SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio medic and her family got the experience of a lifetime when they were chosen to compete on the game show Family Feud.
Army Spc. Gabriella Patlan, a mobile medic for Brooke Army Medical Center, and her family competed Nov. 9-15 for the show. But the process wasn’t easy to get there.
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“A few years ago, like 2016, my family sent in an audition tape to the show,” Patlan said. “They got called to do in-person auditions in Austin, but the show never called them back.
Patlan said auditions reopened last year for families in the San Antonio and Austin area. Her aunt resubmitted the 2016 audition tape and the family was called back for a second audition.
The Barrera team, consisting of Patlan, her uncle, two aunts, and cousin, flew all-expenses-paid to Atlanta in March.
“We taped our episodes in two days,” she said. “It was really exhausting, but we enjoyed ourselves. Each episode is 30 minutes with commercials, but it took about an hour to tape each one.”
Patlan said the producer of the show was nice and Steve Harvey was very funny. But the highlight of her experience happened during the third episode.
“We ended up in a tie, so we had to play sudden death and I had to go up to the buzzer. I won that game for our family,” she said.
The team ended up winning around $41,500. While they didn’t end up winning all five games and securing a car, they still enjoyed the experience overall.
“I didn’t mind losing, because, in the end, the family experience was the best part of the show,” Patlan said. “We came out closer as a family.”
Patlan said she isn’t exactly sure what she plans to do with her share of the money, but she may use it for a honeymoon or home renovations.