Episode 10 Close Calls: On Camera

A close call - a moment of danger when life can hang in the balance.

What would happen if I wasn't found or didn't find a way out of it?

A split-second where the outcome could go either way.

It's a choice - life or death.

The difference between disaster and survival.

We saw a lady who was critically ill, if not dying, in front of us.

I kept thinking the hotel was going to fall on us.

These are the people that have been there and lived to tell the tale.

It's a day they'll never forget - the day they had a close call.

Today on Close Calls...

A US Coast Guard helicopter hovers above a small rowing boat

in the Pacific Ocean. It's sinking fast.

Below, in the darkness, four British rowers fear for their lives.

There were waves coming through the size of a house.

It was hard to keep hold of the boat, as much as anything else,

because the boat was moving around so much.

Three men make it to safety in the chopper,

but there's no room for the rescue diver or the fourth rower.

Not really a religious person,

but I said a little prayer that he'll be safe and well.

Also today - emergency services take an urgent call from a teenager.

A little girl has run out into the road and been hit by a car.

The child's mother is with her.

I was just holding her hand and just trying to tell her that I was there,

but she wasn't responding to any of this.

The Pacific Ocean, 80 miles off California.

Four British rowers taking part in a challenging race,

huddled together in their 24-foot boat.

They're taking on water and close to going under.

When you're at the bottom of one of the waves and you look up,

it's like the size of a house.

They've hung on for eight hours,

but a storm's prevented a rescue yacht from getting close.

Now only a US Coast Guard helicopter crew can help,

but they're short on fuel.

We talked about our fuel state, we only had so much time on scene.

There wouldn't have been enough fuel to get us all off in one hit.

35-year-old Fraser Hart works as a computer programmer in London,

but in his spare time he loves nothing better than being outside.

I'm sat there in front of a computer typing all day 40 hours a week,

so yeah, I guess it kind of offers me a bit of balance,

to get out and do some physical, outdoorsy stuff.

And it doesn't get much more physical than his latest adventure -

an endurance rowing race across the Pacific Ocean.

I was drawn to it immediately, the second I found out about it.

The attraction of looking at something from the outset

and thinking it looks physically impossible,

but then actually kind of taking the steps to achieving that

was quite motivating.

The Great Pacific Race is a 2,500-mile rowing competition

that starts in Monterey, California,

and ends in Honolulu in Hawaii.

Joining Fraser in his four man team are Colin Parker,

Sam Collins and James White.

Fraser dons the captain's hat.

I felt a lot of responsibility.

I was the skipper, so I had the final say

if there was any conflicts.

Fraser and Colin have been friends since school,

but Colin now lives in New Zealand.

That was the first I heard of it, and I actually said to Fraser,

"Yeah, I'm up for it, I'll do it."

Joining the two friends is marketing manager James White.

I've been wanting to do something different and bigger for a while,

get away from

the corporate, the usual world.

And the baby of the team is 24-year-old Sam Collins

from Cornwall.

I'd love to say it was love at first sight, but...

They were good, we got on well.

We all said we had a bit of a juvenile sense of humour as well,

so that was a very beneficial thing.

100% I'd say we have the perfect team.

For the next year and a half, the four men take on

a vigorous training routine to get them mentally and physically ready

for the most extreme challenge of their lives.

We had to attend a sea survival course

and successfully completed that. We had to get a VHF radio licence.

We needed to be first aid qualified

and we also needed to complete a Yachtmaster theory course.

It was just a huge financial, mental, physical commitment,

to even get to the start line.

But they do and in mid-June, the team,

along with their specially designed boat, are in Monterey, California,

for the start of the race.

This vessel will be their home for the next few months.

It's just 24 feet long, with two tiny cabins - one at the front,

and one at the back.

The toilet is a bucket, the shower is a sponge,

and everything they need for months at sea is crammed into tiny lockers

hidden in the floor.

You could barely sit up in either of the cabins

without hitting your head on the ceiling.

We had a load of equipment in there as well.

So we had our survival suits, we had food bulging out the side netting.

Yeah, it was pretty uncomfortable.

They set off in the early hours

and are filming the entire trip on small waterproof cameras.

Everyone was very excited to set off.

The idea was there'd be two people rowing for two hours at a time,

and two people resting for two hours, 24 hours a day,

until you hit dry land again.

CHEERING

We took off and it was really calm, it was flat, it was like a pond.

Amazing, amazing feeling.

Rowing off, out round the point at Monterey

and going off into the unknown, that's what you do it for.

Good luck, guys!

The day starts well and it looks like all their training

is paying off.

We got into a nice routine, we were rowing pretty quick, nice seas,

everything was going in the right direction

and we were making really good speed.

The race should take them around six weeks to two months to complete,

but towards the end of day one, things take an ominous turn.

We were about 12 hours into the race when the weather started to change.

Things have moved on from calm seas.

The wind was up and the sea was starting to get choppy.

It was a consensus to stop rowing.

They ride out the night, but the bad weather continues.

By the middle of day two, they've hunkered down in the cabin together,

to escape the storm.

Their on board camera records the scene.

Later that day, the storm subsides,

but Fraser discovers it's left its mark on their boat.

During the night, I'd actually felt water coming up through the mattress

that we were laying on.

It didn't seem too serious at that stage,

it was just like a little leak, just like a tap dripping.

But over the next few hours, it slowly gets worse.

After some investigation, they find the source.

We identified a couple of holes in the wall

between the cabin and the deck lockers.

You could see that water was coming through these holes.

We had putty and we had a lot of other tools

at our disposal to patch it up.

The team are determined not to give up.

They come up with a plan, but it means no-one will get any rest.

Try and pump out that locker, that's what you do, right?

If there's water in your boat, you get it out.

So we pump it out and we check it an hour later

and it's filled straight back up again

and we cannot find the source of this water.

It was getting progressively worse,

and then the main deck was then filling up.

So the water was now spreading around the main deck in the boat.

Water is not meant to be there at all.

All of that water coming out of the hatches, stern cabin...

We literally can't get water out as much as it's coming in.

I remember getting probably the most sad I've ever been out on deck.

Just watching our boat gently sink and just thinking,

this is awful, horrible.

Their troubles increase as the weather takes another dramatic turn

for the worse.

'The height of the waves was probably about 15 to 20 feet.'

You know, when you're at the bottom, you look up,

it's like the size of a big house.

Then you're getting hit and you're getting smashed,

you're going from one side to the other

and then you're getting smashed from another direction.

'Couldn't get over the fact that they were just non-stop.'

With the situation deteriorating by the minute,

skipper Fraser has no option but to reluctantly call race headquarters

for help.

'We put a radio call out to the race support yacht,'

who then dispatched themselves to come and help us.

The race support boat sets off towards their position,

but it's going to take eight hours to arrive.

We didn't know at what rate we were sinking at that stage.

So, yeah, it was...

It was quite concerning to know they were so far away.

Realising they're all in serious trouble,

they put on their survival gear.

These are really thick suits that will protect them from the elements

and help keep them warm.

But Sam is struggling to get into his.

We all took turns putting our survival suits on,

so when it came to Sam's turn to put his own,

a wave crashed over the boat and filled his suit with water,

so he physically couldn't put his survival suit on

because his feet were creating too much friction to get into the legs.

So I was borderline hypothermic.

The sun was setting at this point, so we knew we were limited on time.

James was hugging him on the front of the boat,

trying to keep him warm,

and he was shivering and he wasn't making a lot of sense.

Finally, after a long, uncomfortable and bitterly cold wait

of eight hours, the rescue boat arrives,

but the height of the waves and the appalling weather means

the support yacht can't get near them.

Then sea water blows the electrics,

and with it, all radio communication.

That was the worst moment because that was the first time that we

realised that, actually, this could be quite a bad situation.

Later, help arrives, but somebody has to be left behind.

The guy that's in the helicopter closes the door and we fly away...

..without Fraser.

The village of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire.

A panicked young woman makes an emergency call

to the East of England Ambulance Control Centre.

She's just witnessed an appalling accident.

Four-year-old Jess has been hit by a car

and is lying motionless in the road.

Her distraught mother Katie is with her.

I was just thinking she was dying.

There was nothing I could do.

Jess has a serious head injury.

Without urgent medical attention, she's not going to survive.

The picturesque village of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

is home to four-year-old Jess, her brother Harry,

Mum Katie and Stepdad Sid.

Jess is crazy.

That's the only word to describe her, she's crazy.

She's everyone's friend, the teachers love her,

she's cuddling the teachers all the time.

She's like the mother hen, she looks after everyone.

Stop.

All my family like going to the park,

playing on the swings and roundabout.

Whee!

I love them lots and lots.

It's a warm August afternoon

and the family are heading home after going to

a christening reception at the local bowling and tennis club

in the village.

The entrance to the bowling club is in an alleyway

and we came out of the alleyway and Harry and Sid were walking in front.

It was a really hot day, so I'd stopped to take my shoes off,

because I had heels on and my feet were hurting.

Jessica was making fun of me and telling me I was so silly,

and then she ran off towards Sid and Harry.

I didn't realise how far they were ahead.

Sid thought she was back with me

and he started to cross the road with Harry.

Jess went down the steps and ran out after them.

Close to the steps,

parked at the side of the road with their engine running,

a local teenager, Vicky and her boyfriend Ant.

Our car was facing, like, down the road.

A littl'un came running down the steps.

She was skipping, she was smiling.

The couple remain stationary as Jess steps into the road.

She knew that we weren't going to pull away because we saw her,

so she went in front of Ant's car, just skipping along,

and didn't look to her left.

And then that was when a car came along.

The woman driver has no chance

as Jess appears from nowhere and runs into the middle of the road.

She hits the brakes, but it's too late.

I heard the tyres screech and then Sid shout, "Oh, my God".

I just knew it was one of my two. I just knew.

You could hear the bang, she did go flying.

She looked like a ragdoll, it was horrible.

I couldn't get to the road quick enough.

Got down the bottom of the steps and then saw Jess in the

middle of the road, just laying there, not moving.

Her eyes were closed, I thought she was dead.

I jumped out, got my phone, called 999 straightaway.

A shocked Vicky is put through to the ambulance control room -

this is that call.

While Vicky briefs the call handler, Katie kneels at her daughter's side.

There were big grazes all the way up her leg.

The side of her face here was coming out in a big mark.

You could see the road print on it.

18-year-old Vicky stays on the line,

feeding back information to the emergency services.

I remember Sid shouting at me not to move her, not to pick her up.

I just kept telling her to keep breathing.

I was just thinking, she is dying.

There was nothing I could do.

But then she started to come round.

She didn't know I was there.

She was just kind of staring into space.

The force of the impact means the chances of Jess

having a serious head injury are high.

So the emergency call taker also sends for the local air ambulance.

Sid ran down the road to Nan's house. She's a nurse.

Leaving Harry in his grandfather's care,

Sid comes back with Jess's nana.

She took over, basically.

She was just checking, doing her observations.

Vicky passes on the information from Jess's grandmother

to the call handler.

I was just holding her hand and just trying to tell her that I was there.

But she wasn't responding to any of us.

As Vicky hangs up, the air ambulance comes into sight

and, within minutes, lands in a nearby field.

Critical care paramedic Danny Evans is one of the crew.

She'd got a very lowered level of consciousness.

She was deteriorating on the road.

My concern was her brain was swelling within her skull.

If she didn't get rapid interventions,

that ultimately would kill her.

Jess needs to be flown 50 miles to Birmingham Children's Hospital

for specialist treatment.

There's no room for mum Katie in the helicopter.

The police take her by car.

Kissing your daughter goodbye and then seeing her

take off in a helicopter...

It's really hard.

The journey takes at least two hours by car,

but the rapid speed of the air ambulance accomplishes it

in just 17 minutes.

But that still might not be quick enough to save little Jess.

Her level of consciousness visibly decreased during the flight.

So, when we landed, there was a full paediatric trauma team waiting.

Jess is immediately put into an induced coma

and taken for a CT scan.

It shows she has two bleeds to the brain as well as heavy swelling.

They told us she may not have survived the night.

There was a big chance she wouldn't walk and talk again.

Doctors perform the risky procedure of inserting a device

into Jess's head to monitor the pressure on her brain.

It helps them know how long to keep her under.

If they'd woke her up too early, it could have caused brain damage.

Jess is kept in an induced coma until doctors

are satisfied the swelling of her brain is under control.

It takes four days.

They reduced her sedation and she started moving her arms...

..and then her eyes opened.

And I remember holding her hand and saying, "If you know Mummy's here,

"squeeze my hand."

And she did, straightaway.

I had to go in hospital.

Mummy was quite upset.

When I woke up, Mummy was happy.

But Jess faces a battle to return to the active and bubbly

little girl she was.

She had to learn how to sit up, eat, talk, walk.

She had to learn how to do it all over again.

Incredibly, 18 days later, Jess is managing to do most of that.

Yay! Good girl.

And the brave little girl is allowed to go home.

And that was the first time she walked on her own.

She walked in that door and just went off on her own.

She's a little miracle.

She is an amazing little girl.

Teenager Vicky, who made the 999 call,

and boyfriend Ant, were overjoyed to hear the little girl they helped

had pulled through.

I was calm on the 999 call, but straight after you just think,

what's going to happen to this little girl?

Me and Ant went into the Disney store,

bought her loads of little presents.

Bought her teddies and books and everything for her recovery

while she's in hospital.

I'm just so amazed by her recovery.

So amazed by it.

Mum Katie is so grateful to the local Air Ambulance Service,

she's joined them as a volunteer.

And Jess was the face of their recent fundraising campaign.

I want to thank the air ambulance and all the other grown-ups

who looked after me.

Lives can be turned upside down in a split second when disaster strikes.

So there's nothing like a close call

to make you feel lucky to be alive.

Back in the Pacific Ocean,

a team of British amateur rowers are caught in a huge storm.

Their boat is damaged and sinking.

A rescue yacht has attempted to reach them

but the huge waves mean it's too dangerous.

We could have been crushed by the support yacht

if it had got too close.

We were in big trouble, we were in a bad way.

The sea water has blown their electrics,

so the only way of communicating with the rescue team

on the yacht is by shouting across the raging sea.

They shouted something to the effect of "the coastguard",

or "helicopter", or something along those lines along the way.

A helicopter is their only hope,

but it's going to take two hours to get there.

It's pitch-black, the temperature is below freezing,

and as they hunker down in their sinking boat, Fraser, James,

Colin and Sam could only hope it stays afloat long enough.

We literally just huddled together in our emergency suits, waiting.

Finally, in the distance, the helicopter appears.

And we just all looked together and saw this red flashing light

on the horizon and it got closer and closer and we were like,

"Wow, this is brilliant."

But the rescue isn't going to be straightforward.

Survival technician Chris Leon is aboard

the US Coast Guard helicopter.

As soon as we put our searchlight on,

we could tell they were pretty much completely submerged in the boat.

The waves were swamping the rowboat.

The footage filmed by the helicopter's onboard camera

shows the team's boat close to being swallowed up

by the raging sea.

The four rowers need to be rescued and fast.

Chris is lowered on a winch cable, but he's so concerned,

he doesn't wait to reach the boat.

He, sort of, unhooked himself and then just fell into the sea.

Jumping into the ocean from 40 feet,

I tried to keep focus and keep my eye on the boat.

He dove into the sea and we can't see him.

He's 200 metres away, it's pitch-black.

Chris fights his way through the massive waves

and eventually reaches the stricken rowing boat.

On board, Sam is now suffering from full-on hypothermia.

Chris decides he needs to be rescued first.

I was, like, frozen, rigid stiff.

The helicopter's lowering this cage into the sea.

Just below the surface of the water,

so that Sam could be dragged over the cage and then they could

scoop him up and take him up to the helicopter to safety.

This footage shows Sam in the cage being winched up to the helicopter.

Looking down at three close mates,

getting completely destroyed by the ocean,

I genuinely realised that any of us could have died

within almost no time.

But there's a problem.

The helicopter's fuel level means it could only do one more pick up.

There's no way it can take the whole team.

Because of the weather conditions,

they were having to use more fuel to keep in place and it was the weight

of taking everyone off.

There wouldn't have enough fuel to get us all off in one hit.

Fraser, Colin and James are all still stuck in the sinking boat,

as the sea crashes overhead.

Rescue swimmer Chris makes a monumental decision.

He sacrifices his place on the helicopter,

so two of them can be saved in the final pick-up.

He will stay behind with the last rower.

Everyone's heart sank.

It was completely black out there and the wind was howling.

The crew must decide which of them will remain on board.

I immediately put my hand up and said that I'd stay behind.

I was the skipper, so it wouldn't have been right for me to

leave someone else behind.

I don't like leaving Fraser behind,

but then there was a certain amount of faith in Chris.

The guy was, like, superhuman.

There's no time for arguments,

so Colin and James are winched up to the safety of the helicopter,

leaving Fraser and coastguard Chris

in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a sinking boat.

The guy that's in the helicopter closes the door.

We fly away...

..without Fraser.

I'm not really a religious person,

but I said a little prayer that, you know, he'd be safe and well and

him and Chris will get their turn in a couple of hours.

It's going to take at least two hours for the helicopter to return.

In the freezing seas, as his team members vanish into the night,

Fraser struggles to stay positive.

I'd say at that point it was very difficult to keep spirits up, yeah.

I was very disheartened at that point.

I was concerned about if my parents knew what was going on.

I was thinking about if the other guys had got back to shore OK,

if the helicopter had made it OK.

Rescuer Chris knows he needs to keep Fraser's mind occupied

as the boat sinks lower in the water.

We're completely level with the water line at that point,

so I just started to ask him how he ended up out here,

how did he begin training for this.

Trying to keep his mind, I guess, off the actual scenario.

It was hugely comforting to have Chris with me at that point.

So, yeah, that was very much the lowest point.

Then, with the boat barely afloat,

after an agonising two-and-a-half-hour wait,

the coastguard helicopter is back.

It felt really good.

We saw it again on the horizon with the searchlight.

Chris was in contact with the helicopter

through the radio in his snorkel.

The helicopter crew lower down the cage and Fraser musters up his last

bit of energy to pull himself in.

It's now been over 20 hours since he put out the call for help.

It was very exhausting after all that time.

In three days, I'd slept for one or two hours.

We'd hardly eaten during that time.

The second I stepped into the helicopter,

I sat down and fell asleep almost instantly.

With Chris also safely out of the water,

the helicopter returns to base.

It's only when the team are reunited that the full extent

of their dice with death sinks in.

I still remember when Fraser got back.

We all just looked at each other

and that was the first time I cried.

Those seas were big.

It could be said that we were lucky in the fact that our

boat was not upturned by a rogue wave.

With hindsight, and when you speak to family and friends,

you do realise, you know, you were very lucky.

For his selfless actions that night and his heroic rescue

of the entire crew, survival technician Chris

was presented with the Maritime Organisation's

bravery award and the eternal gratitude of the four rowers.

I think Chris was very brave for deciding to stay with us.

At the end of the day, he had to come out and rescue us.

It's quite a huge thing.

Some very emotional stories today.

Join us next time for more moving and inspiring close calls.