you thought, ‘S–t, I’m going to pass out right now’.”
Carly calls Mat’s shock collapse a “rude awakening” for the rest of the contestants.
“We need to look after ourselves,” Carly says.
“To see Mat like that, it made it feel much more real because you’re living in a bubble and it almost doesn’t feel like reality.
“You’re just concentrating on ticking those things off that list. You’re not thinking about how this could actually affect me tomorrow. And I remember getting out of bed, the next day, and I could barely move.
“It was pretty bad.”
For more, see this week’s New Idea out now
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