Perhaps she 'exaggerated' may mean the time she spent off-grid and fighting forest fires. I don't know, and it can be a weird thing to speculate on, but she did look as though very little use of an axe ever occurred.
A big problem with 'Survival Instructors' today is the Reality TV and Youtube aspect of it. How many of these respected bushcrafters are using edited footage to promote themselves and make money off of sleek videos rather than actual skills? It seems from comments that most do edit their footage and rarely show mistakes. Basically anyone can go out for a day hike, grab some various footage and edit it to make themselves look like experts. If one were out there with them the whole time though we might see that they are in the novice category in many of the attributes of survival. "Alone" basically proves this to be true as we see very few of them at a level of comfort that would suggest extensive time in the woods and the mindset that goes along with testing oneself.
I would say that David, Mike, Justin, Tracy, and Jose seem the most comfortable out there and have the mindset of people who have done this - truly being able to call themselves 'Survival Experts' or "Survival Experts In Training' (no offense to them intended, but I suspect they mostly fit the 'in training' category). Having a survival school or being a survival instructor doesn't really tell us anything, as there is no real system of credentials for this, and many survival instructors would be at a school to focus on specific areas of expertise rather than survival as a whole.
Again, this isn't meant as disrespect at all, I'm no expert either. I just mean to say that we should consider an aspect of what might be called the 'survival division of labour' to keep a realistic outlook on these people. Some may lack skills, or lack skills in certain areas; or they may just run into a bit of unlucky environmental circumstances which show that testing survival and real survival are not the same thing.
However, there is a system available to test the extent of one's survival knowledge and suitability for instruction. Mors Kochanski's "Grand Syllabus" is probably the best example, and may be the only true system out there to guide one's knowledge and skills path. A true survival expert would have to know all of the skills in that book and have thoroughly tested them in various situations and environments.
When we compare survival experts to the ideal set out in such a book we see that most will be lacking in certain areas. It seems to me that clothing, shelter, and axe work are the areas most lacking for the most people. I think this is largely due to the shift in technology and the amount of time spent out in the wilderness. Frankly, people do not spend nearly as long out on trips as they used to. I think this, again, is proven in the show "Alone". The fact that people are homesick within hours or days suggests how infrequently people are out on long trips, or that their trips are taken in convenient areas where technology keeps them in contact. High-tech clothing prevents any real understanding of clothing and the care necessary over long trips. And similarly, tools are now geared less towards skill and necessity than convenience within camp.
An example. No one really needs to baton, but it looks really good on camera to have an aesthetically pleasing fire. Never mind that it is inefficient, low-skill, and disproportionate with the true necessity of fire - it looks good on a screen! And never mind that one could be better using their time to improve their axe or knife skills - it's what everyone is doing!
Understanding your clothing, shelter, water collection, and tool techniques comes before fire in real survival importance. But due to the skewed understanding of spectacle bushcraft (spectaclecraft?) everyone believes fire-lighting is much more important than it is and so they focus on it rather the primary needs which would lessen the dependence on fire anyways. It is a vicious circle because the lack of fire then compounds all of the improper knowledge regarding clothing, shelter, water collection, and tool use. The potential for error increases as the individuals realise they had all along been focusing on the wrong things. Or in other words, once their fire-lighting technology is gone they realize that their understanding of primary survival tools come up short.
You lost your firesteel? So what? You should already be dry and have enough clothing/shelter to keep you warm. It's raining out and you should have had your shelter set up to assist with water collection, or a second tarp to collect it. You should have been using your tools to prepare a continuous fire and backup such as tinder fungus or char. What is the first thing one does when going on an extended trip? Ensure they have enough supplies and that the loss of a supply does not result in a survival scenario. One should not wait until they break an axe handle to create an axe handle, they rough one out asap. Similarly, one should not wait until they lose a firesteel to come up with a plan - they should immediately secure a backup. Not allowed to take a lanyard? Then find one, make one, or come up with a compromise. Setting a blank down on the ground should never have been an option in the first place.
Similarly, one should not wait until they encounter a bear before looking for a means of defense. Get your bat and spears made beforehand, carry the axe with you. And this may be the biggest reason for a continuous fire, a good shelter and a continuous fire creates a significant barrier between you and predators. In many cases, especially lean-tos, fire is part of the shelter and should be treated as such. I think that in a survival situation it would be a good idea to treat fire as many indigenous people did during sacred events: keep it going for the entirety of the event, if the fire goes out you are testing the gods.
Lighting and establishing a fire is much more time-consuming than keeping a fire going, and in survival you are opening yourself up to the chance of losing the fire permanently. As such, the ability to keep a fire going is more important than being able to hold onto a firesteel, especially in trying conditions.
This brings us back to tool choice. I think that the axe is one of the items that one must take, but even if it is not, it is the number one tool and one would generally take it regardless of knowledge. The tool, however, is rendered useless if one does not know how to use it - a void is left in its place, making survival that much more unlikely. In true survival there is no 'two is one', there is only the knowledge you have and the humility to understand that nature can take that last tool from you at any time.