Episode 6 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 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.

I thought he had 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.

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...

The shocking moment a fireball overwhelms a race team in the pits.

A rider and a mechanic are on fire.

In a split second we were just engulfed in flames.

Now the blaze is threatening to reach the fuel stores behind them.

And moments from disaster...

I was just watching my mum.

All I heard was, "Pew!"

..a pavement explosion misses a mum and her two terrified children by inches.

I had a load of black up the side of me,

and someone thought my face had been blown off.

Also today, these big cats are way too close for comfort this

animal lover on safari.

When he got very close to me, suddenly started snarling

and the hackles went up.

If you started running, without question you'll be attacked.

The Isle of Man. The TT races.

A biker pulls into the pits.

He's halfway through a 150 mile race.

His support team get to work...when...

..fuel sprays out over his bike.

It hits the hot exhaust,

and suddenly a violent burst of flames swamps the team.

Two men are on fire.

Their team-mates frantically try to extinguish the flames.

49-year-old amateur motorcycle racer Grant Wagstaff lives in Bedford.

When he's not reaching speeds of 160mph on the track,

the father of two earns a living in his very family-oriented business.

I'm a general builder. Have been since I left school.

My father is a bricklayer. My son works for me as well, Zach...

who is doing his apprenticeship with us.

In fact, there are three generations of us working together.

You can imagine the banter. Yeah, it is good, it is really good.

Grant lives with his partner Fay.

They met in the pit lane at the Isle of Man track.

Fay walked past and I just looked at her and sort of gave her

an admiring look.

I thought, "He's got a cheeky smile, he's got twinkly eyes."

Grant graduated to bikes from go-karts.

After leaving school, he became a national champion on four

wheels, before turning his attention to two.

Racing means everything to Grant,

but he's very different on and off the track.

He's the most genuine person that you would ever come across.

But can be very intense when he's focused, particularly on racing,

because it is life or death, really.

Grant is a member of the Duck's Cross Racing team,

and since 2009 he's been fulfilling his dream of taking part

in the world famous, but notoriously dangerous, Isle of Man TT road race.

Grant rides in the Supersport division,

competing in two gruelling 150 mile endurance races over a week.

We all know the dangers, we're big boys. We're not forced to gp there.

We go there because it is the most spectacular place

to compete in the world on a motorbike.

It makes the hairs on my arm stand up.

The hairs on my neck at the minute, I can feel them,

they are trying to get away from my body.

It is very addictive.

It's June, and Grant is back on the Isle of Man with Fay

and the team for the annual TT.

After the first race of the week,

everyone is delighted with the performance of Grant

and his bike, including team mechanic and part-time chef Ben Smith.

From a mechanic's point of view, we were having a good week.

It was the best the bike had ever been.

On the day, I said to the lads, "I'm really up for this."

Because of the dangers involved,

Grant has to have absolute faith in Ben and the rest of his crew.

When they are preparing the bikes, and when they are helping me

out, my life is in their hands.

Today is race number two, the final run.

Out of 90 riders, Grant is currently placed in the top 30

and has his eye on climbing even further up the leaderboard.

Each lap of the famous mountain course is 38 miles long,

so he is rarely in sight. It's terrifying for Fay.

You get the feeling in the pit of your stomach

that is just dread, really,

I think is probably the best way to describe it.

Fay is nervously following Grant's progress using an app on her

-smartphone.

-It breaks the course down into six sectors.

Once they have gone past a sector, you know they are safe,

and then it starts to build again.

Until you get to the next checkpoint and it is, "Yes, OK, he's through."

Grant wants to achieve an average lap speed of a staggering 120mph

over the race, and he's looking good.

The first lap went well, the second lap, again,

the bike was running tremendously well.

It was handling superb, I was in a good frame of mind.

Grant was doing the best times he'd ever done.

We were looking for a really good result, especially that day.

He was overtaking people, he was really flying, really flying.

And he was going up the leaderboard as well.

But this is a race that Grant won't be finishing.

Halfway through the 150 mile competition,

he needs to come into the pit lane and refuel his bike.

A spectator's camera is rolling as he pulls up to Ben

and the rest of the team.

-SPECTATOR:

-Here's Grant.

-They need to work fast to get Grant back

out on the track as soon as they can.

Just like Formula One, every second counts towards his final time.

There is pressure to get it done quickly. At the end of the day you are in a race

and you want to get it done as quickly and smoothly as you can.

While one member of the team checks Grant's visor, and another

checks the tyres, Ben's job is to connect the fuel nozzle to the tank.

That's him at the back there.

He fills up the bike from the suspended petrol container above,

but in the frenzy of the pit stop, something goes wrong.

I'm kind of jostling for position and I move forward slightly.

Greg is having his visor changed, and the bike moves backwards

slightly, so the nozzle comes out, some fuel gets spilled.

Probably at least about a litre and a half of fuel.

The highly flammable petrol sprays out of the hose, drenching Ben,

the bike and Grant.

I then realised instantly the potential of the danger of having

-the fuel lit.

-And the spectators know it too.

We tried mopping it up, and I was trying to stop the fuel with my arms and my thighs.

And it seemed to have worked,

because Ben then carried on refuelling.

Suddenly the fuel ignites on the hot exhaust.

BEEP!

In an absolute split second we were just engulfed in flames.

The fire explodes over the whole crew.

Grant has his visor up - flames shoot out of the top of his helmet.

On fire, he jumps off the bike straight into the busy pit lane, where

other riders are still flying past to rejoin the race.

Fay is watching the drama unfold from just across the track.

I was just absolutely horrified.

Horrified.

All I knew was that my arms were on fire.

But didn't realise that my legs and torso were all on fire.

Just didn't realise. I was just trying to put my hands out.

The... The trouble is I had my visor up as well,

so, of course, that had taken a lot of the fumes up into the helmet.

Grant blindly stumbles out of shot.

He collapses to the ground, still on fire.

The rest of his team rush to his aid.

But on the other side of the track, Ben is in trouble, too.

Panic in the pit lane.

Mechanic Ben tries to stop the blaze reaching the overhead fuel tanks...

I've still got a hopper above my head that got about

30, 40 litres of fuel in it.

..as team-mates fight to put out the flames engulfing him.

A safari game drive takes the dangerous turn

when a tourist comes face-to-face with an agitated wild cheetah.

They're killing machines.

If I had panicked or shown fear, I think he would have seen me as prey.

It's 7am, and mum Jemma is walking her children to school.

She stops at a cashpoint,

not knowing she's only inches from disaster.

Suddenly...

Behind her, a manhole cover explodes,

shooting flames into the air

and sending debris flying.

If they'd have moved a step left, they'd have been right on top of it.

Jemma lives with her three children.

Ten-year-old Gage, eight-year-old Blaze and four-year-old Davy.

My mum's great because she makes us dinner. She helps us...

She helps us build things and fix things.

As with any young family, mornings are hectic for Jemma.

She gets the kids up, prepares their breakfast,

helps them dress,

and they're out of the door by 8:30 for the start of the school run.

The school is about 20 minutes from my house, away from town.

And we walk to school every morning.

Early summer, and it's the last few weeks of the school term.

Youngest daughter Davy is staying with her gran,

so, Jemma decides to set out earlier to do something a bit different.

Of course, the kids have been really well-behaved.

So, I was going to take them out for breakfast instead.

We were just going to pop into a little cafe down the road

and have some breakfast before they went to school.

They were happy.

Blaze was skipping along.

Gage was jumping about all excited to go for breakfast.

A local shop's CCTV footage shows the family clearly.

But their carefree morning is about to change dramatically,

as Jemma heads to a cashpoint to get some money to pay for breakfast.

I just told the kids to come a bit nearer to me

so I could see what they were doing while I was distracted.

But her safety conscious approach couldn't foresee

what's about to happen.

As we just stood there, there was a big explosion.

Really intense heat.

It felt boiling hot and we sort of got pushed back.

The concrete manhole cover,

only inches from where the family are standing,

has suddenly blown upwards in a sheet of flames.

EXPLOSION

I was just watching my mum.

All I heard was, "Pew!", and then a massive flame appeared

out of the ground, and we'll got pushed back.

As soon as she pressed the button,

it exploded.

I was right in front of the flames, so was Gage.

The manhole blasts deadly debris into the air.

It rains down on the family as they flee.

Bits of rubble flying up everywhere.

The explosion of the light fitting above the shop as well,

it looks like the whole thing was going to come down.

In an upstairs flat, two doors along from the explosion,

shop worker Laura Abbott has no idea what's just happened.

The flat shook.

We ran out to the window.

We thought somebody had perhaps driven into the building, or something.

Or it sounded like an explosion, something like that,

because it was quite... Quite violent, really.

Obviously, we are just above it, so if anything had kind of gone into it...

We don't want anything to collapse.

And if it was something that had exploded,

we were a bit worried... Obviously, we were on a higher level.

The CCTV footage shows a panic stricken Jemma and her children

running away from the blast, unsure if any of them have been injured.

They are helped by local people.

I had a load of, um...

Black up the side of me, and somebody had thought it was blood.

Someone thought my face had been blown off.

Blaze was screaming because something hit her in the leg,

which we think was the light fitting.

I just grabbed the kids.

As soon as I seen there was no more... No more explosion behind us,

and just run across the road with them.

The guy over the other side that runs the lighting shop took us

in there and make coffees and waited for the ambulance people to come.

Minutes later, the fire service arrived.

The police closed the road

and paramedics care for the bewildered family.

I was shaking.

The ambulance people said that they think I was in shock.

-That's you there.

-Yeah.

The family has had a terrifying ordeal.

This was a very close call.

When I saw the footage,

I was just really relieved for them, really, that they were OK

because it could have been so much more serious

if they'd have been standing, you know, a couple of feet the other way.

The cause of the blast is thought to have been an electrical fault

in a network junction box.

It left 70 local properties without power

until it was repaired later that day.

The effect on Jemma and her family lasted longer.

She experienced tinnitus, and the children became quite anxious.

I was shaking for about a week afterwards.

My ear whistles.

It still does it now, from where I was right next to it.

It was very loud.

Gage has a fear of electricals in the house

being on when he goes to bed.

And Blaze said she had nightmares about waking up

with her legs blown off.

So, that's not been fun to deal with.

I think we spent the first week with them in my bed afterwards.

Jemma knows they were lucky not to have been closer

to the blast.

Blaze was only a couple of inches away from the manhole cover.

Gage was about half a foot away from that.

And...

If they'd have moved a step left,

they'd have been right on top of it.

Back to the Isle of Man TT races,

where motorcyclist Grant Wagstaff's bike has burst into flames

in the pit lane during refuelling.

BLEEP!

A race fan is filming as the fuel explodes, setting the biker alight.

Grant scrambles off the burning bike and runs across the pit lane.

His partner, Fay, is horrified

at the scene unravelling before her eyes.

Time stood still.

I saw the bike was in flames, and looked beyond that

and I saw Ben was in flames, around his face area.

I've got a hose which has still got fuel coming out of it.

So I put a cloth over the fuel line to stop it,

because the last thing I wanted was any flames to go back up

because I've still got a hopper above my head

that's got about 30, 40 litres of fuel in it.

And at that point, I looked down and I realise that I'm actually on fire.

And he was patting, trying to pat all the flames down.

Both men are alight and in grave danger.

Fire marshals rush towards Grant.

And the next minute, all I know is being pushed to the floor,

and then just engulfed in a white powder.

And it was actually the fire marshals putting me out.

As the dust clears, Grant is on his knees and in shock.

Struggling to breathe amongst the toxic fumes.

On the other side of the pit, a frantic effort by team-mates

has extinguished the flames that have enveloped Ben.

He's helped towards an ambulance

so the extent of his burns can be assessed.

And then I'm walking away, to find the paramedics,

because obviously I've burned,

I've burned my face and my left hand badly.

With his helmet removed, Grant is helped up

and walked to the first aid hut.

Fay is desperate to see him, not knowing the extent of his injuries.

I'm sort of fighting to get out of this throng of people

that have crowded round behind me.

And I'm sort of almost leaping the gate to get over.

I just needed to get into the medical hut,

come hell or high water, really. Just to see if he was OK.

And surprisingly, he is.

I was a bit scorched, but I was very lucky

because inside your leathers, you're absolutely soaking wet with sweat.

And that actually helped save me

because the moment the fuel went up in flames,

it just evaporated all the sweat instantly in my leathers.

And then basically, I just had,

it was more like bad case of sunburn, really.

But his team-mate Ben hasn't escaped so lightly.

As soon as Grant finds out about his friend,

he's seriously worried for him.

I just wanted to know how Ben was.

I need to know, I want to know, I want to make sure he's OK.

They just said that he'd been quite badly burned,

and so your mind is racing, you're thinking the worst,

you're thinking, God, how bad is he?

Is it a life-threatening? But nobody could give me no information.

Despite the petrifying ordeal he's just been through,

Grant immediately drives to Noble's Hospital.

And when I eventually got in to see him,

I walked in there and I was... actually, I was quite shocked.

And quite emotional as well,

I was a bit emotional when I walked in there and saw him.

Yeah.

We had a bit of a hug and a chat,

and it was like one of those instances where nobody blames

anybody else, because these things happen.

It's part and parcel of racing.

Ben has second-degree burns on his face and hands.

It's two months before he's fully healed.

But it could have been a lot worse for everyone

if the fire had reached the fuel tanks.

It's always fortunate to be fortunate,

it's always good to be lucky. And we were lucky.

If Ben had got two-thirds of the fuel in the tank,

or even half a tank, before we'd had the fire,

that whole pit lane would have went up.

You would never have stopped it.

It would have been a massive, massive fireball.

It's just a split second, it could have...it could have gone

any which way and he wouldn't be here to tell you about it.

But Grant did survive, and just a month after the horrifying event,

he and Fay decided to tie the knot. Where else but at the home of the TT.

Both of us agreed that we were going to have a fun wedding,

and we were going to have it in the Isle of Man no matter what.

It was just such a fun-filled day, it was just laughter packed,

it was exactly what we wanted.

Despite the horrors of that day, Ben is still part of the team

but Grant won't be returning to the Isle of Man any time soon.

At least not in a racing capacity.

He's recently become a grandad and decided to hang up his leathers.

From now on, he'll be competing in a slightly slower paced sport.

I'm playing golf now, believe it or not.

I'm really enjoying it, I'm absolutely loving it.

It's a bit of a step from racing at 200mph to playing golf,

I know, and a lot of people are going to take the micky out of me

but it's a lot safer.

Now for an unusual close call.

Businessman Mickey loves animals,

and when he booked a safari holiday, he hoped he'd see lots of them.

But he got a lot more than he bargained for.

The Masai Mara, Kenya.

A family of cheetahs has taken over a tourist safari jeep.

But the passengers' excitement

at seeing these magnificent creatures close-up turns to alarm.

Without warning, two of the cats come frighteningly close.

Then, one of them does the unthinkable.

It leaps up and lands on the back-seat of the jeep,

right next to a stunned holiday-maker.

The big cat's tail flicks signal its agitation.

The unfolding drama is captured by a camera in another vehicle.

In the back seat, with a wild cheetah just inches from his face,

Mickey McCaldin doesn't dare move.

In he came, and the hackles went up

and when he got very close to me, started snarling.

Chartered fishing boat supplier Mickey loves the great outdoors.

When he's not working in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland,

he enjoys holidaying with his family

and for the third time in his life, he's about to head out to Kenya.

My sister has had a lifelong affair with Kenya.

She refers to it as Ireland with sunshine.

She had persuaded my wife and I, yet again,

and it wasn't very difficult, to accompany her on holiday there.

Travelling with Mickey and his family are friends

who've lived in Kenya for many years, David Horsey and his wife Vicky.

We were their tour guides.

They stayed in our house for a week or so,

and we went on a week's safari.

As his holiday snaps show,

Mickey and his party are having a great time

in one of Kenya's vast safari parks, the Masai Mara.

It's Eden, it's heaven on earth.

I'm no biologist, I'm no expert,

but it's such a privilege to be able to see it.

It's a beautiful clear day as they set out,

halfway through their holiday, for an early morning game drive.

And today, there's an added bonus

with some good news from their local guide.

Our driver, James, said to us, "Oh, I know where there is

"a mother and four adolescent cheetahs."

And sure enough, under the tree, was Mum and her four kids.

And they were lolling about.

It was very exciting for us

to get to within 20 or 30 metres of a family of cheetah.

He doesn't know it yet, but Mickey is going to get a lot closer than that.

Suddenly, the mother cheetah decides she needs a high point

to spot possible prey on the vast plain.

David is an old Africa hand,

but even he is surprised when she picks the jeep they're sitting in

to get a better view.

The mother cheetah jumped up over the spare wheel at the back,

and up on top of the car,

and the first inkling we knew she was on the car

was when she landed on the roof above Mickey's head.

It was very unnerving, because the canvas wasn't in pristine condition,

you could see daylight through the canvas.

And I could hear this ripping noise

with the weight of Mum above my head.

Video footage from a tourist in a different car shows the mother,

now joined by some of her cubs, lying on the canvas roof.

Then, some possible quarry comes into view.

And the family of carnivores go on the alert.

This little Thomson's gazelle came ambling by,

and their whole demeanour changed in an instant.

Absolute attention.

The mother cheetah keeps watch

as two of her cubs head off to stalk the gazelle.

Teenagers being teenagers,

two of the adolescents had a go far too early

when the Tommy was still 100 metres away.

The two young cheetahs return from their unsuccessful hunting trip.

David, sitting in front of Mickey, is taking pictures on his camera,

as one of them jumps on the bonnet.

But the other can't figure out how to join its mother up on top.

He hadn't witnessed his siblings getting onto the roof,

which they had done via the spare tyre on the back.

It thought that the right way to get to its mother

was through the car.

First thing I saw were two paws appearing at the top of the door.

In he came, and the hackles went up

and when he got very close to me, suddenly started snarling.

David's picture captures the panicked cheetah just inches from Mickey.

The terror on his face is plain to see.

It may not be the biggest cat, the cheetah,

but they're fairly impressive claws and they're fairly impressive teeth.

They're killing machines.

If I had panicked or shown fear,

I think possibly he would have seen me as prey.

Mickey needs to stay very still.

Running away is the worst thing to do.

As soon as you run for it,

you invoke this chase instinct of the cheetah.

So if you started running, without question, you'll be attacked.

These guys can run at 60mph. Usain Bolt can nearly do 30mph.

Downhill with the wind behind me, maybe 15mph is what I'm good for.

So just had to sit there and grin and bear it.

The confused young cheetah, still trying to reach its mother,

makes a move to walk straight across Mickey's lap.

It's only when it went towards him,

and looked like it was going to actually step over him,

to get out of the other side of the car,

that I think he quite rightly started panicking a bit.

Just before the cheetah takes another step,

a nervous Mickey shifts position.

At that stage, I decided this was not Disney World.

Mickey's reaction like this caused it to stop.

Because it probably realised, "I've gone too far."

It then turned around, and just hopped out of the car.

The cheetah's exit is a big relief for Mickey and his fellow passengers.

Now they just need to evict the mother cheetah

and the rest of the cubs from the jeep's roof.

So it ended up with five or six of us pushing up the rotten campus.

Mum was not at all pleased. That's when she really started snarling.

But eventually, they were able to persuade them

to jump off the roof.

It's been an exciting but unnerving experience for Mickey,

and one he'll certainly never forget.

A picture paints a thousand words, doesn't it?

I admit it is a look of sheer terror on my face.

One of my friends said to me, "It's a damn good job

"you weren't eating a beef sandwich, Mickey,"

and I said, "I was the beef sandwich!"

That was a close-up call, never mind a close call!

Join us next time for more extraordinary stories.