Episode 3 Close Calls: On Camera

A close call. A moment of danger.

When life can hang in the balance.

A split second, where the outcome could go either way.

I was rooted to the spot with fear.

The difference between disaster and survival.

Our hearts dropped. This was a big crash.

These are the people that have been there, and lived to tell the tale.

I need an ambulance!

15 minutes and your number would be up.

Their instincts and resources,

coupled with the quick thinking of others, helped to pull them through.

Could have gone the wrong way, could have easily gone the wrong way.

And their dramatic experiences were recorded on camera.

SCREAMING

I think there were several things could have killed me should have killed me and didn't.

It's a day they'll never forget.

The day they had a close call.

Today, on Close Calls.

The fight to save a top British surfer, battered by

three massive waves crashing down on his head.

I'm hugging him and saying goodbye,

and I'm trying not to think, "This might be the last time".

Only his best pal can save him.

Sometimes, you got like, one, two or three seconds to pick him up

and get out of the place.

And a cyclist's helmet cam captures a collision

a car driver didn't see coming.

Whoa!

Nazare, on Portugal's Silver Coast.

It's a popular resort and also a Mecca for big wave surfers.

They're drawn to the huge swells which

can reach heights of 100 feet.

Amongst them, British surfer Andrew Cotton, who was out to ride

the biggest wave of the year.

The conditions appear perfect as he prepares

for the second surf of the day.

But, as he attempts to turn into the barrel of the wave,

it unexpectedly breaks on top of him with terrifying consequences.

35-year-old Andrew Cotton has been hooked on surfing

since he was a child growing up in Devon.

It's one of those sort of hobbies that is super fun

but also keeps you really fit and it's a feeling that

when you're riding waves, all your stress and worries,

you know, go to a different place.

Nowadays, it's more than a hobby.

It's the way he earns his living and supports his wife Katie,

and two children.

When the couple first got together, five years ago,

Katie had no idea what Andrew did for a living,

until after he went to Ireland for a long weekend, surfing.

And he came back and I said, "Oh, did you have a good time,

"was it a good trip?" He said, "Yeah, it was OK,"

as he does, in his sort of casual way.

And then I went into Tesco

and I saw someone on the front page of Wavelength magazine,

a tiny dot of a guy on a massive wave and it said "Andrew Cotton".

And I thought, "Oh, I didn't realise he was into that sort of stuff!"

In fact, Andrew is a professional, who specialises in big-wave surfing,

an extreme version of the sports where surfers only tackle

waves over 20 feet high.

When you sort of see a big wave coming to you,

things that go through my head are that I want to try and catch it.

Sometimes, it's insane. Sometimes the whole ground moves

and it's kind of like an intimidating place.

But pretty amazing at the same time.

There's always a bigger one.

You never know, next week, there might be a bigger wave,

you know, so, it's always... It's never-ending.

'Katie is proud of her husband, but every surfing trip brings worry.'

I sometimes have that horrible surge where I'm hugging him

and saying goodbye and I'm thinking... I'm trying not to think,

"This might be the last time."

Like any other professional sportsman, Andrew strives to

be the best and is currently one of the top competitors in the world.

It's December when he arrives in Portugal to try to

take the record for riding the biggest wave.

The current Guinness World Record was set at Nazare,

with a wave at just under 80 feet.

It was one of the biggest swells this year.

So everyone was a little bit more nervous, we knew that one of us

was going to get one of the biggest waves of the year probably out there.

Andrew can only attempt surfing these big waves with the help

and back-up of close friends and fellow professionals,

like Portuguese surfer Hugo Val.

Hugo's apprehensive but excited

about the day in the surf with the mate he calls "Cotty".

The sea was huge.

It was crest waves all over and we are dealing with the sea

in the most extreme conditions

that a human being has been, you know.

Andrew was fully aware of the dangers out in the swell.

In the last 20 years,

seven professional surfers have lost their lives riding big waves.

The waves this day, they were, like, 50 feet, probably.

Maybe a bit bigger. And fast and powerful.

To try to catch one of these huge waves,

Andrew is towed out by jet ski.

It's the only way he can build up enough speed to get in

the best and safest position on the wave.

Another team member on another ski keeps watch.

Both jet skis tow rescue sleds in case of emergencies.

Between us we've all got comms and stuff, so we can speak to each other

even though we're, like, just darting around in the ocean, you know.

We also have comms on the cliff, as well.

On this December day,

there are two teams of jet skiers working Nazare beach,

to tow the surfers out and act as a safety lookouts.

As they begin their quest for the big waves, Hugo is acting

as the safety ski, while Andrew is towed out by another team member.

The scene is being recorded by camera teams on the clifftop.

I was warming up a little bit and I had a couple of nice rides.

But as Andrew tackles his second wave of the day,

something goes very wrong.

I just sort of faded a bit too deep

and I thought I was going to come up into more of the barrel,

so I was going to come in under and the wave's going to go over me.

And I was going to come out of it, obviously.

As I pulled up, the wave just didn't do what I thought it was going

to do and it sort of crumbled and just knocks me off.

This is the moment the force of the 50-foot-high wave

crashes down on Andrew.

There was no anticipation or thought processes,

like, "Oh, I'm going to fall here".

Straight away, it's just like an intense hit, like, bang!

You know, you're just off.

Hugo can't see his friend through the wall of surf,

but he's heard what's happened over the team radio.

I understood that Cotty was in a bad situation and that he had fell.

Hugo is frantically worried.

They have only seconds to get Andrew out of the avalanche of turbulent water.

Later, as Andrew surfaces, another massive wave looms over him.

Hugo can see it's about to crash down on top of his friend's head.

Sometimes in Nazare, you felt like you had the hand of a giant

or these two hands, and they smash all over your body.

And also coming up:

A terrified mother dials 999.

A seven-year-old boy has plunged 15 feet onto concrete.

Bournemouth, Dorset.

Cyclist John sets out on an early morning ride with a friend.

He is recording the trip with a camera mounted on his helmet.

But it turns out to be a horror video, when John sees a car.

But the car doesn't see John.

WHOA!

John Piper is cycle crazy.

Bikes play a large part of my life.

I train a lot, I do it for the social side of it,

I do it for the fitness side of it, I do it for the adrenaline side of it.

I just love cycling.

So much so that, in his spare time,

John rides between 60-200 miles a week.

He competes in local events and crosses the channel

every year to ride a mountain stage of the Tour de France.

But it's on the roads closer to home

that he will face his greatest danger,

with the whole event recorded.

My wife bought me a Christmas present which was one of these cameras

that you can bolt onto a bike.

And so, come the New Year, off I went for a ride and then,

ironically, that's when I had my accident.

It was the first time I'd ever used it.

John attaches the camera to his cycle helmet, so it follows

his point of view as he sets out on his 50-mile bike ride with a pal.

It's a dark January morning, so John's prepared.

Well, I had three front lights on my bike, all very powerful lights.

I have two rear lights.

You just have to do everything you can do to be seen.

12 miles in and by a chilling coincidence,

John and his friend are chatting about a recent television programme,

showing traffic accidents between cyclists and motorists.

Oh, yeah! Absolutely.

Sometimes, cyclists are in the wrong. And sometimes car drivers are.

We'd literally been chatting about that two minutes

before we got to that roundabout.

Checking the roundabout in both directions,

John sees the road is clear for him to carry on.

He has right of way, but terrifyingly, he's about to

be right IN the way of this car, that simply hasn't noticed him.

WHOA!

YELLING

The memory of it is seared into John's mind.

As I came on to the roundabout, and we were halfway onto

the roundabout, I was aware of two cars coming from the left.

And the first car slowed up and obviously stopped at the roundabout.

But I was aware that the second car was going much faster.

And at first I thought, in my head, "He's going to stop, he's going

"to see me, he's going to stop, he's going to see my lights, he's bound to stop."

And it soon became evident that he wasn't going to stop.

I tried to turn right, as if to go around the roundabout,

but I knew that he wasn't.

On the footage, you even hear me shout...

WHOA!

..because I'm trying to attract his attention,

because I knew he hadn't seen me and I truly think the first time

he saw me was when I bounced off his car.

YELLING

My first reaction when I was on the floor was, "Am I OK?

"Can I move? What can I move? Do I hurt anywhere?"

And that was quickly taken over by actually...

By mixture of adrenaline and anger.

The air was a little bit blue for a couple of minutes!

-You

-BLEEP!

-BLEEP.

-See me?

-BLEEP.

-You should have been going so

-BLEEP

-fast!

My bike was lit up like a landing aircraft, and for me,

I don't see any reason why he wouldn't have seen me.

I got myself to my feet and then sort of patted myself down,

if you like, just to make sure I was still intact

and that everything was OK and that I could move everything.

Thinking he's all right, John's next instinct is to check his bike.

The front of the bike is bent out of shape,

and as John's adrenaline fades, his pain increases.

He's more injured than he first thought.

I was very aware that my left elbow was in a lot of pain.

It was swollen up like a balloon.

What I didn't realise is that I'd taken some impact

on my left wrist and hand as well, but, subsequently,

I was told that I'd had multiple fractures to

one of the bones in the base of my hand and the top of my wrist.

It takes 14 weeks for his bones to mend.

And unlike most people, John can re-watch and re-live his accident.

Yeah, it is quite surreal.

Cos previous to this sort of technology,

it would just literally be in your memory.

And I think you'd only maybe remember certain bits.

So when I first watched it, I wasn't really quite sure what

I was going to see, but actually I was really quite shocked...

by the impact.

And it made me realise quite how vulnerable as a cyclist that I am.

The car drive is later prosecuted for driving without due care

and attention, receiving six points on his licence and a £400 fine.

John knows that if he'd been travelling a split-second faster,

the car would have hit him full-on.

Best case scenario, I think,

probably my left leg would have been shattered.

Worst case scenario, I probably wouldn't be sat here right now

talking to you.

And that would have been devastating for my family, for the driver,

for the driver's family,

it would have had a massive impact on a lot of people.

Parents know that it's impossible to keep

an eye on the children 24 hours a day, and sometimes,

even when Mum and Dad think they're safe at home,

things can still go wrong.

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

A terrified mother calls 999.

Seven-year-old Rhys has fallen from an upstairs window,

headfirst onto concrete below.

This could potentially be a fatal injury.

It's the worst nightmare that you could possibly have,

that your child has a brain injury.

The Sykes are a family of four.

Tricia and her husband, Ade, live with their son Rhys

and six-year-old daughter Megan.

It's fair to say brother and sister have a bit of a love-hate relationship.

There is only two years and two days between them,

so they're quite close.

She's a mess-up. A lot.

Rhys is quite a sensitive little man,

whereas Megan it is like a Tasmanian devil.

Every time I try to go to sleep, she gets up

take things out of my drawers, puts them in a different place,

I have to find it and I say, "Megan, did you move it?"

They annoy the hell out of each other.

A lot!

But one summer evening, things go too far.

The children are upstairs watching DVDs.

That meant that me and my husband could watch a film on our own

with a little bit of peace and quiet.

But not for long.

I came into my mum's bedroom where Megan was,

to watch a little bit of her film, then we had a little play.

Then Megan was running up to me, trying to tickle me.

Trying to escape Megan's attempts to tickle him,

Rhys climbs onto the windowsill.

It's a hot summer's day and the window is open.

I didn't notice the window was open.

Then, like, she tried to tickle me and I, like...

Like that.

Rhys plummets out of the upstairs window.

We heard a thud and then crying.

I thought Rhys had fallen out of bed so I'd got up, went upstairs.

Megan came out of our bedroom and she said, "Mummy, he's outside,

"he's out of the window."

I was very, very panicked.

Rhys's parents rush outside, fearing what they'll find.

I saw Rhys laying down on the floor,

kind of looking slightly dazed,

and he'd started to kind of wail at that point,

and was really very upset.

All he wanted to do was to be picked up.

He survived a 15-foot fall,

but something's clearly wrong with Rhys.

He was wailing, he was screaming.

I was more worried he'd broken his foot or his ankle,

or something like that. I hadn't even clicked it could be his head.

Tricia dials 999.

On the other end of the line is emergency medical dispatcher

Tracey Grouden.

I could hear the distress in her voice. I had to stay calm.

I had to keep my voice at a lower level

to make sure that she didn't

get more distressed than she already was.

From the information I was getting, it was one of the most serious

calls that we can get, that the child wasn't completely alert.

Because any injury, especially a head injury,

can get worse very quickly.

A paramedic in a rapid-response car,

and two in an ambulance, are on their way.

With such a young casualty involved, senior paramedic

and Incident Commander Philip Griffith has also been

dispatched in another car.

My initial thoughts were that this could potentially be a fatal injury.

Any child who falls from more than sort of eight feet is...

There's the potential for a life-threatening injury.

Initially, I was expecting to find a child that was unconscious,

at minimum, if not in cardiac arrest,

having fallen from such a great height,

but we were quite amazed how uninjured he looked.

Phil wants to see where the accident happened.

The boy had fallen through a plastic canopy

and there was a child-shaped hole in this canopy,

which I'm sure broke his fall and slowed down the impact

on the concrete below.

Despite no visible injury, Rhys's drowsiness is causing concern.

The risk is that there's always the injuries we can't see,

which tend to be more dangerous than the ones we can see.

Protecting his head and neck, the medics rushed Rhys

to Gloucester Royal Hospital, accompanied by Mum.

But as they arrive, Rhys' condition deteriorates.

His head started to swell. It wasn't the same shape as it previously was.

Tricia can only wait as Rhys has emergency CT scans of his head.

It's the worst nightmare that you could possibly have,

that your child has a brain injury,

and you can do nothing to help.

It's not as if you can kiss it better.

And it's not as if it takes a plaster to make it better.

That's something that could have a profound effect

for the rest of his life.

After transferring to Bristol's Children's Hospital,

Rhys is found to have a fracture to his skull and cheekbone.

The doctor had said that the fracture was only hairline,

so not to be concerned whether it would heal easily.

But they are concerned about a small bleed they have found on his brain.

Though it's not large enough for them to risk an operation,

they need to keep him under close observation.

My head was hurting a lot.

And Rhys was very, very upset because Rhys - all he wanted to do

was just to go home, and did not want to be in hospital,

whatsoever, at that point.

Rhys's accident has also had an effect on his little sister, Megan.

She didn't want to sleep in their bedroom until he was back,

and so the first night, she actually slept on the floor

in the living room with my husband asleep on the sofa,

because she just didn't want to go in the room.

Thankfully, after five nights in hospital, Rhys gets the all clear

to go home, and a few months later, he's made a complete recovery.

He's doing amazingly well.

He's completely and utterly a little miracle

with how he's coping, with everything.

I can't remember the bit at all about falling out from the window,

but I remember when I landed on the floor.

I tried to get up, but I couldn't.

Rhys knows he's been very lucky.

If the porch wasn't there, I'd probably die.

That broke my fall, so if that wasn't there - bang!

Probably dead.

And as well as his head,

Rhys's relationship with his sister is also in a good state of repair.

They're a lot closer because of the accident.

My little sister now is a lot more careful with me.

She's keeping him safe, even though she's the younger sister.

Back in Nazare, Portugal, British professional surfer

Andrew Cotton is in great danger.

A 50-foot wave has just crashed down on his head.

Now he's at the mercy of massive breakwater.

His equilibrium has gone, and he can't tell which way is up.

Only his buoyancy vest can save him.

I did get held down for quite some time.

I'd been down so long that both of the jet skis were looking for me.

But I was, like, obviously, underwater and they couldn't know

where I'm going to come up because he doesn't know exactly where I fell.

And as I surfaced, he'd just gone by,

so there's no way he could come back and get me.

Having missed Andrew, this jet skier hasn't time to circle back

because another wave is about to crash down on them.

He has to race away or risk being thrown into the water, too.

Now it's up to Andrew's best pal and team-mate Hugo to time

a rescue bid in the few seconds of calm between waves.

Everything, it was on me and, at the same point, I noticed

that Cotty was going to take a massive wave on his head.

I knew what was going to happen.

It was almost like the lip,

which is like all the power.

And so I deflated my vest

and then just literally ducked under, about a foot underwater,

and had the full, like, force of the Atlantic Ocean

land square on my head.

It was pretty much like being hit by a truck.

I don't know how much force or pressure that is hitting you,

but it is - it's insane.

Now Hugo can only watch on helplessly.

Sometimes in Nazare, you feel like you got, like,

the hand of a giant, or the two hands,

that they smash all over your body.

Like every inch of your body is, like, being compressed

and smashed and it's, like - and squeezed. It's like...

It's crazy, crazy feeling. Crazy.

And that's what Andrew is going through.

Underneath the surface, the powerful undercurrent is hurling him

around like a rag doll.

He tries to follow his training

and protect his limbs from the strength of the waves.

I usually grab onto my vest, and I grabbed onto my vest with

this arm, and I...this one, as it hit me,

just got ripped, ripped off,

and my arm, like, sort of hyperextended and pulled back,

as I did about 30 somersaults underwater.

It pulled back so violently I thought I'd actually, like,

snapped with my elbow or, like...you know,

so I had a shooting pain up my arm, my shoulder was killing.

The power of the crashing wave plunges Andrew down

deeper under the sea.

The water pressure could burst his eardrums,

or he could be smashed into the ocean floor and killed.

He desperately tugs at the cord of his life vest,

which inflates and lifts him back to the surface.

I came up and then I managed to deflate again,

so I was like, wasn't sort of crazily buoyant.

I knew that after that wave and after Cotty popped up again,

I got to reach him.

Hugo has caught a glimpse of Andrew,

but before he can safely swoop in to save him,

a third 60-foot wave smashes down on his injured friend.

He had a red wet suit,

and the face was like the colour of the wet suit, you know?

And I noticed at this point that he was making a big effort

with some bad pain on his body.

Andrew's still in agony.

He's fighting the tide without the use of his right arm,

which could be broken. He's in desperate need of rescue.

The greatest danger is that Andrew will be held underwater

by consecutive waves, and drown.

And through a constant barrage of water,

he's struggling to hold his breath.

As you're getting tumbled around,

you don't hear anything or see anything.

You sort of just trust that someone will be there, at some point,

to sort of help you out or pick you up.

Hugo watches as the jet ski once again just misses Andrew.

It's all down to Hugo now.

Sometimes, it's really big, big pressure

and you know that you've just got, like, one chance,

and sometimes you've got, like, one, two or three seconds

to pick him up and get out of the place.

Andrew has been tossed and thrown around in the violent swell

for almost two minutes but, finally,

as the footage shows, Hugo gets a chance to rescue his friend.

I have a few seconds between waves and I went...

..to pick up Cotty.

He just screamed, "Hey! I've got my bad arm."

like, "Help, Hugo!", and then, yeah,

I try to grab him as much as I can on his arm.

They have, like, a rescue sled on the back of the ski,

and I got on the back of the ski and, obviously, my shoulder

and my elbow were killing.

He just, like...

put his hand down and we gunned it for the beach.

Andrew's safely on his way back to the shore.

But he's in agony with his elbow and fears it's broken.

It could be the end of his career and his livelihood.

I had sort of sat on the beach and then it was like, "Oh, actually,

"hang on, I can still move, like, I can still move!"

"I can still move it", and it wasn't ideal. It was like...

But, you know, that was my session done. Over.

Andrew's has a real scare,

but just two weeks after his accident,

he's back out in the surf again.

He takes every precaution he can,

but Andrew's philosophical about the hazards of his chosen sport.

I want to surf as many big waves as I possibly can, you know?

I don't want to get hurt or die, drown.

You know, of course, none of us want to do that, you know?

We all want to surf big waves and we want to do it safely,

and that's like... The safety's the most important thing.

Join us next time for more close calls.