Episode 5 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 when 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 - rescue helicopters scour a vast area

of the Australian bush.

But the British tourist they are searching for is close to giving up hope.

The lurking fear of what would happen if I wasn't found or didn't find a way out of it.

And, horror on the school run.

Helicopter medics need to perform emergency surgery on the school grounds.

We saw a lady who was clearly critically ill,

if not dying in front of us.

Also today, British kite surfing champion Lewis attempts

a mid-air loop at 30 metres.

The crowd loves it.

But something goes wrong.

His girlfriend, Courtney, knows it's serious.

I just got tunnel vision, and I just ran.

I just wanted to get to him as quick as possible.

Cape York, Queensland, in Australia.

A helicopter crew is searching for a British tourist lost in the outback

for more than two days.

They find a message scrawled in the sand, but they can't find HIM.

It's a very dangerous place.

Everything from wild boars to crocodiles,

to spiders and insects that live within that bush.

63-year-old Geoff Keys from Kent is far from home.

He is alone, barefoot, hungry and fearing for his life.

It's now dark and I was, in effect, just wandering around in the bush.

It brought it home to me that I was actually, probably,

in a bit of trouble. To put it mildly.

Two years ago, retired mechanic Geoff set off on a trip of a lifetime.

My home is Dartford in Kent, my home now is the road.

I rented my house out, my kids are grown up, all in their 20s or 30s,

so I just... I'm a wanderer now.

So far, he's driven all over Europe, and visited Russia and Japan.

Next, he decides to head down under.

I wanted to get up to the northernmost tip of Australia which is at the very

top of Cape York and I was heading, also,

for a road that's known as the Old Telegraph Line.

Or the Telly Track. It's one of Australia's iconic drives that people love to do.

He is heading for a campsite in a remote part of the Cape York Peninsula,

a vast expanse of land that measures nearly 150,000 square kilometres

and where, on average, the nearest town is over an hour's drive away.

It's a beautiful July day when Geoff arrives at his destination

along with friends he's made en route.

We got there fairly early in the morning,

we decided to camp for a couple of nights.

The weather was really nice, nice and warm.

And I decided I wanted to go off and explore a bit.

Geoff wants to see the popular Eliot waterfalls,

which are around 2km away, on Eliot Creek.

My plan was just to swim down to Eliot Creek and walk back,

so I hadn't bothered to take any shoes with me because I was going to be

in the water and the Telly Track itself is sandy so it would have been

just like walking back up a beach.

As his friends go off fishing, Geoff sets out on his adventure.

By swimming up Canal Creek towards Eliot Creek,

and its nearby waterfalls. Well, that's the plan.

Having set off for the swim down Canal Creek,

I was expecting to find the waterfalls - but didn't.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually know what they looked like.

I just expected to find them a couple of kilometres downstream.

So I just kept swimming.

But for the falls, he should have turned right.

He doesn't realise it now,

but he's swimming downstream - away from the waterfall

and further down Eliot Creek.

That was about 4.30, I think, and eventually,

about six o'clock I was thinking to myself, well,

I haven't found these waterfalls yet.

Perhaps I should be getting back.

Geoff gets out of the creek and heads off in the direction he thinks

leads back to the campsite.

The track wasn't where I thought it should be, so at about 8.30,

it's now dark, and I was, in effect, just wandering around in the bush.

I knew that I was lost.

Finally, at 2am, 12 hours after he set off with no shoes,

he gives up trying to find a route back to camp.

The sensible thing to do was to rest up, so I just went up onto the bank,

found myself somewhere to lie down and just rest.

The next morning and Geoff has now been lost in the outback for 18 hours.

His friends back at the campsite haven't heard him return,

so begin to worry.

After breakfast they decide to call the emergency services.

Brad Foat is the senior police constable on duty.

The only details we had were that it was a person by the name of Geoff,

and he had a British accent.

Geoff's friends tell Brad he was heading to Eliot Falls,

2km downstream from the campsite.

Brad puts together search teams including helicopters to help scour

an area of six square kilometres.

I've divided that up into numerous helicopters,

foot search zones for land assets and three primary search areas for

helicopters and, basically,

they fly back and forward with aerial spotters on board

in order to try and look for them.

After a while I heard helicopters out.

They were quite a way back behind me,

so they were clearly searching where I'd last been.

That brought it home to me that I was actually, probably,

in a bit of trouble. To put it mildly.

Later, Geoff spots a rescue helicopter, but they don't see him.

I was just standing there yelling at it, "Come back!"

I was yelling, "Come back!"

Close calls don't just happen when people knowingly take risks.

Sometimes freak accidents occur during everyday errands.

Porthcawl, south Wales.

There's been a freak accident involving a mum on the school run.

A call comes into the emergency services.

Mum Sonali has been run over by her own car.

I could hear voices around me screaming, shouting,

saying, "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh!"

She is fighting for her life.

It was significantly close to being a fatal accident.

Porthcawl, a seaside town on the South Wales coast.

It's home to Sonali, her husband and twin 12-year-olds Thomas and Caitlin.

Local girl, born and bred around here.

My family are the cornerstone of my life,

they've supported me in everything that I've done.

Everything I do is for them, as well.

It's very important.

Working full-time as an optician she rarely gets to pick her daughter,

Caitlin, up from school.

But today is a day off and she's looking forward to the school run.

It's nice because it gives me an opportunity to catch up with her.

Catch up with her friends, see what she's been up to.

It's 4pm when Sonali arrives at school and gets out of the car.

Caitlin was going to get into the back seat of the car,

and I told her that she couldn't do that because the car was full of

shopping. I told her to climb in through the driver's side into the

passenger seat.

At that point I felt the car moving.

Somehow the car is rolling backwards,

Sonali needs to get back in to stop it.

I panicked. And natural mother's instinct kicks in.

Your daughter is inside the car, the car is moving.

My first instinct was try to get into that car.

But before Sonali can get behind the wheel, she's knocked over.

The open door swept me off my feet,

and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor,

on the grass, looking at the driver's side tyre coming towards me.

A little voice inside my head said,

"Sonali, that tyre's going over you...

"Whatever you do, do not let it go over your head. You'll be dead."

She manages to get her head out of the way,

but the car continues to roll right over her chest

to the horror of other parents.

I could hear voices around me, screaming, shouting,

saying, "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh!"

Thankfully, the car comes to a halt,

a member of staff in the school building calls 999.

This is the recording of that call.

A witness runs in from the scene with more information for the call handler.

As the ambulance arrives, by chance, so does Sonali's GP, Janine David,

also on the school run.

The ambulance crew were doing blood pressure,

we checked her oxygen levels and then we realised

that she'd obviously broken multiple ribs

and was in a lot of pain, and was struggling with breathing.

At that point, it was significantly close to being a fatal accident.

The flying doctors,

a special emergency medical team able to treat patients at the scene,

is scrambled to the school field.

Consultant Craig Williams is one of the trauma specialists on board.

We saw a lady who was clearly critically ill,

if not dying in front of us.

They decide they need to perform emergency surgery

right there on the spot.

We gave her an anaesthetic to allow us to cut open the side of her

chest safely. When the hole was cut in her chest, it allowed her

collapsed lung to re-expand.

Sonali was then rushed to hospital by ambulance, receiving

a blood transfusion on the way.

She would have probably died within the next 30 minutes if we hadn't

achieved what we achieved with her.

Sonali spends nine days in intensive care at Morriston Hospital

in Swansea. As well as a collapsed lung, she has a broken collarbone,

shattered shoulder blade, spinal fractures and broken ribs.

Defying all odds,

she leaves hospital 12 days later and eventually makes a full recovery.

To return to effectively normal, I think, is a miracle.

It makes me feel very grateful. I should have died that day.

But because of the care that I got,

both from the air ambulance and the trauma surgeon,

-I'm here to tell the tale.

-She's the most lucky person I know.

Coming up...

..a British kite surfer is pulled

from the waves after a stunt goes wrong.

His life is on the line.

Seeing his body so lifeless, I thought it was fatal.

Back to Queensland, Australia,

where 63-year-old Geoff Keyes has been lost in the outback for

more than 20 hours after swimming the wrong way down a creek.

He has no food and is barefoot.

Three rescue helicopters are out scouring the area searching for him,

but so far there's been no sign.

Geoff's still confident he'll find his own way out of the bush,

but he's in tough territory.

It's a very dangerous place, everything from wild boars to crocodiles,

to all sorts of spiders and insects that live within that bush.

In order to keep going you have to tell yourself something, otherwise,

if I'd said to myself, "Oh, no, there's going to be crocodiles around,"

well, what was I going to do?

This is Geoff's second day lost in the bush.

As he continues to push on, swimming along the creek,

desperately trying to find his way back to camp,

he comes across a sandbank.

I had a bit of a light bulb moment,

I thought, well, if I write some kind of message on there,

if those helicopters do happen to come down this way...

So I just wrote the word "help" on the sandbank and then I wrote 28/07,

being the date that I was there.

And then I drew an arrow pointing downstream which was the direction

in which I was travelling.

It's now 6pm.

The thing in my mind was, "Just keep going,"

all the time I'm keeping going it's easy to suppress the lurking fear

that, obviously, was in the back of my mind, you know,

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

Geoff swims on, but soon starts to tire.

He's been drinking water from the creek,

but he hasn't eaten for over 26 hours and he's extremely weak.

It's another sleepless night in the bush for Geoff.

After two days of searching and still no sign of Geoff,

the rescue team are losing hope of finding him alive.

Michael Reed is the helicopter pilot.

He is searching likely areas with coordinator Brad.

I said, "How about we go..." He said, "We can go back now."

I said, there's another one just up there. We'll go have a look.

So we flew down just a little bit further.

Suddenly, something catches Brad's eye.

I didn't see it. But he just goes, "What's that on the sand?"

I said, "I don't know. I didn't see anything."

He said, "Go back around," so I circled back around again, and sure enough,

on this sandy bank is a big help sign.

It was amazing to see that.

With new-found optimism, Brad and Michael push on with their search.

But after scouring the bush further downstream there's still no sign of

Geoff.

But he can see them.

I was resting up on the bank, and I saw this helicopter fly over.

I just leapt off the bank, out into midstream,

by which time the helicopter had gone out of sight.

I was just standing there yelling at it, "Come back!"

I was yelling, "Come back! Come back!"

But Brad and Michael still don't see him.

They turn around and begin their journey back to base.

As I fly, I bank hard right, and then as I come back around left,

to get on the left-hand bend,

I see a flash of white.

At this point, I turn to Brad, I go, "I think I've just seen him."

And he goes, "What? Where?" And I said, "Straight down there. I'm not sure but I'm going back around."

I was just waving like this, waving my hands, you know,

jumping up and down. And hoping that would help them see me.

Sure enough, there is Geoff, on the river bank, going like this.

All I can see is a British national. I could see his white head and white arms.

So that was a pretty amazing feeling.

And this time I got a wave from someone in the helicopter window.

And I just collapsed like that, almost.

The fact that we had seen him waving indicated to us that he was at least

alive. That feeling compares to nothing else.

Nothing else. Three days of hard work,

looking for a needle in a haystack.

And there it is.

At that moment, they'd seen me, I knew that everything was going to be OK.

My ordeal was over.

Geoff has been found an extraordinary 15km from where he started out

on his adventure.

Michael lands the helicopter 600 metres away from him

and Brad heads towards his position.

Eventually I saw someone wading downstream towards me,

and that turned out to be Brad Foat.

I said, "Geoff, you've got a lot of worried people at home, mate."

I shook him by the hand and I said, "I'm so glad to see you, mate."

After 47 hours in the bush, with his bare feet cut to ribbons,

Geoff is too weak to make his own way back to the helicopter.

So Brad calls for assistance in the form of a winch chopper.

This footage shows the winchman being lowered down to Geoff in the creek.

Chris, the winchman, came down and clipped me to him, and he said,

"Right, Geoff, just cuddle me. We're going up." So that's what I did.

Wrapped my arms around him, and up we went.

We were just winched up into the helicopter.

The rescue chopper's own camera shows a relieved Geoff clinging weakly

to Chris just before they're pulled safely onboard.

His ordeal is finally over.

Geoff spends the night in hospital,

and then rests up for a few days in a hotel, so his feet can heal.

He's then straight back on his bike to continue his adventure.

But this close call has taught him a lesson or two.

It kind of brought home how much at risk I was

and how disastrous it could have been.

Nine months down the line,

I still feel guilty about all the hassle I caused people.

I'm conscious of how easy it is, especially in somewhere like Australia,

to get yourself into trouble.

Cape Town, South Africa.

Former British kite surfing champion Lewis Crathern is competing in

the world King of The Air trophy.

I think, "Right, just one more heat and I can be in the final, I can get on the podium."

This footage, filmed by a spectator on the beach,

shows Lewis launching himself over 60 feet in the air.

Then, disaster.

The trick's gone badly wrong, Lewis slams into the water backwards.

He is knocked unconscious and sinks below the surface.

He needs help fast.

30-year-old Lewis Crathern grew up in the seaside resort of Worthing,

West Sussex.

I think my parents, certainly, I've always been a bit of a, if you like, the wild child, maybe.

I was always into flipping off buildings and skates and things like that.

He was just, almost like a bit agitated.

He just felt like he had to explore further than his years, most probably.

That's how he's been from as long as I can remember.

It was the wet and windy conditions of a typical British summer that led

to Lewis finding his passion in life.

I was brought up right on the beach,

I thought how could I possibly use this weather to my advantage?

I saw kite surfing take off just around here, and I thought, "Wow,

"these guys are going so high and jumping, all with just the power of the wind."

That's how I got into it. I thought I had to do this.

And then the bug took off.

Strapped onto a board, kite surfers control a large sail to propel

themselves across the water.

Expert surfers like Lewis use the wind to lift themselves high,

up to 70 feet in the air, so they can perform gymnastic flips and tricks.

It's ultimate freedom, away from the land, on the ocean.

It's the battle against the elements, which is incredible.

Lewis became British freestyle champion at 21 years old,

and six years ago, he famously was the first kite surfer to leap Brighton Pier.

And so I've been able to travel the world and different places through the sport of kite surfing.

When he started to get ranked in the world, that was a big deal.

Every year the best kite surfers in the world gather for

the King of The Air competition in Cape Town, South Africa.

Lewis is competing, and this year is going brilliantly.

He's through to the semifinal.

His girlfriend, Courtney, is watching from the beach.

There were thousands of people, and he was doing so well.

We had such a good feeling about it because he'd won his previous heat

over a big competitor.

I think, "Right, just one more heat and I can be in the final.

"I can get on the podium at this thing."

Back home, Mum's getting updates on his progress.

I knew it was his dream. And I was like, "This is it now,

"he's going to be on a podium that he's waited for years for this opportunity for."

The semifinal starts, and I'm feeling really confident.

I see all the other three riders in my heat jostling for position.

Shot by one of the crowd, this is the footage of Lewis's semifinal heat.

Desperate to make the final,

he prepares to perform his most high risk and spectacular trick.

-The mega loop.

-The mega loop is the most powerful,

amazing move in the sport of kite boarding.

Usually you have the kites above us,

but if you pull hard on the bar you can loop the kite all the way down and around.

Off a big wave, Lewis launches himself into the air.

I went into the mega loop, and then I can barely remember much from there, to be honest.

I mean, it's a massive jump that he did,

so there was a loud cheering moment.

CROWD CHEERS

But it all goes terribly wrong.

The minute he hit the ocean it was just quiet.

When Lewis takes off, his body is in the wrong position, leaning backwards.

And when he spins, he can't get his kite into the right place to

straighten up.

He falls backwards, it's a huge drop -

the height of three houses.

Slamming into the sea, Lewis takes a blow to the head,

and is knocked unconscious.

He is in real danger of drowning.

I just knew something was wrong, and I just got tunnel vision,

and I just ran. I just wanted to get to him as quick as possible.

With every moment critical, the kite surfers Lewis was competing against

now rush to his aid.

This photo shows the one who gets to him first desperately trying to keep

Lewis's head above the roaring waves.

Him being dragged out of the water, it sounds weird

but it wasn't a relief for me, because he was completely lifeless.

Everyone was panicking. You could see the panic on people's faces.

Lewis is foaming at the mouth because of the amount of water he's taken into his lungs.

The event's medical team immediately start treating him.

This picture shows the shocked crowd watching on as they try to revive

Lewis with CPR and oxygen.

Seeing his body so lifeless, I genuinely thought that he...

I thought it was critical. I thought it was fatal.

-SOBBING:

-OK...

To everyone's relief, Lewis then regains consciousness.

I went from thinking, he's never going to wake up,

to him being awake and communicating with me.

And I think that was the biggest relief I felt.

But this is far from over.

Fighting to breathe, Lewis is in a very bad way.

He's taken to hospital by ambulance.

I felt a great pain in my chest, and I think, naturally,

I was asking for Courtney.

I kept saying, "Courtney, Courtney." I was scared.

In the emergency department, doctors are stunned to find Lewis has no

broken bones or internal injuries.

But he's in danger of secondary drowning.

His lungs are so full of water, they could stop working completely.

He was only breathing 40% for himself,

and they said they needed to put him on a ventilator,

in order to do so they needed to put him asleep.

To give him the best chance of survival, Lewis is placed into an induced coma.

His mum and dad fly straight out to be with him.

When we first saw him and saw the tubes everywhere, I was in shock.

But there was a bit of relief because I'm with him.

I'm stood by him and I can be with him all the time.

It's six days before doctors decide that Lewis's lungs have recovered

enough for him to be brought out of his coma.

Would he recognise us? Would he be brain-damaged?

What would there be there that we would be

bringing back, so to speak?

I remember my parents being there, and Courtney was there.

And it was very surreal.

It didn't feel like there'd been six or seven days that had passed between

the event. I thought the event had just happened.

When he started to come around he only had eyes for Courtney.

It was beautiful.

There he was, he was smiling and happy, and the positive Lewis that he is,

as if nothing had happened to him.

A couple of months later, Lewis is back to fitness

and back to kite surfing. The experience has brought him and Courtney closer together.

Courtney was incredible for me.

She was always positive, and we got very close during that time.

It's incredible how quickly, just about over a month,

month and a half, that he's recovered.

And that's a miracle because it was not expected.

He was still meant to be in hospital.

Courtney's just moved back to Worthing in the UK, with me, which is great.

So I'm really happy.

He is absolutely amazing and I'm lucky to have him.

Some really close calls today, but all with remarkably good outcomes.

See you next time.