Hallettsville native wins half million dollars on “Outlast”

Two Texas boys, including one from Hallettsville, each won a whopping $500,000 on the “Survivor-esque” Netflix show “Outlast.” Hallettsville native Drew Haas and Midland native Drake Vilem took home the money by enduring a month long stay in the Alaskan rainforest.

“Outlast” is a show which tests its players survival instincts. 16 survivalists compete for a chance to win a massive cash prize of $1 million. Each of these individuals must be a part of a team to win. These players are not allowed to play the game on their own. Players can leave the game by firing a flare gun. Haas and Vilem’s appearance are on season two of the show.

“The show actually came across my plate last year in April and I went through a five-month casting process,” Haas said. “It started out with a few interviews, and I had to send in a lot of videos of some of the outdoor and survival stuff I knew how to do. Then, I moved on to the next few rounds of interviews and after that it started getting serious. I had to go and get a pulmonary test, an EKG done on my heart, a blood test and physical, and a 600-question personality test and psych evaluation.”

Haas had to do a lot of preparation to be on this show.

“I stopped working two months before we went out there to prepare for this,” Haas said. “I watched the first season at least three times to see which kind of supplies they used. One of the main things that I did is I went and bought a recurve bow. I’ve been a compound bow hunter my whole life and I knew that we would have a recurve bow. I tracked it in my phone, and I shot it 2,225 times a month before we left. I shot it so many times that I was having fluid in my ears from drawing back the bow so much and I had so much tension in my neck. I also bought a slingshot and shot that over a thousand times. I started pounding ice cream and anything else I could eat while still trying to eat slightly clean before I left. I didn’t want all the processed foods to affect my state of mind.”

Haas and Vilem were a part of one of four teams that were competing for the cash prize. They had three other players on their team but were the last standing as the other players on their team flared out of the game before making it to the final challenge. Haas had the opportunity to handpick his team firsthand.

“When they put us on that boat ride to get to the rainforest, we weren’t allowed to talk to each other and you had to judge people off their looks which was kind of hard,” Haas said. “I saw Drake in the back of the boat, I couldn’t tell how big he was, but he had that ‘dog’ look in his eyes. He was also being silly, and dancing and I thought that was pretty funny. I knew I wanted to pick that guy on my team. When we grabbed the hatchet to choose teams, before I even knew where he was from, I decided I was going to pick him first.”

“One of the key factors in our success as a team was positivity from the get-go. If somebody would say, ‘if we win,’ I would correct them and say, ‘when we win.’ I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the comradery of Drake there with me. I got along really well with everybody on our team, but Drake and I had a special bond, and it got us through a lot.”

The four teams on the show were teams “Alpha,” “Bravo,” “Delta,” and “Charlie.” Drake and Drew were part of “Team Bravo” alongside Sammy Norris and Emily Johnston. Another player from “Team Charlie,” Bri Walston, later joined “Team Bravo” nearly midway through the game.

“Bri really pulled her weight,” Haas said. “We found out that “Alpha” had flared out a second person which meant that they were down to two people, and we didn’t want to make their team any stronger by sending Bri there after we saw how much of an asset she was.”

Each team member on “Bravo” had to make major contributions for their survival.

“The days were very short there and the nights were very long,” Haas said. “During the day, you literally had no time to spare. You had to find firewood, food, or water all day long or you had to work on the shelter. If you didn’t find it, you went without. I spent a lot of time hunting. I shot multiple squirrels. We flipped thousands of rocks finding crabs under the rocks to eat. We ate starfish and gathered mushrooms. It was a very strong team dynamic. Our team worked very well, and everybody had a job to do. There was no idle time. When it got down to two people, Drake and I, we had to find enough firewood to burn for fifteen hours at night. By the time it got to the end, we’ve already collected everything close to our shelter. So, we had to go further and further each day to find that wood. We were also in the rainforest, and everything was wet, and we had to dry the wood out before we actually burned the wood. Everything was very hard out there, nothing was easy, but you had to do it.”

Haas said the nights on the show were quite emotional.

“All five of us stayed up all night telling our life stories,” Haas said. “Your compassion for human beings out there is through the roof. What you don’t see on the show is all the time we spent crying out there together about our families and missing home. I cried a lot about my loved ones that have passed away and you connect with people through that.”

Both Walston and Norris ultimately flared out for health reasons. Johnston, on the other hand, flared out because she had no choice. She decided to build a raft to get to a nearby island to scavenge for food and other supplies. She made it to the island; however, on her way back to shore, the rising tide was pushing her and her raft out to the ocean. This left her no choice but to flare out.

Shortly afterwards, a boat was provided by helicopter to the remaining teams. The boat was dropped into the water and Haas was the one to make the trek to retrieve it.

“We had a really good paddle made and that got lost when Emily had to leave,” Haas said. “All I had was a little makeshift paddle that we made last minute that did not hold up for me. The thought never crossed my mind of having to leave the gameboard if I were to never make it to that boat. We went early enough in the day that I would have been able to get to the shoreline and walk back. I did want to give up really bad though and it was a struggle. After getting the boat, it was extremely cold.”

Teams “Alpha” and “Charlie” did not make it to the finals. It came down to “Team Delta and “Team Bravo.” The final challenge involved a race. While “Team Bravo” just had Haas and Vilem being the only remaining players competing on their team, “Team Delta” had five players competing to the finish line. Outlasting five players, Haas and Vilem victoriously made it to the finish line before “Team Delta.” Their final challenge was to make a fire out of a bow drill kit signaling a flare which represented their championship of the game.

Haas has some big plans with the money that he’s earned from the show.

“I have a good amount of debt that I want to pay off,” Haas said. “It’s also been a dream of mine as a kid to travel the world. I’m going to take a backpack next year after I get all my affairs settled and I’m going to go by myself and buy a one-way ticket to Thailand first and then just travel and see the world.”

Haas said there’s been nothing but support from his competitors.

“My competitors are not just good people, they’re great people,” Haas said. “We are all supportive of each other. I talk to Sammy just about every day, and I talk to Drake probably three times a day. I also talk to everybody at “Team Delta” quite often. Once we get on the phone, sometimes we’re on the phone for about an hour. Some of those guys have monetary things that they need help with, and a few people have ‘Go Fund Me’s’ that we share. I’ve had nothing but support from everybody and only the 16 people that were out there know what all went down. What you see on TV barely scratches the surface.”

Haas gained ten pounds before he shipped out. When he finished the game and returned home, Haas lost 30 pounds total.

“It was rough,” Haas said. “If I could change anything, I would have gained way more weight before I went out there and taken that more seriously. Everybody that was out there that had a lot of fat on their body physically did much better than any of us that went in pretty lean. When I got back, we had to go on a re-feeding diet for three days or so. We weren’t allowed to really buy food, and they had to feed us to protect ourselves from messing up our stomach and going into shock. Once we got done with that three days, my stomach was extremely still small and I wasn’t used to processed foods. I got back and I just started eating everything because I was starving. My body was telling me I needed all this sugar, and I was just puking every single day for about two weeks. I gained the 30 pounds back in about a month.”

“I also had to get IV’s the first week that I got home every other day. I also had neuropathy in my hands and my feet, my fingers and toes were numb for about a month.”

Haas said there was one main thing that was a struggle for him during the game. He said this was harder than the freezing, harder than the muscle cramps and being sick, and harder than the starvation.

“All of that combined did not amount to how bad I missed my family,” Haas said. “I wasn’t prepared to be that emotional out there and I didn’t think I was going to get that way. You feel like you’re out there a lot longer than a month. That was the hardest part, was missing my family. There’s also that battle in your head minute by minute towards the end of wanting to quit and not knowing when you’re going to go home, but not wanting to be a quitter.”

“My grandparents are from Hallettsville, and they were very respected and well-known in the community there. They both passed away in 2018. I spent a whole lot of nights out there thinking about them and crying. Ultimately, I really wanted to make both of them proud. Even though they’re not here anymore, I could feel them with me. I know they’re with me now and I know they were especially with me out there. That definitely helped me get through it.”

When asked if he would do this again in the future, Haas said potentially.

All episodes of season two of “Outlast” are available to stream on Netflix.