'Survivor' Scot Pollard Awaits Life-Saving Heart Transplant

Former NBA player and Survivor contestant Scot Pollard is currently in a Tennessee intensive care unit awaiting a heart transplant.

On February 6, Pollard was admitted to the intensive care unit at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He says that he will wait there until a donor surfaces who is big enough to be a match. “I’m staying here until I get a heart,” he told the Associated Press in a text message on Wednesday night. “My heart got weaker. [Doctors] agree this is my best shot at getting a heart quicker.”

In February 2016, Pollard told Indy Star that he had already begun preparations to deal with a looming condition. Cardiomyopathy, a condition that makes it hard for the heart to deliver blood to the body, is common in tall people. The condition often leads to heart failure. “I’m on a watch list,” he said. “It’s a big man thing.”

Scot Pollard’s Quest For A New Heart Has Been ‘A Challenge’

In January, Pollard told CBS 13 Sacramento that his condition has been a frustrating ordeal for him. Outside of the danger to his life, Pollard has struggled with not being able to be as active as he once was. “I’m a goer, I’m a doer,” he said. “Not good at sitting around, never have been. So, that’s been a challenge for the last three years.”

According to Pollard’s wife, Dawn, the biggest challenge has been finding the balance between privacy and transparency. “We went back and forth about letting people know about this. It’s come to its head and I think it’s really important to talk about it,” Dawn Pollard said. Despite their initial apprehension, the Pollard family believes that their openness has brought a sense of relief. “It’s kinda cathartic to get his story out.”

For Scot Pollard, one of the biggest obstacles throughout his quest for a new heart has been overcoming his size. At 6-11, his body requires a heart that is able to keep up with the demand. “[The] surgeon here basically said for my size and my blood type, which is O-positive, the most common, that hurts my chances of getting a heart, mostly because of my size,” he said. “There are about 10,000 extra beats a day so it’s like I’m always walking uphill even when I’m sitting down.”

‘The Less Your Heart Has To Pump, The Better’

Scot Pollard played 11 seasons in the NBA. He spent the majority of his time with the Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers. He won an NBA championship as a member of the Boston Celtics in 2008. In 2016, Pollard was selected as a contestant on the Season 32 of Survivor. After making it into the top 10, Pollard was eventually voted off on Day 27.

As Pollard nears his fifties, he can’t help but reflect on his father’s untimely death. Pollard’s father was 6-10 and weighed 380 pounds when he died at 54. “Your heart isn’t supposed to pump 320 pounds,” he told Indy Star in 2016. “It’s about staying as thin as possible. The way my cardiologist described it, the less your heart has to pump, the better.”

Pollard was just 16 years old when he lost his father. “That was an immediate wake-up call,” Pollard said in a telephone interview. “You don’t see a lot of old 7-footers walking around. So I’ve known that my whole life, just because I had that seared into my brain as a 16-year-old, that — yeah, being tall is great, but I’m not going to see 80.”