Episode 8 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.

You all right?!

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

It's a day they will never forget.

The day they had a close call.

Today on Close Calls...

Horror at the village fete.

A fun-filled family go-kart race goes terribly wrong...

..when one of the dads crashes at 30mph, suffers a head injury

and is trapped in his kart.

I ran to the scene. To be honest, I thought he had broken his neck.

The event is to raise funds for the local air ambulance,

the same ambulance that's now called to the scene.

Also, a son races to rescue his disabled mum as the family

home is engulfed in flames.

You could start hearing cracks and bangs from upstairs

and we knew this house was going to go up. This house is gone.

Plus, people power.

A unicyclist is trapped under a London bus, but passers-by

band together in a bid to lift it and free him from under its wheels.

East Allington, in Devon.

Emergency vehicles flood the village during what should have

been a happy family day out.

Moments earlier,

it was in full swing with crowds

enjoying the annual downhill go-kart race.

Bidding for victory is teacher Rob van Es

until something goes catastrophically wrong.

CROWD SHOUTS IN SHOCK

The kart somersaults, Rob is thrown onto his head,

hitting the road with force.

In the impact, he loses his helmet.

In the crowd is his wife, Fiona.

There was just this tumble of smoke.

Then I realised that he'd had this really hideous crash.

Rob is motionless on the ground.

His head at an odd angle and there's blood coming from a wound.

The whole village is in shock.

Secondary school science teacher Rob is passionate about his job

and the young people he gets to work with every day.

Oh, it's great fun.

I mean, working with children, teenagers,

the inquiring minds that they've got is just golden.

When he's not in the classroom, Rob takes his love for science,

and particularly engineering, back to the family home in the village of

East Allington, which he shares with his two sons and his wife, Fiona.

He is very talented in terms of engineering.

There's always a creative solution to a problem.

Rob loves tinkering away in the garage.

His currently constructing his second steamboat.

Well, it keeps me out of the house.

Maybe that's why we've been married for so long.

It keeps me out of the way!

And every year, Rob's passion and flair for engineering is

demonstrated at the village go-kart race.

Every May, sleepy East Allington comes alive with the colour

and sounds of the eccentric Wacky Races Festival,

where racers take on a 400-meter downhill track

to raise money for charity.

This year, it's the local air ambulance that will benefit.

We've really gone all out for the wackiest go-kart

and have come up with some interesting designs over the years.

In fact, Rob has designed and built go-karts for the whole family,

including a teddy bear's picnic,

the yummy mummy,

and the yellow submarine.

This year, Rob's constructed a magical flying carpet for Fiona

and for himself, a go-kart which is nicknamed Thomas,

fitted with a smoke machine to give it the real look of a steam train.

As the day of the big race arrives, he is confident.

A lovely day, beautiful sunshine.

And I have to say, Thomas performed very well.

Leading the way as he comes into the first chicane.

We had the puffing sounds, we had the whistle blowing

and the smoke was very good.

The only drawback is that some idiot had put a funnel in the way,

so you had to keep steering a bit to the left and a bit to the right

to be able to see where you are going, which was a bit of an issue.

After a successful first heat, Rob has qualified for the final

as the fourth fastest kart and it's given him a thirst for glory.

When you see that actually you are in fourth place

and if you can go a little bit faster, you might be in third place

and get on the podium, well, then, you know, a little edge

comes in and you think, "What can I do to get a bit faster?"

The final is a time to run against the clock. Fastest kart wins.

Fiona hasn't qualified

so she is track-side with the enthusiastic supporters.

Despite Rob's excellent start to the day, he's still feeling nervous

as he prepares to set off on his final run

down the steep village streets.

When you are standing at the bottom of the hill,

it looks quite tame and safe and it's all lovely.

But when you get to the top of the hill,

there's line painted on the road surface

and you look down the hill and you realise how steep the hill is

and how long the hill is, how narrow the track is.

And that is when you get a bit nervy.

HORN BLOWS

He's off to a great start and flying down the first part of the track.

But, with spectators filming through the crowds,

Rob's steering looks a little erratic as he swerves from side to side

to see past the car's funnel.

And as Rob reaches around 30mph - disaster.

He loses control. His kart skids and violently flips over.

He slammed hard into the road surface.

The helmet he is wearing to protect his head comes

flying off as the kart smashes into bits.

He lands on his back, scraping along the road.

His legs entangled in the remnants of the kart.

Fiona is watching on, horrified, from the sidelines.

There was just this tumble of smoke and the go-kart rolled.

Did this tremendous barrel roll

and then I realised that he'd had this really hideous crash.

The cheering crowd falls silent.

The fun of the village fete comes to a sudden and dramatic halt.

Marshalls and St John Ambulance crewmen race towards Rob

and the mangled remains of his go-kart.

He's rather invincible in my mind, I think.

So, it couldn't happen to him.

So, yeah, it was shock and disbelief.

Later, Rob lies trapped in his wrecked kart.

And he was moaning. It did scare me.

And with fears of a serious head injury, emergency teams

call in the very air ambulance Rob and the other competitors

are raising money for.

A bleed inside the skull is our main concern

and something that really needs to be dealt with very quickly.

Coming up, a family home in flames.

The whole of the roof was on fire, which made me think that clearly

there is something within that roof space which was highly combustible.

Neighbours filming fear the worst.

Oh, gosh, it's really going up now. Might be a big explosion.

Walthamstow, London.

In the high street, an extraordinary scene.

Scores of people surround a bus.

Trapped under the wheels is well-known local character,

Wrayson Shields.

He's badly injured and bleeding heavily.

That pain is like 1,000 knives is in my foot.

To save him, the crowd need to work together.

They're going to have to lift a 12-tonne London bus.

From Jamaica, 55-year-old Wrayson is a professional entertainer.

As a young man, he worked with an acrobatic circus troupe

and he's also performed at corporate events in the UK and abroad.

I've been performing from 1982 to 2015.

He's a familiar face around his hometown of Walthamstow,

where he has lived for 30 years.

Everybody knows me.

I grew up in Walthamstow, really, cos I came here when I was 25.

Now semiretired,

he keeps up his balancing skills by riding his unicycle.

I like the unicycle cos I like to ride it backwards.

I can sprint with it. I can even lean on and sleep on it.

Wrayson's so adept at the one-wheeled mode of transport,

he even uses it to get around town.

But it's his passion for the unicycle that nearly costs him his life.

It's a Thursday, early evening, rush hour.

Wrayson is coming up to a busy junction.

I'm riding my unicycle and I'm on my way home and I ride passing

that junction for 30 years and it's the first I've ever had an accident.

He draws up alongside a double-decker bus,

but doesn't realise it is turning right.

As it moves off, he is dragged under the wheels.

And the bus crushed me. That pain is like 1,000 knives is in my foot.

Estate agent Robin is working right by the collision.

What I heard was a big crash, a big bang.

The guy had been caught directly underneath the driver's wheel.

Running out of the office, he is confronted with a shocking sight.

He was laying face down, so his head was facing the same way as the bus.

And initially the wheel was on the back of his calf.

I mean, he was completely pinned under it.

He was conscious and he was screaming.

I mean, it was... Obviously caused him a lot of pain.

The events that follow are recorded by an office worker on her

mobile phone.

And on and in-car camera of a driver approaching the scene.

A crowd, including the passengers of the bus,

gather round the injured Wrayson.

People run out of their shop, you know, they left the till,

the mortgage place, the restaurant...

Wrayson's situation is desperate.

With his lower leg firmly wedged under the wheel, the bus driver

can't move forwards or backwards for fear of inflicting greater damage.

The emergency services are called, but Wrayson is in agony and losing

so much blood, he is in danger of bleeding to death.

There are anxious discussions in the crowd about what they can do to help.

My first instinct was, you know, don't move. Wait for the services.

I suppose what was happening around was several other people

maybe going through that first impression,

but then when the possibility of being able to kind of help

started to kind of sink into people,

I think that's where people sort of come together.

Some of the crowd come up with the idea of lifting the bus.

Initially, I thought there was no hope of us

being able to move the bus.

But the group in the middle that were encouraging people to push

and were counting, "One, two, three."

To help him through this ordeal, Wrayson's turned to his faith.

I said I'd give God everything, my prayer already.

But I know somehow, you know, I'm going to get out of this, you know?

Around 100 people prepare to attempt the seemingly impossible -

to lift a 12-tonne bus.

The hope and fear of the office worker filming can be heard.

They are encouraged when the bus does move a little.

But it's not enough to free Wrayson's leg.

And I just look at the people and we're telepathic

and they look at me.

And the people say, "Let's try again."

And they try again.

This time, they move the bus right

over and Wrayson is freed.

Like an angel was there and said, "Slide out." I slide out.

Police officers arrive.

Not far behind is paramedic Stephen Hines

in his rapid response car.

When I got to him, he had some fairly obvious injuries

to the top of his leg, with very significant bleed being

controlled at the time by a policeman.

Also a distinctive open wound

further down his leg where a visible broken bone could be seen.

First priority after checking he was actually still talking to us

was to control the bleed by using a pressure dressing.

The crowd disperse. Their job is done.

And an ambulance crew takes Wrayson to the nearby Royal London Hospital

for emergency surgery on his legs, including skin grafts.

Their skills meant Wrayson was able to leave hospital

just three weeks later.

The lovely doctors of the UK cut here

and they take the muscles

from here and put here.

And then the plastic surgery, it's a plastic surgeon do it,

you know, seal up here.

The engraft, they take it here, put it here.

It will be some time before Wrayson rides a unicycle again.

But the fact he's here at all is largely down to this

extraordinary demonstration of people power.

What it sort of told you, in fact,

that when people do come together, there are things that are achievable

that probably people didn't think possibly could be.

If the crowd hadn't come together to lift that bus, it's quite

possible he would have bled to death from the injuries he had.

Every time I look at it and see people running like ants,

they look like little ants going to their nest, you know,

going to the red bus, you know,

I said, "Why these people do that? For me?"

And I say in my mind, "They would do it for everyone."

Everybody should visit Walthamstow Market, go shopping,

it's lovely people, you know?

Yeah, it's lovely people.

Back in the village of East Allington, in Devon,

science teacher and engineering enthusiast Rob van Es

has been racing his home-made go-kart down a steep hill

at 30mph during the annual village festival.

But somehow, the kart has somersaulted and crashed.

In the impact, Rob has lost his helmet

and he now lies trapped in the wreckage.

His wife Fiona, watching in the crowd, fights away to his side.

I ran to the scene and he was moaning.

To be honest, I thought he had broken his neck.

I think he had been knocked unconscious,

but he started to talk to the people around him.

Crewmen from the St John Ambulance are on the scene

and the emergency services have been called.

Rob is showing worrying symptoms of a head injury.

And he'd say about four or five different things

and then he'd start again. It was like a goldfish loop of questions.

So, we'd be back to, "Where's my wife?

"She'll be really worried." Erm...

"I guess I've crashed.

"Was it spectacular?

"Nobody else was hurt, were they?"

And we'd go on that loop time and time again. It did scare me.

It was clear that he'd obviously got some sort of injury.

Fiona finds Rob's helmet on the ground and it shows

signs of severe damage where his head has smashed into the tarmac.

And you could see already that it had blue

stripes of paint from his go-kart on it and also it looked like it

melted in parts where the friction from grinding across the road.

Two ambulance crews arrived, but with the nearest hospital

over 50 minutes away, the Devon Air Ambulance is called in.

Ironically, it's the very charity the event is raising money for.

Aircrew paramedic Richard Walker is leading the team.

Well, he was lying in the road beside his go-kart,

luckily he was conscious, which was nice to see. Very repetitive.

Clearly had no memory of what had gone on.

Obviously a bleed inside the skull is our main concern

and something that really needs to be dealt with very quickly.

The crowd watch on horrified.

These are pictures taken by some of them at the time.

The crew need to remove Rob from the wreckage

and get into hospital as soon as they can.

But Fiona is petrified that there may be even more damage to Rob

than just his head injury.

I assumed that he wouldn't be able to move his legs,

so I was so relieved when I realised he was trying to help

move his legs out from the pedals and the chassis of the go-kart.

Rob is moving but Richard

and the other paramedics aren't taking any risks.

We immobilised him together with the St John Ambulance

and the other land crew paramedics onto a scoop stretcher,

put a collar around his neck

and then we carried him up to the aircraft.

As he was carried up the track, the crowds that were left applauded

and he was really saluted and that was so touching.

It's a speedy nine-minute flight to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.

Fiona follows by car.

Rob is immediately assessed for any serious neurological damage.

When Fiona arrives, almost an hour later, the doctors

already have the result of Rob's CT scans and thankfully it is good news.

And she came straight out, sat down with me and said,

"We've done the scans. There is nothing serious on his brain." So...

Rob had suffered concussion and a broken rib.

Later that evening, when he comes around in a hospital bed,

he is shocked to find out what has happened.

Fiona had written me a note to say that I had

been in the air ambulance, which is really exciting.

Cos I would have enjoyed that if I could remember it.

And that, yeah, I'd had a nasty accident

and that Thomas had had a crash, which is really sad.

But I can't remember anything about it at all. Nothing at all.

Things could have turned out very differently that day.

It's quite obvious Rob's life was saved by the protective cycle

helmet he was wearing.

The consultant at the hospital,

she said that basically I had lost two hours of memory beforehand

and about six hours of memory afterwards,

which sort of makes it a significant brain injury.

Could have been looking at chest injuries, fractured limbs,

certainly a far worse head injury.

In fact, I'm very surprised he didn't have

a far worse head injury, to be honest.

Rob is back home and recovering well.

He still can't remember anything about the accident

but he is already planning a new go-kart for next year's race.

And it's a tribute to the team who flew him to hospital that day.

Probably has to be an air ambulance.

If I can work out how to do it,

a helicopter will be going down the track next year.

A family home is full of memories.

It's generally a place we remember and treasure.

So it really is heartbreaking when it all goes up in smoke.

The village of Bladon, Oxfordshire.

Fire rips through the roof of a family home.

Flames leap into the air as firefighters arrive

to tackle the blaze.

A horrified neighbour films the destruction.

Keep everyone away from the windows. God, it's really awful.

As the fire takes hold, 19-year-old Peter Salway's

first instinct is to save his wheelchair-bound mum.

At this point, you don't think.

The adrenaline does it all for you and it just kicks in.

Engineering apprentice Peter has lived in the family

house in Bladon all his life.

It was home to me. It always felt safe and sturdy.

The house is like the centre of a family, though.

That's where family is, is in the house.

Peter lives with his parents and younger sister.

His mum, Jane, suffers from multiple sclerosis.

It's Easter Sunday afternoon and Peter is relaxing in his bedroom

when suddenly his dad hammers on the door.

He just shouts, "Peter, there's a fire, you need to get out!"

So I opened the door and there's just smoke,

like, on the landing. And the smell was acrid.

You could tell by the smell something wasn't right.

And it isn't. The family are in mortal danger.

While Dad dials 999, Peter springs into action.

At this point, you don't think.

The adrenaline does it all for you and it just kicks in.

I didn't even think of grabbing my phone or my laptop or

anything from my room.

Instead, his first thought is for his disabled mum, Jane,

downstairs watching TV, unaware there's a fire upstairs.

She can't get off the sofa and into her wheelchair without help.

I ran downstairs and first was to just grab Mum.

I smelt the smoke and I thought, "No, he's not joking.

"It really is serious."

I normally pick her up and stand her up, but this time it wasn't

standing up - it was swing around as quick as possible.

And I think at that moment,

that's when Mum realised that something serious was happening.

He's quite a forethought boy. So I just got out.

At that point, you could start hearing cracks

and bangs from upstairs. We knew that this house was going to go up.

This house is gone.

The distraught family gather outside

and the gravity of the situation they've just escaped becomes evident.

They are also missing Sutty, the family cat.

I didn't want to think about what had happened to her.

I was hoping she got out OK

but I didn't want to think about it just in case.

You looked up at the house

and there was smoke basically coming out of the roofing tiles.

It looked like it was steaming.

The Oxfordshire Fire Service is already racing to the village

after Peter's dad's call.

Watch manager Nick Mason is in the first truck.

There was a huge smoke plume

so we pretty much got a whiff of it as soon as we got to the

Bladon roundabout, which was literally a mile away.

It's probably the biggest smoke plume I've seen for a long,

long time from a domestic property.

And so my first actions really were to ascertain,

where there any persons in the house?

Nick and his crew are relieved to find the family safe.

But the house is a different matter.

At this point, roofing tiles started falling off

onto the neighbour's car, into the neighbour's garden.

And, obviously, as the roofing tiles fell off,

the flames got more air and the flames burst through

and it must have been minutes, three, five minutes.

The neighbour is still filming on their phone

and captures how quickly the fire takes hold.

Oh, gosh, it's really going up now. There might be a great explosion.

It was quite unusual cos the whole of the roof was on fire, which

made me think that clearly there's something within that roof space

which was clearly highly combustible.

He's right. It's more than 20 years of memories.

The family have run out of storage space

and many of their precious belongings are packed in the loft.

It was rammed to the rafters,

was the information I got from the owner.

Nick decides to send two firefighters wearing breathing

apparatus into the house to assess the fire,

in the hope that they can save part of the building.

We really had to contain the fire and stop fire spread.

But it's not good news.

The fire had taken hold to a degree whereby the second floor had

collapsed into the first floor. So it was too dangerous, really.

It was too dangerous.

Keep everyone away from the windows. I'm frightened, actually.

Quite scary, isn't it?

The Salway family are moved to safety along with

some of their neighbours who have just joined them on the street.

Peter watches as his childhood home goes up in flames.

You can see, like, chunks of ash

and burning material getting flown up cos the power of it is immense.

-They've got the hose on it, have they?

-Yeah.

-Oh, good.

To the relief of everyone watching, the fire brigade

get the blaze under control.

By now, there are three fire trucks, support vehicles,

police and ambulances all on the scene.

Local villagers also offer help.

The neighbours were really supportive at the same time.

Like, they were there before the fire brigade.

They were giving us help before the fire brigade.

The fire crews do their best to save what they can.

It'd be nice to save the ground floor for them,

which was possibly some consolation.

But the rest of the house is a write-off.

And there is one member of the family

no-one has seen since the fire began -

Sutty, their much-loved moggy.

But two days later, when Peter is back at the wrecked house...

Luckily we found her on my parents' bed crying away.

I literally pulled open the window, shouted, "Sutty, come here!"

And I've never had her climb on me so fast.

She just jumped up and climbed straight out.

So I grabbed her, ran to the car, rushed her to the vet

and she got checked out and she was all OK.

Finding Sutty, that was the best day ever.

The Red Cross helped the family find temporary accommodation,

and although they've lost much of their home and belongings,

the Salways are aware they could have lost their lives.

In the living room, there's a chair which my mum sits on a daily basis

when she's not in her wheelchair.

And a good two-metre sort of ring of the ceiling

had collapsed onto that chair.

That's the only place the ceiling had collapsed downstairs

and it was straight onto her chair where she would have been sat.

That was...that was hard.

That was like knowing that if I didn't get Mum out

she would've been under that and that would have killed her.

It was afterwards and you think, when you're sleeping, you say,

"If he wasn't that quick getting me out, I wouldn't be here."

Watch manager Nick considers the family extremely lucky.

A fire like that - for instance, in the dead of night -

you would have died. There is no doubt about that.

Two or three gulps of toxic smoke will kill you before the fire

gets anywhere near you.

So, it is vital that you have smoke alarms fitted

and they are properly maintained.

That's it for today. Join us next time for more Close Calls.