Episode 9 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 she'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 have 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.

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...

a skydiver falling to earth

suddenly realises he's made a terrible mistake.

There's rocks under the grass. Like, oh, this is going to hurt.

HE YELLS IN AGONY

Help! Help!

He needs urgent attention but there is no-one around to hear his cries.

And emergency teams struggle across two miles of rocky terrain,

helping a badly injured grandmother.

When my head hit the rock, it split right down to the skull.

It's a race against time and the tide to get her to hospital.

And I thought, "Oh, my God, my mum is just...she's going to die."

Also -

a dash-cam captures the terrible moment

a car smashes into oncoming traffic.

And with the crash comes an unwelcome discovery.

I went to open the door and I think I was more shocked at what I saw

than the initial sort of impact.

Kemaliye, Turkey.

3,500 feet in the sky, former paratrooper Jamie Flynn

is about to skydive from a lightweight aircraft.

He flies towards a predetermined landing site,

a large, flat open area over half a mile away.

But he's made a serious miscalculation.

I'm not going to get there. It's just too far.

Jamie is now hurtling towards boulders and rocks.

HE YELLS

He's seriously injured, alone and in desperate need of help.

His screams echo across the hot, desolate landscape.

28-year-old Jamie Flynn is a professional BASE jumper.

For him, being paid to jump off fixed objects from a great height

is a dream job, and a million miles away from the timid teenager

who grew up in Chelmsford.

Actually, I'm scared of rollercoasters. Yeah.

Literally, I was so scared of rollercoasters

I couldn't go on anything at all.

But after leaving school,

Jamie made a bold career choice to help conquer his fears.

He decided to try out for the British Army's elite Parachute Regiment.

You know, I was like 16 years old and I found out that the Paras

is, like, a really hard selection process to get into.

My whole dream was, "Let's go and see if I can take on this challenge."

Jamie passed the paratrooper entry course with flying colours

but then came the tricky part.

Now I have a got parachute and I'm scared of rollercoasters but

I couldn't tell anyone because they'd all take the mick out of me.

I went to the jump school in Brize Norton and jumped it,

hated it, every minute of it. I did all my jumps course.

Hated parachuting.

But on his 72nd jump, something clicked.

It was this feeling - I was like, wow,

this is actually good fun. I really like this!

And then I landed and I stood up and I was like, wow, that was so cool!

I love it!

And so in my logbook, I went back and I was like, forget everything.

I love skydiving! Full stop.

After serving for eight years with the paratroopers,

he left and is now a professional BASE jumper.

BASE jumping is a high-adrenaline sport where competitors

leap from static objects before releasing their parachutes

and floating down to the ground.

You know, if you want to do this, you need to do it full-time.

To be safe, competent and everything and in 2012,

I went along and won my first World Championships.

Working as a brand ambassador for his sponsors,

Jamie gets to travel the world earning a living

and competing in the sport that he loves.

But BASE jumping has obvious dangers

and it's a profession that Jamie's parents,

especially his mum, Jackie, have had to get used to.

And so we came to an arrangement

whereby he does whatever he wants and tells me afterwards.

I'll watch the videos from a distance.

They were against it initially.

And then, over time,

they started to see the enjoyment I was getting out of it.

Today, Jamie is at a week-long BASE jumping event in Kemaliye, Turkey.

Outside of the competition, Jamie has been offered

the chance of a free skydive over the Turkish mountains.

He can't wait to give it a go,

especially as he'll be wearing a wingsuit,

which will help him slow down and control the free fall.

We get an e-mail saying "Bring your wingsuits

"because we have this microlight."

It's like a small aircraft and you guys will be able to wingsuit

down into the canyon and we're like, "Yeah, this is going to be great!"

Jamie is going to film his jump using two mini-cameras

attached to his helmet.

They are rolling as he watches his friend take off.

Now it's Jamie's turn.

Jamie always plans his jumps meticulously before taking off.

All my gear had been checked, you know.

I was happy with the jump, I was happy with the flight,

I was happy with where the landing area was.

The conditions were good, there was no wind and I was like, perfect.

The lightweight aircraft lifts him up

to 3,500 feet above the rocky Turkish canyon.

Jamie is wearing his wingsuit.

It's essential if he's going to reach his landing spot

from this height and distance.

So we're going faster forward and slower downwards

and gaining more distance.

As Jamie jumps from the aircraft,

his rear camera shows the wingsuit in full effect.

Jamie knows he can freefall from this height for over 20 seconds

before he needs to deploy his parachute.

I've had a really good flight.

The wingsuit just went

and I just went all the way down

towards where I was going to be opening.

Jamie's camera shows exactly where he's planning on landing.

This car park is his primary spot and if anything should go wrong,

his secondary site is slightly closer.

Just before these safe landing areas is rough and rocky terrain.

Jamie pulls his chute, ready to glide to Earth.

But the experienced professional has made

an uncharacteristic error of judgment.

As I got closer to landing, I thought,

"I'm not going to get there! It's just too far."

So I looked over to my secondary

and I was halfway in between my secondary and my primary landing area.

And at this point I thought, "Well, I can't make any of those.

"What a mistake."

Jamie now has just 15 seconds before he hits the ground

and he doesn't want to risk a dangerous water landing.

If I land in the river, I'm in a big wingsuit, it fills up

and there is a risk I could potentially drown.

Jamie has no choice but to land in unknown territory.

He heads towards what he thinks is a grassy area.

He's wrong.

As I got lower and lower and lower, I was like, "Oh. There's rocks.

"Under the grass. Oh, this is going to hurt."

Later...

..the crash shatters several of Jamie's bones

and he's terrified he has a fatal injury.

I could feel real big pain in my pelvis

and I thought, you know, this isn't good.

You can bleed out from a pelvis break.

In this desolate landscape, miles from anywhere,

he urgently needs help.

Charmouth Beach, Dorset.

Grandmother Mariola Constandinou needs to get to hospital fast.

She has slipped and fallen heavily on to the jagged coastal rocks.

Her head has been split open and she fears her back may be broken.

The ambulance service,

the RNLI and the coastguard have a challenge on their hands.

Working as a team, they need to carry Mariola

over two miles of hazardous terrain to where the ambulance is waiting.

And what's more, the tide is coming in.

71-year-old grandmother Mariola Constandinou

spends as much time as she can

with her daughter Christothea and her grandson Taliesen.

I've got a wonderful loving family

so I do what I can and they do everything for me.

The family love weekends away together,

especially to Dorset's Jurassic Coast.

It's Taliesen's favourite place.

He loves dinosaurs and we are always going to the festivals,

the fossil festivals down in Lyme Regis.

He likes looking for the fossils in the pools and he collects them.

It's great fun.

It's May and the whole family are on holiday in Lyme Regis,

on the south coast.

On the Sunday, they all decide

to take a walk along nearby Charmouth Beach.

It's an isolated area, but busy with fellow fossil hunters.

The family head along the coastline, two miles from the nearest car park.

So it was a gentle walk.

We went further and further down

until we reached the end of the beach where these rock pools were

and we decided then to go and have a look in the rock pools.

My son was in front. My mum was following him.

The rocks seemed flat,

and very easy to walk on and he was pointing things out for me.

And then I went ahead.

And I was thinking, wow!

Look at my mum - she is on the rocks

and she's going from rock to rock. That's fantastic.

But Mariola is having such a good time with her grandson that

she's become a little too confident on the uneven rocky seafront.

I seemed to stand on a rock and it was a slopey one.

But unfortunately, she wasn't leaning far enough forward

so all her weight was on her top and she was leaning too far back

and that's when she fell backwards.

And there was a pointed rock

and I landed with the bottom of my spine hitting that pointy rock.

And she smashed her head on a jagged boulder that was behind her.

And I thought, "Oh, my God. My mum has just... she's going to die."

Christothea is stunned. Her mum isn't moving.

And I just ran over there.

She was conscious and she was holding the back of her head and

there was blood and it was matted and I thought, "Oh, my God."

When I looked at my daughter's face, she had gone absolutely white

and she looked terrified.

Frightened grandson Taliesin is led away by his dad.

Mariola is bleeding heavily from her head

but she is more concerned about her spine.

I really was terrified I had broken my back.

Maybe I'd done something to my neck. I just didn't know.

Other fossil hunters on the beach come to help.

One of them dials 999 and passes the phone to Christothea.

I was on the phone to the emergency services and I described as much as

I could the extent of the injuries and they advised not to move her.

The RNLI and coastguard from nearby Lyme Regis are dispatched.

An ambulance and paramedic are also en route.

They need to get there fast.

Mariola still can't move and to make matters worse, the tide has turned.

Freezing seawater is rapidly filling the rock pools.

It got to a point where we can't wait any more

because she is going to be underwater.

So I was panicking, thinking I'm going to drown.

Help arrives just in time.

The water is getting higher and higher.

The tide was on its way in

and she was very close to the water's edge

so with the paramedic's permission,

we moved her just away from the shoreline.

Here, Mariola is carefully put on to a stretcher

but even the slightest move is agony.

I think there was eight or more people that managed to lift me up.

Oh...I saw stars.

Christothea films the rescuers carefully carrying Mariola

on a stretcher away from the rock pools.

They have to work quickly to beat the tide.

Soon, this area will be underwater but the terrain is hazardous.

It was really difficult terrain to get my mum from the rocks.

It's a struggle, but they are determined to get Mariola to safety

before the waves take over the beach.

They had one person at the front of the stretcher, saying where to step.

Finally, they reach flatter ground.

Mariola's ordeal is far from over but at least from here,

it's a slightly smoother ride.

We have what we call a specialist wheel.

It's where the stretcher can be put on a framework with a wheel and then

with six guys, we can then start walking her back towards Charmouth.

I couldn't get close to my mum because obviously,

they were attending to my mum

so I thought "I'll video this on my phone."

Just to show what was happening. It was amazing.

Racing against the incoming tide,

it takes 16 rescuers working in tandem

45 minutes to get Mariola to the ambulance.

Then it's a 20-mile dash to Dorset County Hospital

to assess her injuries.

I had a CT scan and they said "Oh, you're very, very lucky."

They don't know how I survived

because when my head hit the rock,

it split right down to the skull for five centimetres

so you could see the top of my skull.

And, um...

Sorry.

Luckily, Mariola doesn't have a back injury

and despite the appearance and depth of the head wound,

it's also not serious.

She is stitched up and sent home.

The following day, the family are back at Charmouth

but this time, Mariola is taking it easy.

It's amazing that just 24 hours previously,

she could have lost her life on this very beach.

She had a very lucky escape that day. A very lucky escape.

And the emergency services,

it's not until you see them working together like that,

that you see how fantastic they are.

I'm just overwhelmed. You know, I shall be in debt all my life.

It was... you know, all in all,

quite an adventure.

Tell her I'm safe. I'm OK.

An out-of-control car crashes not once...

but twice.

The victims need help fast.

All I knew is we've been in a crash and then the next thing is

we need to get the police here, we need to get an ambulance here.

The chap there actually dragged her out of the car

and then she just collapsed in a heap at the side of the road.

Back to Kemaliye, Turkey.

Ex-paratrooper Jamie Flynn has skydived from 3,500 feet

but a serious miscalculation

has left him short of his safe landing area.

He knows he's in trouble.

As I got lower and lower and lower, I was like, "Oh.

"There's rocks under the grass. Oh, this is going to hurt."

Jamie's military training kicks in.

He's planning on rolling on impact to take the force out of the landing.

Feet, knees, everything together. Nice and tight. Ready to roll.

But the mountainous terrain is unforgiving.

HE YELLS IN AGONY

My ankle went in between two rocks.

And the momentum of the roll broke the ankle, the wrist,

the elbow, the shoulder and then smashed my head against the rocks.

Jamie's shouts of pain are shocking to hear.

He lies in agony, screaming for help.

He is actually in Turkey for a BASE jumping event, but this jump

isn't part of it, so there is no official landing party to find him.

To make matters worse, he thinks he may have a potentially fatal injury.

I looked down and I could feel real big pain in my pelvis

and I thought oh, you know, this isn't good.

You can bleed out from a pelvis break.

Jamie is a trained medic.

He can't move but he knows he needs help fast if he's going to survive.

You know, you've got the golden hour.

It's what we used to use in the military.

You aim to get your injured soldier out from there in the hour

and their chance of survival is good.

Time is running out.

But after lying helplessly for 35 minutes, by sheer luck,

a passing local hears Jamie's screams.

This guy turned up and I was like "Oh, thank God you're here."

The man contacts the BASE jumping event organiser

and ten minutes later, Jamie's friends arrive

with some local paramedics.

One of the onlookers films the ambulance crew

strapping up his right arm

and putting a splint on his shattered ankle.

It's an agonising four-hour drive through the mountains

before he gets to hospital. Luckily, his pelvis isn't broken.

The pain was coming from a fractured femur bone.

But Jamie's military parachute training probably saved him

from serious disability or worse.

No head injuries, which was lucky.

I had no back injuries, no neck, nothing

so the parachute landing fall

that we use to protect ourselves actually did a very good job.

I mean, it broke near enough every bone

on the right side of my body

but it protected everything else.

After eight days in Turkey, Jamie is flown back to the UK

and straight into Broomfield Hospital in Essex.

Anxious mum Jackie is waiting for him.

After just visualising what his injuries were like, to actually

see him as a whole person, you think, "OK, we can deal with this."

You know, you can cope with this.

But it was such a relief to have him home.

The doctor told me that I wouldn't run again.

Walking, it would be questionable

how much walking I'd be able to do.

They were telling me I'd definitely never jump again.

Yes, very, very upset.

I used to cry a lot because I thought

I've ruined everything just from this one split-second wrong decision.

Jamie is determined to prove the medics wrong.

After a month in hospital,

he heads home to begin extensive rehabilitation.

He's been so strong, so determined.

There's never, ever been any question that he won't jump again.

That's what has kept him going. That's made him better.

Just six months after almost losing his life,

Jamie went back to competing again.

He is now full time on the circuit

but vividly remembers the first time he jumped after the accident.

I just stepped off of it. All right, it's game on again.

The parachute opens and I was like, "yes, perfect." That's not it.

We need to land again.

I was just like, that's it. Perfect.

And I was like, I'm back.

But Jamie will never forget that fateful day in Turkey.

Looking back, the whole situation was a close call.

It... I was definitely very lucky.

Someone was definitely looking after me that day.

A close call, a near miss, a disaster averted - whatever you call it,

it can be too close for comfort.

But sometimes, well, you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kidderminster, Worcestershire.

A car dashboard camera is recording the journey

of retired musician Scott Hardiman

on his way to pick up his daughter from school.

His student son Ryan is in the passenger seat.

As they reach the brow of a hill,

an oncoming car veers across the road, smashing into the car in front,

then heads straight for them.

Motoring enthusiast Scott lives in Kidderminster with his wife

and two children.

He has recently retired from his day job

to help support his family in a different way.

I used to be a professional musician for about 15 years.

I've since retired and now my priorities are based at home,

which is a total change round for me but I've actually got

a disabled daughter and I'm a full-time carer for her.

It's probably the hardest job I've ever done

but it's the most satisfying.

His 19-year-old son Ryan is also motor-mad

and just learning to drive so he can commute back and forth to uni.

I started my driving lessons a few months ago.

He's a very sensible lad.

He's at Birmingham University doing astrophysics, rocket science.

I don't know where he got his brains from, to be honest.

It was definitely not me or his mother.

The family car is a special mobility vehicle,

modified to fit five-year-old Jessica's wheelchair.

Scott has also fitted the car with a dash cam, a small camera that records

the road ahead in a two-minute loop, almost like an in-car CCTV.

So, having one of these is the hard evidence this is what happened.

Maybe it was tempting fate, getting one as well.

It's just before 3pm on a Wednesday

and Scott and Ryan are off to pick up Jessica

from school in nearby Bromsgrove.

Their dash-cam is rolling

as they travel along their normal route, the A448.

Well, I had just had a driving lesson, as it happened.

So we were talking about the driving lesson.

However, as Scott and Ryan approach the top of a steep incline,

they are temporarily blinded to what's coming from the other side.

There was a bit of a hump-backed bridge built into the road there.

The first thing I saw was the car coming over

the humpback in the road and I just saw it smack into the car in front.

The dash-cam shows the airbags of the oncoming car inflating,

but the vehicle isn't stopping.

She obviously couldn't see, was coming directly towards us.

In a split second, Scott's instinct takes over.

He throws the wheel to the left,

swerving on to the pavement, as the out-of-control vehicle

grinds down the right-hand side

of their car, out of shot of the camera.

I can actually remember checking there was

nobody on the path as well.

I managed to get as much out of the way as possible

and she hit the back end of our car and bounced across to the other side.

Scott's quick thinking spares them a head-on smash.

The dash-cam picks up their shocked reactions.

BLEEP! BLEEP!

Jesus!

Obviously, I was saying a few words that I shouldn't.

All I need is we'd been in a crash and then the next thing is,

we need to get police here, we need to get an ambulance here.

The car that veered across the road has rebounded off Scott's car

and gone headfirst into a hedge,

luckily avoiding any other motorists.

Its front end has crumpled with the force of the impact.

Scott runs over to the wrecked vehicle

and can't believe what he finds.

I went to open the door and I think I was more shocked at what I saw

than the initial sort of impact and seeing it come over the hill

towards us because it was actually a friend's girlfriend...

that was in the driving seat.

I just knew she wasn't very well. I have never seen her so pale.

Other motorists have pulled over

to help Scott attend to the semiconscious driver.

A chap there actually dragged her out of the car,

carried her to the opposite side of the road

and she collapsed again at the side of the road.

He got her stood up and she collapsed again.

Ryan's call has prompted all three emergency services

racing to the scene.

The police closed the road

while paramedics attend to the unwell driver in the dark grey vehicle.

Fire and rescue turn their attention to the car it hit first.

Because of the force of the impact,

the woman behind the wheel is trapped and needs to be cut free.

And that was when the shock kind of sank in.

Everything had been dealt with, there was nothing else to do.

And then we realised what had happened.

Watching the dramatic scenes around them,

Scott and Ryan know they've had a lucky escape.

If we hadn't got on to the path, if my dad had been

glancing in my direction, if he hadn't been concentrating

and not got out there are, it would have been a head-on.

I dread to think what it could have been. We're lucky, very lucky.

The drivers of both the other vehicles are taken to hospital

but luckily, neither of them have any serious injuries.

The driver of the car that veered across the road had

fainted at the wheel. No charges were brought against her.

The incident has made an impact on learner driver Ryan.

My first driving lesson after the incident,

my driving instructor said I had dropped back

about ten hours in confidence.

I hadn't really noticed it affecting me until then.

Scott believes it's the design of the family car that

helped his split-second reactions.

It's a fact that the car we've got has a higher seating position

so I was able just to see over the brow of the hill.

It could have been a totally different story.

Absolutely totally different story.

Thank goodness for all those people who keep a cool head in a crisis.

It's good to know they're around when we need them. Bye for now.