Episode 1 Close Calls: On Camera

A close call.

A moment of danger...

when life can hang in the balance.

-Oh, my God.

-A split-second where the outcome can go either way.

She's alive. It's a miracle, really.

The difference between disaster and survival.

He was shouting, "Don't die, Mummy."

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

-CROWD:

-Ooh!

I thought he'd broken his neck.

Their instincts and resources,

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

We were just engulfed in flames.

And their dramatic experiences recorded on camera.

I wasn't going to be coming up. It was curtains, it was over.

It's a day they'll never forget.

The day they had a close call.

Today on Close Calls -

a group of mates queue for a takeaway.

Then this...

I didn't have any time to react.

I just looked down, saw my legs were splayed out in opposite directions.

And two best friends in a bizarre twist of fate which leaves them

fighting for their lives in the freezing North Sea.

My wife was at home, pregnant.

We had a lot to look forward to in life.

And you knew you weren't going to be there to do it.

I said to Benny, "If you do make it, I know you've got your own family,

"but I need you to bring up my son."

And he said the same to me.

Also, terror at 200 feet.

Oh, my God!

I was panicking then and I was like, I want to get off.

Oh, my God, look at that one swing.

It wasn't screams of excitement any more.

That's when we realised this has gone majorly wrong.

Oh, my God, it has actually hit them!

Yangzhou, China.

Caught on CCTV, Simon, a young English teacher,

waits with friends at the counter of a fast food restaurant.

What happens next is shocking.

A speeding car crashes straight into the shop.

It smashes the door off its hinges and throws Simon violently

onto the bonnet, before crushing his legs against the counter.

So I am thinking to myself,

because I couldn't see the bottom of my legs,

"Please be OK, please be OK."

Then I couldn't feel anything.

Simon Halford-Thompson from Grimsby graduated from Leeds University

and went home to live with his mum.

Not sure what career path he wanted to take,

a parental nudge helped him decide.

My mum was a teacher and it came to sort of August and she said,

"When I go back to school, if you're still sat around on the

"sofa doing nothing, well, basically that's not going to happen.

"So, um, go and get a job."

To his mum's surprise, he does, in China!

Simon decides to tag along with a pal going to teach

English as a foreign language.

There's a huge demand for English teachers in China

so I thought why the hell not, I suppose.

Simon kicks off his career in a remote part of south-west China.

Only five foreigners in the whole city.

Myself, a Spanish guy, two Ghanaians and a guy from Chicago in America.

We were quite a motley crew.

Dropped in at the deep end,

Simon teaches children ranging from three to 15 years old.

It was big classes of 50 students

and it was my first experience of teaching.

It was quite intimidating.

After 18 months, feeling much more settled and confident,

he takes a new job in Yangzhou, a city in eastern China.

But Simon's life is about to be turned upside down.

He goes out to celebrate Chinese New Year with some fellow English

teachers, including new arrival Natalie, from Chorley in Lancashire.

Simon had been there a bit longer than I had, so it was nice to

have kind of a friend there that already knew the ropes.

Altogether, a group of four young teachers head out that night.

We had been out to a bar, had a few drinks. Hungry.

We tried to go to a noodle restaurant on the way home,

but it was out of noodles, it was shut.

They settle for a less exotic option.

So we decided to go get a burger.

It was pretty empty, so we had to wait a while for them

to cook the stuff.

This footage from the restaurant's CCTV cameras shows

the group at the counter.

It is a bit blurry but you can just make out Natalie in the centre,

while Simon is on the right, nearest the entrance to the burger bar.

The group chat happily while they are waiting.

Blissfully unaware of the terrible danger that is closing in on them.

In the street outside,

another CCTV camera picks up a car speeding down the road.

The driver loses control and smashes straight into the restaurant.

CRASHING

Right into Simon and his friends.

The first thing that I remember is just hearing this huge crash.

It just came in so fast.

Standing with his back to the doorway,

Simon takes the full brunt of the impact.

His head and upper body snap back

as he's thrown violently forward and crushed against the counter.

I didn't have any time to react. I heard the smash, I think.

And then...the next thing I know,

I was sort of sandwiched between this car and the counter.

And it's all a bit of a blur.

Amazingly, the car misses Simon's friends.

The car was maybe five centimetres away from my right leg.

On the other side of Simon was our other friend

and he had also managed to get out of the way of the car.

Simon is being well and truly crushed by the car.

My top half is sort of completely fine and I sort of look around.

You can see me on the video, I think, look around.

I'm sort of thinking to myself,

because I couldn't see the bottom of my legs,

"Please be OK, please be OK."

Then I couldn't feel anything, so didn't know.

Natalie, she was really panicking,

like, "What's happened to Simon? What's happened to Simon?"

I just remember Simon being in a lot of shock.

He didn't really speak much.

By now, the driver has staggered out of the car.

Natalie angrily confronts him.

I kind of held him there and asked him kind of, "were you driving?

"Are you drunk?" Both to which he said, "Yes."

With Simon pinned between the counter and the car,

his friends urgently try to free him.

One supports him as another releases the handbrake,

gently rolling the car away.

Now Simon can see the full horror of his injuries.

I just looked down, saw my legs...

were splayed out in opposite directions and said,

"I'm not going to be able to stand up here.

"You're going to have to put me, you have to lay me down on the floor."

There was a bone sticking out of one of his legs.

Looking at them, I was kind of wondering

whether he would walk again.

The emergency services arrive

and Simon is taken to hospital in an ambulance.

Natalie and another friend ride with him.

In the ambulance he was kind of worried about could someone

get in touch with his mum and tell her.

So my mum got woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call

from somebody she'd never spoken to before saying,

"Simon's been hit by a car.

"Simon's been hurt by a car."

Simon's rushed in for emergency surgery.

He's terrified about what will have to be done during the operation

and doesn't speak enough of the language to communicate fully.

Friends and colleagues are at his side.

My director of studies at my job, she was an English girl from Hull.

And the last thing I said to her, before I went

into the operating theatre was, "Don't let them take my leg."

When he comes round, this is what he sees.

Simon has multiple breaks to the bones in both lower legs.

The surgeons have knitted them back together with metal plates and rods.

It was a lot to take in,

particularly with only a basic grasp of the Chinese language.

I remember reeling off a list of questions when I had a

translator there, sort of, how long are my legs going to take to heal?

Will I be able to walk, will I be able to run?

Doctors tell Simon he will be confined to a hospital bed for some months.

With the incident shown on Chinese TV,

the locals take Simon to their hearts.

There were people coming in, just because they'd seen me on the news.

My room was door-to-door bouquets.

It's three-and-a-half months before Simon first struggles to his feet.

It was nice to be able to see out of the window,

that was tantalisingly out of reach for this whole time.

With just a view of the sky, maybe I could see the top of an apartment building or something.

Very liberating not being on my back, definitely.

The drunk driver who hit Simon is banned from driving

and jailed for three months.

But Simon's life is going to be affected for a lot longer than that.

Once he's discharged, Simon's mum flies out to help them cope

until doctors remove the pins from his legs.

In all, it's nine months before he is fully back on his feet

and walking properly.

But he's determined not to let the experience spoil

the memory of his good times teaching in China,

and he knows things could have been a lot worse.

I try not to think, I suppose, too much about what could have happened.

But I suppose at the back of my mind I know that I could have died.

And if I'm given an opportunity to do something new,

I'll go and do it.

-Coming up...

-Oh, my God.

Disbelief on the ground....

-Oh, my God.

-..as shocking events unfold in the air.

It hit 'em!

Dundee, Scotland.

A few miles offshore, the RNLI and coastguard helicopter are racing

against time to save two men lost and adrift in the freezing North Sea...

..after a series of unlucky events escalates into a fight for survival.

The body was starting to shut down. We're not going to get to shore.

I think the biggest thing was the kids that kept us going.

Lifelong friends Gav Smith and Benny Thompson

grew up together in Dundee.

When they're not working away on offshore oil rigs

with each other, they are spending time with their young families.

I've known Benny for, what... 20 years plus, anyway.

We've been friends since we were kids.

We were at school together.

We've done quite a lot of silly things together.

We were best man at each other's wedding.

Done pretty much everything together that you could do!

And that includes jet skiing.

One cold November day, Gav and Benny,

along with two other friends, Rob and Paul,

head out into the Tay Estuary, close to where it meets the North Sea.

They dressed in all the right safety gear for the wintry conditions.

The water temperature would be maybe freezing,

or just above freezing. At the end of the day, this is November.

After a morning messing about on the waves

and 500 metres from the coastline,

Benny's jet ski breaks down, so he hangs onto Gav's to stay afloat.

Their friend Paul heads back to shore,

towing Benny's broken ski behind him.

But moments after, as Paul disappears over the horizon,

Gav's jet ski breaks down, too.

Their other mate Rob is still with them on his machine, but it

means there are three men and just one working jet ski out on the water.

So we decided to say, "Look," to Rob, "head back in towards the pier.

"And get Paul and come back out with your two jet skis.

"Then I can go on the back of Rob's, Benny'll

"go on the back of Paul's and we will tow mine back in."

Everybody thought, you know, this kind of thing happens every week.

There's always a problem with these things. We seem to get through it.

And this was just another one of these things.

So Rob left us to go back to the pier.

And that's when things started to go really wrong.

Gav and Benny are too heavy to both stay on the broken jet ski,

so take it in turns,

one sitting whilst the other is in the water, clinging to the back.

The sea conditions aren't great and there is a stronger tide than usual.

They start getting dragged out towards the North Sea,

far away from their original position.

Although it only takes mates Rob and Paul 15 minutes to come back on their skis,

by then Gav and Benny are out of sight.

We could see them looking for us, but just they couldn't get to us.

They didn't know where we were. It's a vast area.

And it's about to get even worse.

Gav and Benny are being sucked towards a potentially lethal stretch

of water, the Abertay Sands, where the North Sea meets the Firth of Tay.

It's like a washing machine, because that's basically what it

does, this part of the river can swallow up a boat, you know.

I don't think there's been many people that have gone from one

side to the other in the water and survived six, seven metre high waves.

When you're just a head in the water, it's frightening, terrifying.

What's more, the jet ski is being thrown around so much in the violent swell,

it's proving impossible for Gav and Benny to cling on any longer.

As they are wearing life vests and dry suits,

they take their chances, alone in the big waves.

So we decided, let's let go of the jet ski and, er,

basically hold on to one another as tight as we can.

Letting go of that jet ski was the hardest thing we've had to do.

Meanwhile, their friends Rob and Paul have raised the alarm

and RAF and police helicopters have started to search the Tay Estuary,

along with a local ferry and the inshore lifeboat.

Gav and Benny have now been in the water for two-and-a-half hours.

The RNLI lifeboat, based at nearby Arbroath, is scrambled.

As conditions worsened and the light was fading, that was when we

kind of realised that, you know, these guys are in a lot of trouble.

Later, as the rescue teams desperately search,

Gav and Benny know they can't last much longer.

I put my head in the water and it was warm.

And I knew that it was a sign of hypothermia.

That's when we knew that the body was starting to shut down.

We're in the middle of nowhere. We're not going to get to shore.

Very, very hard.

Cardiff city centre.

A student films his friends on a 200-foot tall fairground ride.

It towers above a seasonal attraction called Winter Wonderland.

It's December and strong winds are causing some of the empty

swings to move dangerously close to the riders.

Then...suddenly, carriages begin to swing round and collide.

People on the ground start to scream.

The empty swings are going crazy.

17-year-old hairdressing student Brogan Chapman knew what

she wanted to be from a young age, growing up in Newport, South Wales.

I always liked playing, messing around with my nan's hair

or my sister's hair.

So she decides to go to college and study hairdressing.

Doing Hairdressing Level One.

Everyone on my course are really nice people,

I get along with them great.

So much so, that coming up to Christmas,

Brogan and the rest of her classmates decide to put their scissors

away for the day and travel to Cardiff to go ice skating together.

They head for the Winter Wonderland,

a temporary festive fairground set up in the city centre.

They book a slot on the ice to go skating in an hour's time

and in the meantime, decide to see what else the fair has to offer -

checking out the 200 foot high Sky Swing.

But Brogan's friend Jonathan isn't keen on heights.

When I'd seen the Sky Swing, my chin hit the floor

because it was so tall.

We was like, "Come on, it'll be fine. Just give it a go." You know?

What's the worst that could happen?

But Jonathan decides to keep his feet firmly on the ground,

while Brogan and a few of her friends decide to have a go.

He takes his phone and out and begins filming the action

so the others can watch it back later.

Jonathan's footage shows Brogan sitting next to her friend

in one of the two main carriages.

She's beginning to feel a bit nervous,

but manages a wave for the camera. BROGAN SQUEALS

As the ride circles, Brogan's friends commentate.

-Oh, my God.

-What is going on?

All you can hear was like the giggles and the laughter.

We didn't think anything could go wrong.

Oh, my God. That's so horrible.

Oh, my God, look, it's going up.

The higher they get, the more Brogan notices

just how much the icy December wind has picked up.

It was quite cold and windy. It was really windy.

Everything seemed to be going quite smoothly until we started noticing

that the empty swings were starting to swing more back and forth.

And it started looking a bit dangerous.

They're looking down. How can you look down?

Like, oh, my God! The empty cart was then like swinging back.

It was getting closer. And then getting closer.

Oh, my God, look at that one swing.

-GIRL:

-The empty swings are going crazy.

The strong wind is playing havoc with the unoccupied carriages.

Because there's no-one in them to weigh them down, they're being

blown around dangerously close to the now petrified riders.

Looks like it is going to hit her.

We seen then it was getting closer and closer.

We were all trying to kick it away, but it started catching as well.

The cart then actually did hit me.

See, look! It hit 'em.

Oh, my God, it actually has hit them!

Brogan's chair is hit by an empty carriage,

as Jonathan's footage shows.

It swings right into them.

Another compartment gets hit,

spinning the terrified occupants 180 degrees.

The blustery wind has turned this funfair ride into a terrifying

experience for all the people on it and they're 200 feet in the sky.

It wasn't screams of excitement any more.

You could tell the sort of difference.

So it was quite shocking for us standing on the ground.

It's hit them!

That's when we realised, OK, this has gone majorly wrong.

Then I started crying cos I didn't know what was going to happen.

If those carts could have hit us,

I was thinking, what if the wires snap on the swing?

I could be dead. I've come out to have a good day, go ice skating.

The chairs begin to swing out of control

and the screams of the riders and those watching echo around the park.

The ride is immediately stopped.

Oh, my God. They've actually stopped the ride.

Brogan and the others are now left dangling nearly 200 feet in the air.

It's a few agonising minutes before they are brought back down to earth.

And when we reached the bottom, oh, that was a relief.

Although shaken by the encounter,

Brogan and all the other riders have escaped unharmed.

-It hit 'em!

-Oh, my God, it has actually hit them.

I feel extremely lucky that I am now sat here.

Life-threatening situations often start as series of small incidents,

but then built into looming disasters that nobody could have foreseen.

As we know from Gav and Benny.

Back near Dundee, for lifelong friends Gav Smith

and Benny Thompson, what started as a fun day out on jet skis

has resulted in the two being lost and adrift

in the icy waters of the North Sea.

They've been in the water for nearly two-and-a-half hours now

and are running out of energy.

Holding on to each other in the huge swell is becoming impossible.

Cos every time a wave came, doesn't matter how much strength

you put holding on to your friend, you can't hold on to them.

You'd be separated and you'd have maybe seven or eight seconds

to get to one another for the next one to come.

The two dads are starting to feel

there is no way out of their predicament.

Their thoughts turn to their families.

I think the biggest thing was the kids, that kept us going.

Jessica and Ben have those little songs that they sing.

And it's, "We love you lots like jelly tots."

And I think that was...

that was one of the biggest things that kept us going. For sure.

Every time we would come out of a wave, you know, I would say the

first part, "love you lots" and Gav would shout back, "like jelly tots".

As stupid as it sounds, it means the world to us. And it always will.

With darkness closing in,

coastguard control draw up an area based on predicted currents, where

they want all parties to concentrate the search for Gav and Benny.

But experienced local lifeboat skipper Tommy Yule has

a feeling he knows where they might be.

Having been a fisherman, I know the local area, the tides,

what the sea is doing, what the tides are doing.

I said to my navigator, tell the coastguards that

I want to do my own search first along the surf line.

Gav and Benny have now drifted about five miles south of the violent swell.

They're only alive at all because they're wearing dry suits

which help to keep their body warmth in.

But the effect can only last so long. They're losing heat and losing hope.

I put my head in the water and it was warm.

And I knew that that was a sign of hypothermia, you know,

your body feels the cold as warm.

That's when we knew the body was starting to shut down.

We're in the middle of nowhere. We're not going to get to shore.

It's now dark. Very, very hard. Very, very hard.

Just knowing that my wife was at home pregnant with my youngest son.

And we had a lot to look forward to in life.

And you knew you weren't going to be there to do it. It was, it was hard.

That's why I said to Benny, "If you do make it,

"I know you've got your own family but I need you to bring up my son."

And vice versa, he said the same to me.

But finally after more than three hours in the water

when it feels that like all hope has gone,

something appears on the horizon.

And Gav just turned round and he says, "I can see a light."

That moment was just... absolutely amazing.

It was like looking at the end of the tunnel.

Benny musters up all the breath left in his lungs

and grabs the whistle attached to his life vest.

Just blew as hard as I could.

Kept blowing and blowing and blowing

and eventually we seen the light turning.

This massive halogen light just turned to us.

It was just like, wow.

A massive sense of euphoria that we've got these guys. We've got them.

After three agonising hours,

Gav and Benny are finally hauled out of the water.

This photograph shows the trained first aiders warming them with blankets.

As they were drifting in and out of consciousness,

they were that sort of relieved to be saved.

I don't think they realised how bad they were.

How tired they were and hypothermic they were.

This footage from the lifeboat captures the moment Gav

and Benny are winched to safety by the coastguard helicopter.

It's a moment of joy for the lifeboat crew.

-TOMMY:

-As soon as they were away in the helicopter,

it was such a sigh of relief from the crew.

We actually had a group hug on the deck of the boat,

just saved these two guys from near death.

At the Ninewells Hospital, in Dundee, Benny and Gav are recovering well.

And the doctor came in and he took my temperature and stuff.

And I can only remember him saying, it's that absolutely amazing

how these guys are alive with the temperature they're at,

the body core temperature.

After a tearful reunion with their families who had been waiting

anxiously for news, the boys are reunited with each other.

I got up and walked through to Gavin's cubicle.

And the first thing I said to him was,

"Gavin, why is it always me and you? Always?"

And he just came in and he just gave us a big cuddle and both of us

just burst into tears, you know?

Incredibly, Gav and Benny have no lasting effects from their experience in the water.

To remind them of their lucky escape, they've both had tattoos done of

the words they repeated continuously to help keep each other alive.

They've also since signed up as RNLI volunteers, inspired by Tommy

and their other rescuers' actions that day.

That that man went out in the dark

and took his boat into somewhere that he probably shouldn't have went,

put his own life and his crew at a risk

and pretty much landed on top of us.

That's an experience that no-one can buy.

To compare other shouts, I think that will be one that will

stick out for the rest of my life. And the crew as well.

Both families are incredibly grateful.

Absolute heroes.

And without them, we definitely wouldn't be here.

Some very emotional stories today on Close Calls.

Join us for more next time.