Episode 2 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 could go either way.

If he's alive, it's going to be a miracle, really.

The difference between disaster and survival.

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

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

I thought he'd broken his neck.

Their instincts and resources,

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

They were just engulfed in flames.

And their dramatic experiences were 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,

emergency teams attempt to save a teenage girl who's

fallen 200 feet down a cliff face.

She was taking selfies with her best friend.

It's a horrible thing to watch.

I could see her bounce off rocks all the way to the bottom.

15-year-old Leah isn't showing any sign of life.

Leah was unresponsive, she was in almost a foetal position, curled up.

And six fishermen in peril off Cornwall.

A Royal Navy crewman risks his own life to pluck them to safety.

He was, er, submerged by a very large wave which tumbled him

around so he wasn't aware of where was up and where was down.

Filey, North Yorkshire.

A coastguard helicopter's thermal imaging camera shows a rescue

team as they reach a teenage girl lying

unconscious at the bottom of a 200ft cliff.

They're going to need to winch her to safety.

15-year-old Leah was taking selfies with a pal

when she lost her footing, and plunged down the sheer cliff face.

Her hand slipped and I watched her fall.

She has a severe head injury.

A team of seven, including paramedics, has

roped down the cliff to reach her, but they know her chances are slim.

Looking at the track record of people who've fallen there,

you're obviously expecting the worst.

Leah, from Nottingham,

is a typical active teenager who loves spending time with her friends.

I am 15 years old and I like to skate. Roller-skating.

All sorts of tricks and stuff like that.

Mum Michelle says her daughter has a strong personality.

Very outspoken, mischievous, basically, a lovely girl.

Leah's best friend is Alina, they're inseparable.

I met Alina in school, in a geography lesson.

We've been best friends for a year and a half now.

What one does, the other one's not far behind.

They are like the terrible two, basically.

We get along with each other. She's got a great personality.

She just cares for everyone around, yeah.

It's Easter, Leah and Alina are on a fun-filled break

at a holiday camp in Filey, North Yorkshire.

I was with my dad and stepmum, and brother and sister,

and I was with Alina

because Dad said I could take a best friend with me.

We stayed in a caravan near the coast.

It was about five minutes to walk to the cliffs.

After ten days of fun at the idyllic spot, the holiday's coming to an end.

Best mates Leah and Alina want to take some final pictures

as a memento.

They leave the safety of the campsite for a stroll along this clifftop,

but they're walking into danger.

All I remember is saying to my dad, "Can I go out for ten minutes?"

And he said, yeah, but not for long because tea was ready.

So me and Alina went for a walk. That's all I can remember.

But Alina can remember what happened next all too clearly.

Me and Leah had an idea to go and take pictures because we thought

the view would be quite nice.

So when Leah's dad was doing the barbecue near the caravan,

we decided to both go on a walk.

We were just casually on our phones.

Clear warning signs are posted at the top of the cliffs

but the teenagers seem oblivious to the dangers.

There was a sign saying sheer cliffs,

and we obviously went over that sign,

to get closer to the view, and we just took pictures.

We were just laughing about and everything, not knowing

how dangerous it is.

But as they move closer and closer to the edge,

Leah makes a decision that will change her life.

She wanted to go further down to try and get a better picture.

But then, without any real understanding of how serious

the warning signs are,

Leah moves perilously close to the cliff edge.

When we were getting further down, it was getting more steep.

There was not much to hold on to,

there's not much to step onto or grab onto.

She grabbed the wrong part of a wall, unfortunately,

the bit that crumbled, and her hand slipped.

I grabbed Leah's hands and Leah lost her footage as well.

And I was holding on to her hand,

but her hand slipped through her hoodie.

And, unfortunately, I watched her fall...down.

Leah plummets down the sheer cliff, 200ft onto the rocks below.

It's a horrible thing to watch,

I could see her bounce off rocks all the way to the bottom.

And then I saw her roll, and lay still.

She comes to rest at the bottom of the isolated cliff.

Alina looks for help, but there is no-one else around.

She doesn't know if her best friend is alive or dead.

The first thing I tried to do is try and go down and help her.

But, obviously, I couldn't do that

so then I went to ring Leah's dad straight away.

I was so panicky and scared.

I just said the basics like, "Leah's fell off a cliff",

and he came straightaway.

Leah's dad races to the scene,

while her stepmum calls the emergency services.

Leah is lying near the foot of the cliff,

just yards from where the sea is crashing on to the rocky beach.

It's an almost impossible part of the coastline to reach.

By sheer luck, the local coastguard cliff rescue team

are training nearby.

They abandon the exercise and rush to the scene.

Rope technician Paul Lane knows the area well.

What you've got in the first instance,

and this is what catches people out, is a fairly shallow angled

embankment which is, more often than not, grassy.

But, just beyond that, is a sheer band of rock

and that then runs out into a slightly shallower gradient,

but it's 200 feet all the way to the cliff bottom.

It's a big drop.

Because of the remote location, the Humberside Search

and Rescue helicopter, based 40 miles away, is also alerted.

We were just crewing up, actually, for a training exercise.

Literally, as we were starting the aircraft, we got a call.

I started getting the medical kit ready in the back of the aircraft.

At home in Nottingham, more than 100 miles from Filey,

Leah's Mum, Michelle, gets a phone call.

I was still down here watching some telly,

it was about quarter to ten at night when her dad phoned me.

I did ask him what was wrong with Leah,

I had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right.

And Darren said that there'd been a serious accident,

she'd fallen off a cliff.

I asked him how. He said he didn't know how she'd fallen.

I asked him if she was alive.

And his words were, he didn't know.

Back in Filey, the coastguard rescue team are at the top

of the cliff face.

They know this spot.

The area where Leah fell is incredibly dangerous.

And, looking at the track record of people who've fallen there,

you're obviously expecting the worst.

Later, rescue teams reach the teenager.

Leah was unresponsive. She was in almost a foetal position, curled up.

It quickly became apparent that she'd had a really nasty fall.

And Leah's mum races 100 miles to her daughter's side.

Thoughts were going through my head, is she paralysed?

Is she still alive? It's not good.

Not good.

When accidents happen in isolated, out of the way places

we need to call on the help of a groups of some special people.

And thank goodness for them, their bravery and their skills.

Five miles off the Atlantic coast of Cornwall.

Weather conditions are ferocious.

Royal Navy winchman Russell 'Patch' Adams

swings violently from a rescue helicopter.

Below him a fishing trawler is being battered by 30ft waves.

Six fishermen are on deck, fearing for their lives.

A lifeboat's onboard camera shows Patch being plunged

repeatedly below the huge waves as he tries to reach them.

One minute, I was 20 feet above the sea,

the next I was 60 or 70 feet above it.

He would come down and be dunked, and then he'd disappear again.

Then you'd see him swing and he'd grab for the person

and then suddenly he'd disappear again.

Next thing he'd be up in the air. It took a lot of guts.

He's risking his own life, and he'll have to do it six times

if he's going to save the lives of all six men.

41-year-old Patch Adams has been a winchman for the Royal Navy's

search and rescue team for seven years.

It was something he always wanted to do when growing up in Canada.

I always wanted to fly.

And that's what led me into the air crewman role.

The ability to be able to help people is really satisfying.

When they turn around, you see in their face, and they say thank you,

you realise you've made a difference,

that's the most satisfying part of the job, definitely.

It's a cold February afternoon,

Patch and his crew mates at the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose

in Cornwall suspect they're about to be called out.

We could hear it on the radio.

It was a job off the north Cornish coast. Sort of a bad storm.

The French fishing trawler Le Sillon is being battered by high winds.

They've lost all power, so the crew can't communicate by radio,

but the six fishermen on board

have managed to contact the coastguard via mobile phone.

The lifeboat at RNLI Padstow is launched

and heads to Le Sillon's position, five miles off the coast.

When they reach the stricken trawler, the lifeboat's onboard

camera shows the French vessel rising and falling in the huge waves.

Without help, the fishing boat is in danger of being swept towards

land and wrecked on the rocky coastline.

The first thing the RNLI do is attach a tow rope.

Initially, our main thought was

we wanted to get her clear of the land.

The closer it is to the shore,

the harder it will be to attempt a rescue if something went wrong.

Being towed out to the deeper sea to sit out the storm is one

option, but the fishermen have been stuck amongst the hazardous

30ft waves for more than six hours,

and the weather is not improving.

The crew had phoned through and said that they wanted to abandon ship.

So the best so the best way to do it, and, for the time we had,

we called for a helicopter.

Patch and his team-mates respond.

In charge of the four-man crew on the Navy's Sea King helicopter is

Steffen Volkwein.

The wind at that point was gusting up to 70 knots which is quite a lot.

That was one of the reasons we were called,

and the small helicopters can respond to that.

Sea state, round about 30 feet, so ten metre waves.

And then quite a large swell with a lot of movement.

Darkness falls as the helicopter arrives, and it's just in time.

The tow rope between the lifeboat

and the trawler snaps, it's drifting again towards the rocks.

The helicopter's onboard camera is rolling

and captures these images of the boat and its stricken crew.

Because the vessel had shifted and it was beam onto the swell,

it was rolling quite a lot,

and as it was drifting towards shore,

the sea state was getting worse.

Ideally, they would winch me down to somewhere on the deck,

but the deck was quite cluttered and there wasn't a good place to put me.

That's when the conversation shifted towards getting them

to jump in the sea.

It's a terrifying situation, the fishermen,

visible here on deck, are wearing survival suits,

the water temperature is just six degrees and the waves, ferocious.

The decision was made that it might be better for the fishermen

to jump one at a time, swim clear of the vessel

and then I would go down and recover them one at a time.

I think the key is the RNLI had a vessel there which was

sort of a safety blanket for us.

We were acting as a goalkeeper, if you like, as well.

Just to pick up any stragglers,

or to be there in case something went wrong.

The lifeboat's onboard camera shows Patch beginning to

descend on the helicopter winch line for the first time,

but the 35 mile per hour wind

causes him to swing violently back and forth.

So the sea state was coming up and down so one minute I was sort of

20 feet above the sea and the next minute I was 60 or 70 feet above it.

The winch operator was trying to keep me

at a certain height above the water,

it was moving too quickly, the mechanics of the winch couldn't

keep up with it so I was sort of in and out of the sea as well.

And I think the fishermen realised that it was probably the best option

that they got off the vessel, even if

it meant jumping into that sort of sea.

The first fisherman leaps into the water, Patch needs to grab him fast

but the treacherous seas are playing havoc with the rescue attempt.

We realised as the course of the first rescue was going on

that it was just easier for the winch operator to pay out

a lot of cable and for me to swim to the fishermen.

Quite an amazing thing to watch.

He would come down and be dunked and then he would disappear again,

and then you'd see him swing and he grabbed the person.

Then suddenly he disappear again.

The next thing, he'd be up in the air.

You know, it took a lot of guts.

Patch's modesty belies the danger he's putting himself through.

And he'd have to do this six times, each time risking his own

life to haul them clear.

Once we got hold of them,

they know that, without any sort of language barrier,

they know that they are a lot safer than they were five minutes earlier.

So, once the first one was recovered it sort of gave us confidence

to know that we could do it.

It takes Patch around ten minutes to get the first two men

safely on board, then he goes down again.

On the third casualty we recovered, he was submerged by a very

large wave which tumbled him around,

so he wasn't aware of where was up and where was down.

And I had a mouthful of water, I couldn't get my head

above the surface. So I had to inflate my jacket.

When he sat in the cargo door after the third casualty, I saw him,

er, breathing a lot, and being a bit exhausted.

So I gave him some rest and said we stop

here for another ten minutes to give you some breathing time.

My belly was full of salt water, really.

I wanted to throw it up, and I started involuntarily retching.

I sort of hoped that it would come up, but it wouldn't come up. So...

Steffen insists Patch takes a rest,

but ten minutes later he's on his way back down.

He wanted to get everybody safe on that fishing vessel,

as soon as possible.

Although he needed some time to rest,

he was trying to get down there as soon as, and get the next one up.

The RNLI camera shows Patch struggling against the huge waves.

If he swallows too much sea water, he's at risk of drowning,

and if he's carried too far by the waves

he could get smashed against the trawler's hull.

But he manages to get the next two men to safety.

However, the sixth crewman, the skipper, makes a mistake

and jumps into the water from the far side of the boat,

out of Patch's reach.

He, sort of, just started drifting away.

All I saw was his little light on his life jacket,

sort of, disappearing. That was the scariest part.

As the skipper vanishes from Patch's view,

Steffen decides to radio down to the lifeboat.

We realised immediately that it was the best

and safest effort at that point to call in the lifeboat, which we did.

They are now in charge.

I was on the radio and it came through we'd lost him,

and I just got right back on the radio, "Right, we'll go in."

And just went right up and saw him

and the lads jumped down on the starboard deck

and grabbed him on board.

With one fisherman in the lifeboat and five on the helicopter,

all six are now safe.

We brought the five guys back here and then

someone from the Fisherman's Mission in Newlyn came to get them.

And just hours later, the unmanned trawler lies wrecked

on the rocks, seen here from the Navy helicopter the following day.

It could have been so different.

If she'd been swamped in the middle of the night by big sea,

turned over, it might have been days before anyone

knew that there was something wrong.

Worst-case scenario is, you know, someone loses their life,

but luckily that didn't happen.

To be able to help somebody who's having a bad day,

it doesn't get any better than that, really.

That night, six lives were saved, without a doubt,

and, you know, it was...

six lives saved by some very good teamwork, to be honest.

The entire helicopter crew were commended

by the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society for their work that night,

and Patch later went to Buckingham Palace

to receive the Queen's Gallantry Medal.

Back to Filey.

A coastguard helicopter's thermal imaging camera

shows 15-year-old Leah lying motionless after plummeting 200 feet

down a sheer cliff while taking selfies with her best friend Alina.

She ignored warning signs.

We were just laughing about and everything,

not knowing how dangerous it is.

Paramedics rope down the cliff to reach Leah.

The coastguard helicopter hovers above and a lifeboat stands by.

Rope technician Paul is one of the first on the scene.

Leah was unresponsive. She was in almost a foetal position.

She was curled up, but it quickly became apparent

that she'd had a really nasty fall and she was really pretty poorly.

But she was breathing.

It's a good sign but the team are worried.

Her airway was quite badly compromised,

so then it became about doing the best we could for her

with the tools that we had to hand.

The medics attempt to open up her airway.

Unfortunately, Leah seemed to have

involuntarily clamped down on her tongue,

so she was unable to breathe properly through her mouth.

It was just through her nose.

While rescue workers do all they can for Leah,

her desperate mum, Michelle,

is already on the road heading for Filey, 100 miles away.

It will take her more than two hours,

and for the entire journey, all she can think about is her daughter.

What must have been going through her head?

Who was she crying out for?

That was frightening. Very frightening.

In Filey, light is fading rapidly.

The coastguard helicopter's camera

shows winchman Alec being lowered down to the rocky shoreline.

The cliff face was just sheer,

completely vertical all the way down.

There's nothing to stop any fall.

So my instant gut reaction was that she was going to be...

probably dead.

Alec joins the rescue team on the ground.

The paramedic reported that, you know,

other than a bruise to the head

and she suspected there was abdominal breathing,

there was actually apparently nothing else wrong with her.

So you start questioning yourself,

because she's clearly very poorly and has fallen a very long way,

and you're just wondering, what have I missed, you know?

And I'm sure that the paramedic on scene was thinking the same.

Leah is placed onto the helicopter's specialist stretcher,

and with Alec at her side, is winched up to the waiting aircraft,

and pulled on board.

But as they speed off towards the hospital in Hull 40 miles away,

Alec realises that Leah's condition is taking a turn for the worse.

Quite rapidly it became apparent that her pulse rate was increasing,

and just as worrying - a little bit more so to me at the time -

was her breathing rate.

Leah is still struggling to breathe.

Alec finally manages to clear her airway.

And her breathing rate quite rapidly settled down,

er, so that was the one comforting thing,

but it was clear that she wasn't well.

It was pointing more and more

towards some quite severe neurological deficit.

With Leah showing signs of a brain injury, as the helicopter

approaches the hospital, Alec knows they have no time to waste.

I do recall that the pilot said, "I'm just going to do an orbit

"and recce the landing site,"

and I said, "No, no, can we go straight in, please?"

I was that concerned that the extra couple of minutes to do the recce

would have resulted in me having to, you know,

conduct CPR as we were landing the aeroplane,

which is always going to be a little bit difficult.

A trauma team are waiting,

and doctors get to work attempting to save the teenager's life.

As mum Michelle arrives in Hull,

she has no idea of her daughter's condition.

Thoughts were going through my head.

Is she still alive?

Has she broken her back? Has she broken her neck?

Is she paralysed?

When I did get to Hull, Leah was pulled out on a trolley,

and she looked terrible.

And it's not good.

Not good.

Leah undergoes a series of tests.

But for the family, it's a waiting game

It wasn't till about half past 12 that night

that we got the diagnosis from her,

that she'd got a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain,

and masses and masses of swelling.

Doctors put Leah into an induced coma

while her mum and dad maintain a bedside vigil.

The questions were, was she going to wake up?

What sort of damage was done?

Is she going to have a normal life?

The family are joined by Alina, desperate to see her best friend.

She didn't look like Leah at all.

Cos obviously her face was swollen,

and she had bruises all over her hands.

She had loads of tubes and everything.

She looked completely different.

It's an agonising ten days before the family finally get

the sign they've all been praying for.

When she started to come round, we was talking to her.

We played music to her, and I said to her,

"If you can hear me," I says, either open your eyes,

"or hold my hand, squeeze my hand."

And I just felt this little squeeze.

Oh, that was it, that just blew me away.

It's an emotional moment.

But now Leah is awake, the severity of her injuries become clear.

When we was talking to her she was trying to speak,

but one side of her was not quite as functional as the other side.

Apart from her fractured skull, Leah didn't break any other bones,

but doctors discover she has had a stroke as a result of the fall,

causing paralysis, impaired speech, and memory loss.

She was very spaced-out.

Er, and she just constantly stared.

And we did tell her that she was in hospital,

but it was like we was talking to her but nothing was going on.

Leah spends three weeks in Hull Royal Infirmary.

As her condition improves

she's transferred to the Queen's Medical Centre,

nearer her home in Nottingham, and her long recovery starts.

She couldn't move the left side of her at all,

so intense physio during the stay in the hospital, obviously,

gain that strength back up.

Now she's close to home, Alina is able to visit her best friend.

I think we both started crying.

Leah gave me a hug and I gave her a hug.

It was just such a nice feeling, to see her after all this time.

I remember, like, waking up in hospital.

I wasn't quite sure what had happened,

but I was with my best friend because she was laying next to me.

She just said, "You had a serious accident,"

and she just said that "you nearly died."

I was like, "Oh," but I didn't believe her.

Five weeks later, Leah leaves hospital,

but no-one can say how long it'll be

before she fully recovers from this terrible fall.

We have been informed that this could take up to another seven years

before her brain is fully functioning again.

So we've got a long road ahead of us, really.

I'm getting recovered.

Like, I still can't walk very far, but I can walk.

Obviously because I was paralysed, but I'm not paralysed any more.

I've still got brain damage.

She is...one lucky lady.

Very lucky,

and I don't know what all our family would have done

if the situation was different.

Everybody calls her the miracle angel.

Leah still struggles with her memory and speech,

but there is one thing she wants to say.

I don't personally remember what happened,

or, like, the coastguards, but I'd like to thank them especially.

And in the hospital in Hull, I'd like to thank all the nurses there.

Without them, I wouldn't be here.

And she knows just how lucky she is.

250-feet fall off a cliff, you expect to die.

But I pulled through it.

Two very close calls today.

Join us next time for more tales of bravery and survival.

Subtitles by Ericsson.