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MAGGOT MADNESS

Question: If you take 40 gallons of putrid smelling cod liver oil, thousands of maggots and cow hooves, and put them together what do you have?
Answer: A huge mess.
Fear Factor contestant Sean Cashman figured that out the hard way when he participated in a relay of bobbing in cod liver oil for cow hooves, transferring the cow hooves to a box of maggots, grabbing a mouthful of maggots, and transferring them to a scale, again and again and again.

FEAR FACTOR: Before Joe explained the stunt did you have any idea what you were in for?

SEAN CASHMAN: When I walked into the room I immediately saw the tank. You know, discolored liquid, these foreign objects sitting on the bottom of the tank. To the left of the tank was this container full of maggots, just wiggling and worming. So I knew it was gonna be a stunt where you just had to dunk your head, transfer and either eat the maggots or transfer the maggots onto the bowl.

FEAR FACTOR: What kind of problems did you have transferring the different gross items?

SEAN CASHMAN: My goggles got full with a little bit of oil. The cow hoofs were very slippery. I had trouble biting on. When I did get a hold of one of the cow hoofs, I transferred it as quickly as I could to the maggots, for the mouthful of maggots, which was pretty disgusting. Just had to suck it up. Transfer it into the bowl to spit it out and then go back. It was pretty disgusting. Now, two minutes is a long time to get dunking in that cod liver oil. It smelled pretty bad.

FEAR FACTOR: Why did you keep taking pauses after spitting the maggots onto the scale?

SEAN CASHMAN: I don't know what was going on. I cracked a little bit under the pressure. I was pretty disappointed. I was a little disappointed in my performance. There were times when I just got frustrated. I would just go down, back my head into that oil, I just couldn't pick up a cow hoof. It was very frustrating 'cause I knew that if I didn't perform well I wasn't going through to the third day. So I got a little bit frustrated and I think that showed. I had Joe screaming at me "come on, Sean, come on, keep going."

FEAR FACTOR: What was difficult about picking up the cow hooves?

SEAN CASHMAN: It was just pure frustration. I had to look to see the best way to put my mouth around the cow hooves. They had a little bit of a ridge on it where you could sort of get your mouth around it, grab hold with your teeth and pick it up. If you didn't quite get that ridge they were really hard to pick up. So I sort of paused, looked down and looked for the best cow hoof to pick up. Look for the spot to grab it with my mouth and dunk my head back in. My goggles had a bit of liquid so I dunked my head and I was sort of feeling around with my mouth. It was extremely hard. I couldn't quite see what I was grabbing.

FEAR FACTOR: Since your mouth was coated with cod liver oil, did the maggots ever stick to the back of your throat?

SEAN CASHMAN: The maggots did stick to the back of your throat. It was a terrible feeling. You had that oil just running down the back of your throat. It tasted terrible. The maggots were at the back of your tongue, the top of your mouth. You just spit it into the bowls and they just got caught around there. And then you go back into the oil and you still have a couple of maggots left in your mouth.