Philly fave wins wild TV treasure hunt

Michelle Lamelza, who grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, was part of the team that snagged $100,000 on Thursday night's debut of TNT's 72 Hours.

The victory on a set of South Pacific islands actually was filmed in October, but she was still thrilled watching the show last night with a hundred people at Donovan's Irish pub in Bayside, N.Y., where she's a manager.

"It's surreal," she told Philly.com this morning. "Even while watching, it was like, 'No, it didn't really happen."

What a test of toughness and teamwork.

Three trios of strangers had to endure a monsoon, jungles, mountainous terrain, a six-mile open-ocean kayak ride - and each other - on a six-island quest to find a cash-filled briefcase waiting underwater.

"This money is very important because I owe about $123,000," said Lamelza, who attended St. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls, at the beginning of the show. "I have what you call an underwater mortgage so just to help pay a chunk of that off, it would be like a dream come true."

Her Green Team trailed for most of the contest, with dance instructor Chris from North Carolina leading his comrades in a circle, and medical aesthetician Lindsay from California puking her guts out after eating a too-acidic pineapple.

And yet the three all got along. Lamelza helped keep spirits up by singing songs like "We're in a Jungle," which wasn't shown on TV, she said this morning.

"We just got to take care of each other, that was our main goal," she said.

Their fortunes picked up when Lindsay started handling the GPS that teams were given to find a series of supply drops and ultimately the loot.

She also figured out that hand sanitizer makes good lighter fluid.

Near the end, taking to the sun-baked hills too early exhausted members of the Blue and Red Teams, allowing Lamelza and company to catch up.

Decisively, the Red Team jumped in the surf too soon, while the Green Team went further to a better spot, with Lindsay shouting to Chris where to dive.

Sunlight hit the briefcase, and soon he was lugging it back to land. Lamelza buried her face in the money, as soon as the case was opened.

As the show concluded, she commented, "It was the best and worst thing I've ever done."

Despite rats, snakes and spiders "like Shaq's damn hand," as one contestant put it, she doesn't have nightmares about the experience.

"I do have dreams that I'm back on the islands, in a good way, actually," she told Philly.com last week.

She's regularly in touch with all the other contestants through social media, and with Chris and Lindsay by phone. All nine hope to have a West Coast reunion - and skydive from a plane.

Lamelza even got a tattoo on her upper abs of a "tribal tiger" with characters for each person on her team.

"Aside from just knowing that you can survive something like that, I definitely appreciate electricity and just food a lot more," she said.

She summed it up as "the most rewarding experience of my life."

While the show is very Survivor-like, including a host who sounds like Jeff Probst, each treasure hunt is retold in just an hour, with a new set of competitors each week.

Next week, Eric Martin, a ski instructor from Harleysville, Montgomery County, endures wild New Zealand coastline.

To see Thursday night's show online, go to www.tntdrama.com/video.