Episode 3 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 people who've been there and lived to tell the tale.

Whoa!

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 were recorded on camera.

Are you all right?

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,

holiday horror.

-No! No...

-SHE SCREAMS

A teenage brother and sister are swept across the skies

as their parasail becomes detached from its towboat in a freak storm.

It's such a split second of just shock, adrenaline.

I think Anthony was trying to keep me calm.

And...

..CCTV footage captures the moment a young woman flees

an explosion behind a pub bar.

It's caused by an e-cigarette charger.

It was just, like, a flash of light.

And this, just, huge bang and ball of fire.

I was absolutely terrified.

COW MOOS

Also today...

..a couple viewing a farmhouse for sale

find a barely-conscious woman surrounded by a herd of angry cows

protecting their young.

The husband calls for help.

Mellieha Bay, Malta.

80 metres up, a brother and sister dangle helplessly

from a stranded parasail.

A freak change in the weather has left the boat they're attached to

grounded near the shore.

The frightened teenagers are powerless.

We started getting blown around in the air,

and we were hitting each other with our legs,

and we were like rag dolls.

Holiday-makers rush into the sea

to try and move the beached speedboat...

but they can't shift it.

Then the unthinkable happens.

-No! No...

-SHE SCREAMS

The parasail is severed from the towline.

Tourists scream in horror as the wind carries the pair

towards a string of high-voltage cables.

I thought, "They're going to get electrocuted,

"they're going to get electrocuted."

Mario and Bridget Nisbet and their children are a close-knit family.

Teenagers Anthony and Grace are friends, as well as siblings.

The kids really get on together, they're smashing.

It's like with any kids, you have little bits of arguments,

but generally they're fine.

We're close. We just get on - like, we're always joking and laughing.

Grace is about to finish school and Anthony is at university

but the family, from Preston, still enjoy going on holiday together.

Being at uni, it's sort of like the only time you get to spend together,

so that makes it even better, being able to have that two weeks

or whatever where it's just your family.

It's August and the whole family, including grandparents,

head off for a relaxing beach break to Malta -

one of their favourite destinations.

Mellieha Bay, and it's just a small bay,

really nice beach, beautiful blue water.

Just really like it, like, the locals are really friendly.

Towards the end of their two-week stay,

Anthony and Grace decide it's time to do something adventurous.

At the beach,

Grace finds just what they're looking for.

I heard someone talk about parasailing

and thought, "Ooh, that sounds fun."

I said to Anthony, "Oh, do you fancy that?"

and I thought it's safe, you know? It's not, like, a dangerous sport.

The idea meets with Mum's approval.

You think of parasailing

and you think about the boat just pottering along

in this beautiful bay,

and the parasail just let out a little bit.

You're oblivious to danger on holiday

because you're so relaxed.

The parasail boat hasn't been operating for a couple of days

due to strong winds and rough seas,

but the conditions have improved

and Anthony and Grace are keen to have a go.

We asked the guy, "Is it all right to sail today?"

He said, "Yeah, the weather's great," you know?

While the siblings get kitted out, their parents relax on the beach.

We just hung about and saw them, like, tootling off.

You know, everything were fine.

With their mum and dad watching from the shore,

Anthony and Grace excitedly board the boat and head out into the bay.

We got our life jackets on, put our harnesses on.

We couldn't wait to get up there and to experience it.

Another couple went up before us,

so me and Anthony were just, like, taking pictures of each other

and getting excited, like, "Oh, look how high they're going!"

and, you know, saying it looks fun.

But back on the beach,

Mario and Bridget are beginning to feel anxious.

I could just start seeing quite a lot of mist

and the weather just went a bit cooler,

and you could feel, like, flecks of sand.

And we thought, like, "Ooh, there's a storm brewing."

On the boat, it's Grace and Anthony's turn to take to the sky.

The other couple are coming down

and the guy says, "Right, it's your go,"

so we're really excited, and then he hooked us all up.

Other passengers on the boat take photos

as Anthony and Grace are launched into the air.

We were just slowly going up.

Didn't have a care in the world, really.

We kept going higher and higher, and the sea was calm,

but we were really high up - I kept thinking, "Whoa!"

and I actually said to Anthony, "Oh, what would you do if it snapped?"

They've have only been in the air for a few minutes

when the change in the weather becomes more pronounced.

I looked out into the distance and thought, "Ooh, what's that?"

It looked like a block of grey compared to the block of the blue.

We slowly saw, like, the weather getting darker,

but obviously you don't think it's going to be anything serious.

And then we saw the boat struggling as the waves built up.

The dark skies are the beginnings of a freak storm.

The wind increases dramatically

and way below Anthony and Grace strong waves are building up.

Even at a distance Mario can see that something's not quite right.

They didn't seem to be going out of the bay,

they seemed to be coming in.

The boat is battling against strong waves

and being pushed towards the shore.

Grace starts to feel uneasy.

I was thinking, "It's going a bit wrong,"

but I still thought we were safe.

And then it started moving backwards.

And it didn't really occur to me

that it shouldn't be moving backwards -

that a parasail should be going forwards.

And 80 metres up above the sea,

it's beginning to dawn on Anthony

he and his sister could be in big trouble.

The boat dragging us

was actually hitting other boats in the harbour,

and they were trying to grab onto other boats

to sort of anchor us down, to stop us getting blown further in-shore.

A holiday-maker on the beach begins to film the scene

with his mobile phone

as the boat hits the shallows and turns on to its side.

We started getting blown around in the air

and we were hitting each other with our legs,

and we were like rag dolls up there, a bit.

I was thinking, "This isn't really supposed to be happening."

With the stricken boat now aground in the shallows,

shocked holiday-makers rush to help.

When the people were jumping in, sort of shouting,

that heightened the experience of it.

My sister was getting quite worried, but I was just talking to her -

we were just keeping each other calm.

Screams of horror as the parachute suddenly detaches from the boat.

Oh, no, don't... No! No...

SHE SCREAMS

And on the beach below,

mum Bridget watches her children sweep across the sky.

Within no time at all they were in the distance,

and they were very close to some power lines.

Richmond, North Yorkshire.

A young barmaid has a pub-full.

A football team are celebrating the end of their season when...

She was coming back to give me my change,

and all of a sudden this thing explodes behind the bar.

The young woman's face is engulfed by a fireball.

18-year-old student Laura has worked part-time

in The Buck Inn in Richmond for three years.

The Buck's a friendly pub

and it's a good place to work, I enjoy it.

It's a busy Saturday night and the bar is packed with regulars,

as well as local soccer players celebrating the end of the season.

Sharing the shift that night with Laura is another young student,

Stewart.

Laura, she gets on with everyone, she knows everyone.

You always have a good time if you're working with Laura.

Stewart's trying to give up smoking and has switched to e-cigarettes.

He thinks nothing of it when he plugs in the device to charge

halfway through the evening.

I just used a standard mobile phone charger with a USB port in it

to plug the charger end of this e-cigarette into...

And that's something everyone does.

Leaving it to charge, and without a second thought,

the pair carry on pulling pints in the packed bar.

Me and Laura were really rushed off our feet.

It was really busy, we had all the football team in,

about 70-odd people in the pub at the time.

Tom is a regular in the pub

and can be seen here on the bar's CCTV footage recorded that night.

It was the day of the Grand National,

so the pub was very busy - it was packed out,

it was a full house.

Me and a few friends had just come in here for a few drinks

and to watch the race and see if we'd picked any winners that day.

But Tom is about to get more than he bargained for.

Just opposite him next to the till

is where Stewart has plugged in his e-cigarette to charge.

I was getting served by Laura.

She went to the till, she was just coming back to give me my change

and all of a sudden, this thing just explodes behind the bar.

The moment's perfectly captured on the pub's security camera.

I heard a massive bang.

It was just like a flash of light.

I was absolutely terrified!

I didn't know what it was.

Stewart's e-cigarette charger has exploded next to the till,

launching a fireball that shoots a metre in one direction...

then rockets back towards Laura, now stood at the front of the bar...

creating more sparks and flames.

In shock, Laura runs away to safety.

Everyone's confused, including Stewart.

I just heard this really loud bang,

and I look over to my right and see this yellow ball

of what looked like fire

just, you know, rolling around next to Laura's face.

Customer Tom is even closer to the horrifying explosion.

It must have been, you know, two foot away from me,

and just this huge bang and ball of fire,

so, yeah, yeah, it was quite scary.

The explosion may have been right next to Laura,

but she has no idea what caused it.

I felt the heat on my arm,

and I think that's one of the reasons why I ran.

A customer took me straight to the toilets and, like...

I had, like, black soot all up me arm,

so she started, like, rubbing it off, like, to see what was wrong.

Still behind the bar, Stewart realises the explosion

has in fact been caused by his charging e-cig battery.

He finds the remains on the floor.

The stuff came out of the battery,

it was just smouldering away on the floor for a while.

What I had done was I had used a different USB charger

that comes with the e-cigarette to charge it up

and I had plugged it into this mobile phone charger,

and the current was too strong, or whatever.

But it's something that a lot of people do.

Luckily, Laura isn't injured...

I wasn't in pain,

I think it was just the initial shock of...

something's just blew up.

..but she does have a new policy behind the bar.

I don't mind, like, mobile phones on charge and that,

but e-cigarettes, I won't let them charge behind the bar,

especially when I'm working.

A call to the emergency services after a house-hunting couple

find a horrifically-injured woman on farmland.

The cows were five, ten metres away, circling,

sort of making a lot of noise.

She had been so badly trampled.

I mean, there were cloven hoof marks across her back.

Back in Malta, Anthony and Grace's parasail ride

has turned into a terrifying ordeal.

A freak storm has grounded the boat towing them

and they're dangling helplessly 80 metres in the air.

On the beach below, dad Mario is very worried.

The paraglider was just stationary...

and then I could just see their legs moving backwards and forwards.

Desperate holiday-makers are trying to right the boat

stranded in the shallows.

Probably a lot of them thought, you know, it might be OK,

they're going to be able to sort this out, like we did

when we were up there.

Then the unthinkable happens -

the rope holding Anthony and Grace's parasail suddenly detaches.

-No! No...

-SCREAMING

The tourist filming the drama on his mobile phone

picks up cries of terror from people watching below -

including their mum and dad.

I think the most scary thing was hearing all

the people on the beach scream,

like, all them people screaming because of us.

SCREAMING

When the rope detaches, you know,

the screaming really hit home for my sister -

and me, I guess - that, you know,

we're in a really bad situation here

and, you know, anything could happen.

With nothing to hold it, the parasail is blown inland

towards a busy dual carriageway.

There's a road right next to the beach,

but I wasn't thinking, like, "Oh, what if we land in the road?"

or, "What if?"

I was just thinking, like, we need to land.

Anthony and Grace fly over the road

but, to the horror of their mum Bridget,

they're heading into even more peril.

Within no time at all, they were in the distance

and they were very close to some power lines.

I thought, "They're going to get electrocuted.

"They're going to get electrocuted."

The brother and sister narrowly miss the high-voltage cables,

but aren't out of danger yet.

We couldn't see where we were landing

cos we were going backwards, so that was, like, quite scary.

Such a split second of just shock, adrenaline.

I was shouting to my sister, like, land on her feet.

You know, if you're going to break your leg,

it's better than breaking anywhere else in the body -

especially your back and your neck.

The pair drop out of sight

and the mobile phone footage loses them,

but they continue to be dragged across the countryside,

flying over these trees and bushes towards houses and scrubland behind.

Watching 300 metres away in a caravan park

is local resident John Peel.

All of a sudden - we were looking there - and everybody...

We hear a lot of people, like, screaming.

We're very close to the beach

and we could see that a parachute was drifting away.

The parachute hit the field,

and then it was moving upwards onto these caravans, bungalows.

The couple descend at speed, still being rocked about by the wind.

I thought, "I'm going to break my legs."

Like, from that height, you don't expect to just walk away.

We hit the ground quite hard.

We didn't just stop - we got dragged for about 40 to 50 metres.

The wind was so strong, we were just, you know, rolling around.

Couldn't see anything, it was all just a blur

because we were going so fast.

So I couldn't look for anything to hold on to.

Finally, something stops their relentless drag along the ground.

There was, like, a breeze block wall sort of semi-built,

and I hit that with my side and sort of knocked that over.

After watching their children vanish from sight,

Mario and Bridget can only pray they've landed safely.

At that point, I was frightened.

I just tried to think positive that they were OK,

but deep, deep down,

I were just hoping they weren't badly maimed or even killed.

It's actually upsetting me now,

thinking about it.

Sorry.

Anthony and Grace have come down to earth with a bang,

but they're still in danger.

They've crash-landed near John's home.

He and his neighbours rush to their aid.

Everybody was worried, you know?

The parachute - we had to stop it because if it lifts again,

it can take them a bit more.

And at that same time, another mate of mine, and others,

we were sort of grabbing them and I was telling them,

holding the camera, "Hold the parachute,"

so it won't keep dragging them.

Two men jumped on the parachute, got us unclipped.

We could have kept going, like, we could have gone up again,

but, yeah, I'm so thankful they were there.

They were back on the ground,

but the teenagers are deeply concerned about each other.

I kept looking at my sister,

I was like, "Please, don't have a neck injury," you know?

They're the things you're thinking at the time.

I remember Anthony saying, "Grace, are you all right?"

and I was looking at him, seeing if there was anything, like,

wrong with him, cos I thought we must have broken something.

And a woman was there who helped me,

and I remember just getting up and hugging her,

cos...I don't know why, maybe just wanted to feel safe.

The locals call an ambulance

and Anthony and Grace are taken to hospital.

Mum and Dad head there in a taxi.

-MARIO:

-The drive to the hospital,

we didn't really say a word to each other.

We just held hands

and we were just hoping that everything was going to be fine.

The Maltese nurse said, "It's OK, it's not grievous."

We were just elated.

Astonishingly, Grace and Anthony walk away

with only scratches and grazes.

I've got a few scars there from all the brushes,

but I couldn't believe I hadn't broken anything.

I was probably scraped up the worst - I've got some scars,

you know, down my leg, arms.

But I think my right leg had taken a lot of the impact from the fall.

But we were just so relieved.

The brother and sister know they were very lucky that day,

but it hasn't put them off future adventures.

I'd like to go, like, skydiving or, like, bungee jumping.

I'm going to try and not let it limit me, but, yeah,

it's definitely made me more cautious

of what I'm going to do in the future!

My mum and nana probably wouldn't want me to do it,

but it's just the person I am -

I like things like that!

The difference between a close call or a disaster

can be a matter of minutes or seconds,

and a quick response can really affect the outcome.

Lewdown, West Devon.

A call comes in to the emergency services.

A couple viewing a cottage on farmland have discovered

a severely-injured woman lying in a field.

There was this lady curled up like a foetus.

I never expected to see somebody so mutilated.

They need help - fast.

Children's author and illustrator Babette Cole

has lived in the countryside for most of her life, and loves her horses.

Looking to downsize, she's hunting for a cottage with some land.

One July day, she arranges to see a property in a pretty Devon village.

I was shown around the cottage by the estate agent,

but she didn't have time to show me around the land

and so I walked around the land myself.

House-hunters Rachel and Andy Hobbs

are also looking for a property with a field

and have their eye on the same cottage.

They're next to view the house that day.

Outside, Babette is still there, investigating the attached land.

I was told by the estate agent, "Don't go into THAT field

"because there are cows in there."

The estate agent knows the cows have just calved

and might be fiercely protective of their offspring.

Babette follows the advice,

and instead checks out an adjacent piece of land.

What she doesn't know is that the gate between the two fields

has been left open.

She's alone in the field with her two dogs, and doesn't see the herd.

But then she hears them.

They were thundering towards me - the whole herd of about 40 of them.

Babette is unable to outrun the cows.

And then one of them more or less picked me up with its nose,

like that, and I went straight up in the air,

landed on the backs of the other cows,

fell in amongst them and they just trampled me and tried to kill me.

Dozens of hooves are now stamping down on Babette,

battering her limbs, body and face.

By now, the other prospective buyers, Rachel and Andy,

have finished viewing the house and are keen to see the land.

Outside, they find one of Babette's dogs, but can't see the owner.

They do see the cows, though...

We saw the cattle charging

and making a lot of noise.

..but they still haven't noticed Babette,

who's fighting for her life on the ground.

There was no way out of it, and I couldn't stand up,

I couldn't move, and I got lots of blows to the head,

and I had just given up.

I thought, "One more blow and I'm out, that's it."

While Andy ties up the dog, Rachel goes to investigate.

Well, I went over to the gate

and I could just hear some sort of groaning, very faint groaning.

Instinctively, Rachel climbs over the locked gate

between the house and the field.

She can't believe what she finds.

There was this lady curled up like a foetus,

half her clothes missing.

Ear was in a most frightful state,

and her eyes.

I never expected to see somebody so mutilated.

I was just thinking, "I'm going to die,"

and in a lot of pain,

and all of a sudden the cows went away,

and then this lovely lady, Rachel, was pulling me out of the mud.

When Andy returns,

he immediately realises both women are in great danger.

The cows were five, ten metres away,

circling, making a lot of noise, stamping their feet.

Rachel acts fast.

I bullied her, I suppose, if you like,

to sort of get up and help me out a bit.

And she somehow managed to stand upright,

and she just slumped across the gate,

a bit like a corpse.

But the angry cows are heading towards them again.

And I thought, "My God, we've got to get out of here

"or we're all going to be in trouble."

Unable to open the gate,

Rachel desperately drags Babette under it,

and somehow gets her to a nearby barn.

Meanwhile, Andy has called 999.

In the barn, Rachel realises the full extent of Babette's injuries.

There was blood around her ears,

there were cloven hoof marks across her back.

I don't think there was a part of her that didn't look hurt.

Andy relays Babette's condition to the emergency call handler.

Although barely able to speak,

Babette just wants news of her missing dog.

Paramedic Nicholas Gue arrives on the scene.

He's expecting the worst.

When you consider, you know, the weight of such an animal -

it's just under a tonne -

that has potential to cause some really serious injuries.

It crossed my mind, you know, "Is this patient going to survive?"

Babette is rushed by air ambulance to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.

She's found to have multiple lacerations

to her face, ears and liver.

Her torso is horrifically bruised.

She has broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and damaged kidneys.

The shoulder blade on the X-rays

looked as if somebody had hit it with a sledgehammer.

Despite her injuries, amazingly,

Babette only spends a week in hospital

before being allowed home to recover fully.

Rachel is still haunted by what might have happened that day.

I had nightmares that night when Andy was fast asleep snoring,

and it kept going through my head, and the vision of her.

To think, if we hadn't been there, she could have died.

And Babette is certainly grateful

Rachel and Andy were viewing the same property.

I certainly wouldn't be here today if it hadn't have been for Rachel.

She saved me from being trampled to death by cows.

Some very emotional stories today on Close Calls.

Join us for more next time.