He almost went out with a bang.
Jeremiah Ing, the latest contestant eliminated from “Survivor 49,” exclusively told The Post that he thought there was going to be a historic 1-1-1 tie vote between himself, Sophi Baledri and Alex Moore at tribal council on Wednesday’s episode.
“I knew Sophi had flipped on me because there was a time when Sophi and I were talking and she asked me what Alex said. And I’m like, ‘That’s interesting. You flipped on me,’” the 39-year-old global events manager recalled. “And I didn’t know where Alex’s mind was at. So I thought Alex was voting for Sophi, and I was voting for Alex. So I thought it was going to be a three way tie among the three of us.”
“I really did consider playing my Shot in the Dark,” Ing continued, “but I was scared because if I lost my vote and it was a tie, then I would have gone home automatically. So I went into that tribal council knowing that there was like a 50 percent chance of me going home.”
“Maybe that was just my delirious mindset of like everything that I was going through,” Ing added of his expectations for the vote, “but that’s what I thought.”
Ing also opened up about tribemate Jake Latimer being medically evacuated from the game due to a snake bite.
“I don’t care if it’s like your worst enemy or somebody who you don’t like — you just don’t wish for that to happen to anybody,” he said. “It’s all of our dream. We went through the most intense application process. We’re there, we want to play the game, and it’s a game. So for someone’s life to be compromised is really scary and unfortunate and I would never wish that upon somebody.”
Ing added that his tribe didn’t know that when they were arriving to the immunity challenge Jeff Probst was going to break the news that Latimer was out of the game.
“When we showed up, I’m like, ‘Okay, well, where’s Jake? I have his backpack.’ And then Jeff starts talking and he says he’s not coming back to the game. It was kind of like, ‘Wait, what? He’s not coming back?’ So it was shocking,” Ing explained.
“I don’t know if it was just my mind trying to be positive and tell myself he’s coming back because that’s how I had to deal with it. Alex was like, ‘Well, he got bit on the foot. That’s a really poisonous snake.’ Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Survivor” airs Wednesdays at 8 pm ET on CBS.
