Episode 8 Close Calls: On Camera

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

I could die here. This is really serious.

A split second where the outcome could go either way.

Right, call 999 now.

The difference between disaster and survival.

You could see it on the faces of the crew how life-threatening this was.

Why would you need to swim? Apparently, they're still supposed to be on a boat.

These are the people who've been there and lived to tell the tale.

I thought she'd died.

It's a day they'll never forget.

The day they had a close call.

Today, on Close Calls, a young boy falls 40 feet from a cliff edge,

slamming into concrete below.

Emergency workers reach the child and know his injuries are critical.

Carried to a waiting air ambulance, he's surrounded by firemen,

paramedics and doctors.

And walking behind them all, feeling helpless and numb, is his dad.

I honestly thought when Dave shut his eyes, it was the final goodbye.

I really did.

And two British adventurers on an expedition to cross the Bering Sea

become stranded.

We're actually stuck fast in sea ice,

which means we can't paddle through it and we can't walk on it.

The weather has grounded their backup helicopter

and a US Coastguard plane can't land.

So it's what you would call check, maybe checkmate.

Cullercoats Bay, North Tyneside.

A young boy scales a fence on his way to join pals jumping

into the sea from a cliff edge.

He disappears from view.

His best friend, a few feet in front of him, hears his screams.

I didn't really know if he was alive or not.

The boy has fallen 40 feet onto concrete sea defences.

He's seriously injured.

Emergency workers flood the scene.

And the boy's father is brought to his side.

I was trying to tell him he'd be absolutely fine.

I was thinking, "I'm lying to him."

But how do you tell your 12-year-old son

that you don't think he's going to make it?

Sports mad Leyton loves a kickaround with his dad, Mark.

They've got a great relationship.

Leyton's a very, very bubbly character, very popular.

Any of his friends will tell you that.

Very active. He can turn his hand to any sport.

He's very gifted that way.

We've got more of a friendship, I'd say, than a father-son relationship.

Leyton, his dad,

mum and sister live near stunning Cullercoats Bay in North Tyneside.

This beautiful long stretch of sand has always been Leyton's playground.

I like going to the beach, like, with me friends

and swimming in the sea.

Sometimes with me friends.

Or sometimes sit and talk and play in the sand

and play football in the sand as well.

Leyton's best friend is Ryan.

They've known each other since they were five and went to nursery together.

He's a really good friend.

Rely on him whenever, whenever you need him.

It's a sunny summer's day in August.

Leyton is enjoying the school holiday and spending lots of time at the beach.

Today, he's with his pal Andrew.

They're on their way to meet Ryan.

The plans were just to go to the beach,

jump off the pier and just have a good day all round.

After a couple of hours, the boys leave the beach and head further along the coast.

Heard that people are jumping off the cliffs,

so I had a walk over to have a look who was doing it.

The jumpers are on Marconi Point,

an area of cliff about a ten-minute walk away.

A CCTV camera on a nearby house captures a group of young people getting ready to jump.

A camera on the side of the same house shows Leyton and Ryan heading

towards the point.

Leyton, in a Superman wet suit, leads the way.

Ryan, in black, walks alongside him.

Andrew, also in a Superman suit, runs to catch them up.

Another view picks the boys up further down the path,

walking quickly towards some steps leading down to the sea.

Five more youngsters follow shortly behind.

The group stop at the top of the steps.

They're intending to jump over a wall and climb along the outside of

a metal security fence to reach the grassy clifftop.

To join the others jumping into the sea they have make their way along the narrow cliff edge.

There's a 40-foot drop below.

The security fence is there to prevent them from getting on to the cliff top.

Ignoring it is a decision they'll regret for ever.

I jumped this little wall to get to them.

So Ryan went first and he got over.

There was a drop which we didn't see at first and we had to go round the drop, kind of.

Ryan reaches the grassy verge on the other side of the drop.

Next, it's Leyton's turn.

This footage shows him climbing up onto the wall.

All I could see was like the cliff on the left of us and down below was

just like rocks and a concrete, like, floor.

Then Leyton suddenly vanishes from view.

Ryan hears a scream behind him.

He turns around just in time to see his best friend plummeting down the cliff,

crashing on to a concrete platform, 40 feet down.

He hit the floor and he had blood coming from the right side

of his body, so I didn't really know if he was alive or not.

The entire group of friends have seen Leyton fall.

Everyone was scared. We all thought he was gone.

Two of the group run for help,

while Ryan rushes down the sea steps to reach Leyton.

He finds his friend alive, but badly injured.

I was telling Leyton it's going to be OK,

he just needs to try and breathe.

At the top of the cliff, members of the public,

attracted by the youngsters' screams, rush to help.

One is Wayne Dobson, a volunteer from Tynemouth Life Brigade,

a search and rescue organisation.

We heard a bit of a commotion on the other side of the bay.

When I looked around, there was two,

three young kids running up to dog walkers and strangers.

They seemed quite panicked.

From the top of the cliff, Wayne can tell the young boy is seriously hurt.

I said to members of the public to ring the ambulance,

inform them that there's head injuries.

Wayne hurries down to Leyton.

When I got there, I placed a towel around Leyton's head.

Kept his head still.

He was very calm.

He knew what he was doing. Without him,

it wouldn't have been the same.

Ryan is distraught.

He goes back to the cliff top, where he's comforted by a local resident.

This woman took us all in and said that we could just all sit in her

garden to warm up, because she knew we were shocked.

Volunteer rescue worker Wayne

stays with Leyton and tries to stem the flow of blood from his head.

When I saw the blood coming out of his ears,

I obviously knew straight away that he had potential fracture of the skull.

He was moaning and groaning, drifting in and out of consciousness.

It was quite shocking. I've seen things like that before,

but, it was obviously... To a young kid,

it's quite shocking to see.

A mile away, Leyton's dad, Mark, a maintenance engineer,

has just got in from work.

Looking forward to getting home and sitting in the garden half an hour and relaxing.

But then his front door bangs open and his sister-in-law rushes in.

And she came in very frantically, saying Leyton had an accident at the

coast, fell on rocks.

So I said I'd go and pick him up.

I assumed he'd slipped on rocks and cut his leg or his arm

or banged his head, at worst.

But that's not what he finds.

The street is full of emergency services.

I think I went into a little bit of shock, to be honest.

I can't remember a lot of it.

A policeman takes him straight to his son,

but Leyton is barely recognisable.

His head was at least twice the size on the right side.

I was trying to reassure him, telling him that the people that were there,

the emergency services would look after him and he'd be absolutely fine.

I was thinking, "I'm lying to him.

"He won't be fine," but how do you tell your 12-year-old son

that you don't think he's going to make it?

Later, fears for Leyton's survival grow.

His condition is so serious air ambulance medics must treat him on the spot.

Leyton had an injury severity score of 50.

Anything above 15 is classed as major trauma.

Next, a pair of adventurers who planned every step of their expedition.

But it doesn't matter how professional you are,

you can't control the weather.

The Bering Strait, Alaska.

Two British men are trapped on the ice.

It's too thick for them to get through on their kayaks and too thin to walk on.

They're locked in and their backup helicopter can't reach them.

Weather's closed in. Weather forecast for the next four or five

days looks pretty the same.

They're not getting out to us.

James Bingham is a dedicated family man.

He enjoys nothing more than taking his tribe

on mini-adventures into the great outdoors.

But once a year, he likes to push himself that little bit further.

Every year, I try and get out on a big adventure of some sort.

Whether that's to the Himalayas or to the Andes or recently, to

Afghanistan, which is another place where I've been on.

I enjoy taking on new challenges.

So does his friend and fellow adventurer Neil Laughton.

He was just 13 when he ventured on his first solo expedition.

The two kindred spirits met two years ago,

when they were introduced by a mutual friend.

They instantly hit it off.

He's a very experienced mountaineer, adventurer.

He's been on a number of trips to Everest, the North Pole, the South Pole.

When you get to my age, you get a real sense of somebody's capabilities

and James is a tough little Welsh guy, quite relaxed, chilled out.

I knew on this particular expedition I needed somebody who'd be waiting

for me rather than the other way around.

Within just a few weeks of meeting,

the duo begin to plan their first trip together, to the Bering Sea.

The Bering Straits, 2016 expedition was an attempt to cross the sea

between north-west mainland of Alaska and two islands.

Those two islands, separated by the international date line,

are Little Diomede and Big Diomede,

located halfway across the Bering Strait,

the stretch of water separating North America and Russia.

The idea was to walk across the frozen sea ice from the mainland to

the island and back.

It's no mean feat.

The 52-mile round trip through treacherous terrain,

in sub-zero temperatures, would take the men two weeks to complete.

Only eight people have successfully crossed the Bering Strait on foot or by skiing.

This is really one of the great remaining adventures, in my mind.

Compared to the amount of people who, say, climb Everest,

and myself and Neil have been up there as well,

this is a far, you know, greater challenge.

It's March, and as they set off on the expedition,

they document their journey.

We had to travel to a little outpost called Wales,

which is right on the west coast of Alaska, it's a small Inuit settlement,

there's only about 170 people who live there.

This footage captures their excitement.

This is the way to get an airport pick-up.

Welcome to Wales, Alaska!

Awesome!

But it's not all fun.

Neil and James have been training hard for two years to ensure they're

fully prepared for this gruelling challenge,

which will push both mind and body to their limit.

The key thing you need to have on at all times is a full Arctic

expedition dry suit.

It's almost guaranteed at times that you're going to punch through the ice and fall through the ice.

You have to carry a shotgun,

because there's polar bears in the area.

You've got moving sea ice, lots of open water.

You've got very unpredictable weather.

Put all that together and it's a very challenging environment.

24 hours after arriving in Alaska,

Neil and James prepare to head out on their 14-day adventure.

They load their nine-foot kayak sleds with all their equipment.

Each one weighing a hefty 35 kilos.

We had what we call an alpine start, so it was still dark, it was that early.

We had all our gear prepped.

Everything was good to go, and we set off into the darkness,

pulling our sleds behind us.

The sleds can also be used to paddle between any large pockets of sea

separating the chunks of ice.

But the view that greets them when they eventually make it

the two miles to shore is not what they were hoping for.

The scene that we found, it was, as far as the eye could see,

just complete open sea water.

I was a little bit concerned about the fact there wasn't any ice in the

channel, from what I could see.

The main concern being that we would need somewhere to camp.

But there's no question of giving up.

The pair push on.

But instead of walking, they kayak.

We had to go for this and if we didn't find ice,

it was clear we'd have to just keep going.

Neil leads the way.

We were making pretty good progress to start with.

The water was pretty clear. We had the wind behind us.

We saw the odd seal popping up and it was all going very well.

But after a few hours of paddling,

there are signs their luck could run out.

After ten hours, the sea around us literally began to freeze.

It was very difficult, nay, impossible, to kayak through

at about a centimetre or two centimetres thick.

Once again, the two men push on.

Then they get a lucky break.

Quite often what you'd find would be small channels.

It was like a cobweb, really, of open water through the ice and it

continued like this for miles and we followed it.

You know, it was fine.

But it doesn't stay that way.

The channels start to close in around them.

It wasn't very tough ice, so you could break through,

but progress was almost ground to a halt.

We were probably doing less than a couple of hundred metres an hour

and it was very exhausting work.

They force their way through the ice for 15 miles until exhaustion forces them to stop.

It's -20 degrees and they're now effectively locked in the ice.

They try to stay positive as they film,

but both men know their situation is close to critical.

But, as you can see, we're actually stuck fast in sea ice,

and it is kind of rime ice.

Which means we can't paddle through it, and we can't walk on it.

So, it's what you would call check, maybe checkmate.

Time will tell.

They need shelter and they need warmth,

but the ice is too thick to paddle through and too thin to stand on.

We couldn't get out of the kayak.

It meant that we had no option but to just to literally sleep on top of

our kayaks overnight.

Neil photographs James as the sun sinks

and the temperature plunges to -40.

He manages a half smile for the camera.

But James is beginning to suffer.

He started to sustain frost-bitten fingers.

The night was utterly miserable.

The cold isn't their only concern.

We couldn't get a polar bear alarm system rigged.

We hadn't drunk for 15 hours.

Very little food and we spent the night involuntary shivering to the point of exhaustion.

You know, it made me a bit like...

yeah, we need to get out of this.

But that's easier said than done.

Their backup plan involves a local rescue helicopter on stand-by back at base.

When dawn breaks, they make the call, but the bad news is...

..it can't fly.

The weather's closed in. The weather forecast for the next four or five

days looks pretty the same.

They're not getting out to us.

Less than two days into the expedition, Neil and James are stuck

hundreds of miles from the nearest town

and the temperature has now plunged to -40 degrees.

If they're going to make it out alive, they have only one hope,

the US Coast Guard.

Supplied with specialist helicopters suited to the conditions.

They pull the switch on their emergency personal locator beacon.

It will transmit our position directly to the coastguard,

even when we're drifting, it gives a real-time update as to where we are.

But that doesn't guarantee the Coast Guard can reach them.

They'll need to travel hundreds of miles from their base in southern Alaska.

I became very tired very quickly and yeah,

I was a bit worried and concerned, for sure.

Then, seven hours after setting off their emergency beacon,

they spot a dot on the horizon.

Neil's camera captures a moment he'll never forget.

The great sight of a C-130 military aircraft came pretty close over our

position and I think the sixth pass...

..dropped a parachute which contained some food and a two-way radio.

The plane is backed up by a Jayhawk helicopter.

But that takes another two hours to reach them.

Both aircrafts' in-built cameras record the rescue,

as the chopper hovers above James and Neil,

standing precariously on the ice.

The plan is to send down a rescue swimmer,

who'll bring each man up separately.

James goes first.

He came down and the helicopter was probably about 150 feet up and you

start getting winched up.

There's a lot of noise. A lot of downdraft.

It's pretty mental and the further up you go,

the more force you're getting from the downdraft from the rotors and

the noise is pretty intense.

And then you're kind of pulled in.

Next, it's Neil's turn.

The rescue swimmer from the US Coast Guard beckoned me over and I

cautiously and timidly jumped into the basket and that was that.

These pictures show the moment Neil is pulled on board to join James.

They reach land an hour later.

And immediately call home.

James and I are incredibly grateful to the US Coast Guard.

There was absolutely seamless extraction of two Brits from

a difficult situation in the middle of the Bering Sea.

James knows they wouldn't have made it without the US Coast Guard rescue team.

Obviously very grateful to these guys.

They're absolute heroes... doing this kind of work.

They saved our lives.

In Cullercoats Bay, North Tyneside, 12-year-old schoolboy Leyton

has plunged down a cliff face, landing on concrete sea defences below.

He's critically injured.

Emergency services are at the scene and the young boy's father has arrived.

I think I went into a little bit of shock, to be honest.

I can't remember a lot of it. I was trying to reassure him, telling him

that the people at the emergency services would look after him. He'd be absolutely fine.

And I was thinking, "I am lying to him."

The first medic to reach Leyton is Steve Mills,

a rapid response paramedic.

When we first arrived, Leyton was lying on the concrete, quite agitated,

clearly seriously injured.

So, very quickly we started to prioritise how we were going to deal

with Leyton's injuries.

Because they were clearly time-critical.

The Great North Air Ambulance has been alerted and lands at the top of the cliff.

Chris Smith is the doctor on board.

And when we actually got to Leyton, he was in a very bad way.

We were worried about head injuries, injuries to his spine.

Injury to his pelvis.

He had an obvious deformed femur, as well.

We also thought he may be bleeding internally.

Leyton's injuries are life-threatening.

The doctors and paramedics work quickly to try and stabilise him.

Leyton had an injury severity score of 50.

Anything above 15 is classed as major trauma.

His injuries are so bad that doctors can't treat him where he fell.

Leyton's dad is at his side.

He fears his son's life is slipping away in front of him.

Looking at him, the list was endless.

It was easier to list the bones on the right side of his body

that were intact than the ones that weren't,

because there wasn't many.

If they're going to save the young boy the medics need more space to work.

These photos taken by a passer-by show them moving Leyton along the narrow sea defence.

They wanted to put him onto a board to carry him.

The screams were horrific from when, as soon as it touched his legs,

it was a horrible sound.

Behind a screen erected by firefighters,

air ambulance doctor Chris puts the youngster into an induced coma.

Effectively, what we're doing is stopping someone from breathing

and then artificially breathing for them and so if that procedure goes wrong,

the patient could die in front of you.

A devastated Mark looks on.

I honestly thought when he did shut his eyes,

that was like the final goodbye. I really did.

It was a hard time.

The team of paramedics and doctors start to work on Leyton's numerous injuries.

He was given drugs and blood.

He had his fractures stabilised.

So he had a pelvic splint applied.

He had a traction splint applied to one of his legs.

Now they need to get the boy to hospital for highly specialist care.

It takes nine men to lift Leyton,

strapped to a stretcher up the 50 steep concrete steps to the cliff top.

CCTV footage shows him being carried down the path,

surrounded by the emergency services.

His forlorn father follows behind.

The feeling you get...

..the emptiness. You feel so useless.

You should be doing something. There's nothing you can do.

Leyton is carefully loaded onto the waiting air ambulance

and the pilot prepares for takeoff.

It would have taken an ambulance crew probably around half an hour to actually transfer him to hospital.

Within that time, Leyton may have lost his airway reflex.

His brain injury could have become worse and he could have died.

But it takes only seven minutes for the helicopter to reach Newcastle's

Royal Victoria Infirmary, a specialist trauma centre.

The emergency department team is waiting.

Ian Johnston is the duty consultant in paediatric intensive care.

He would have gone into the emergency department,

into what we call resus for the serious cases.

He would have been subject to a multitude of specialists surrounding him.

When Leyton's mum and dad arrive at the hospital,

their son's life is still hanging in the balance.

A consultant came through a few hours later to speak to us.

Started listing Leyton's injuries from his first, sort of, scans.

We asked if he'd survive. Said they don't know.

Those injuries include a shattered skull, five broken ribs,

a broken femur, pelvis and collarbone.

Leyton is kept in an induced coma for four days,

then the doctors take the decision to turn off his sedation

and allow him to come round.

He woke up very quickly after we'd taken the sedatives off.

And whilst he was a little bit sore,

as you might imagine, and a little bit disorientated,

we were really pleased with how his neurology was,

which is a reflection of how well his brain's working.

Leyton is going to survive.

Doctors break the wonderful news to his mum and dad.

And at that point, I think the shock stops and the emotion starts...

..and reality kicks in of what's actually happened.

I was hysterically ecstatic, and the next question was,

what state will he be? Will he be able to walk again?

Will he talk? Will he have permanent brain damage?

We didn't know.

After just five days in intensive care, Leyton is moved to a general ward,

where he starts his rehabilitation.

Clare McClenan, a senior paediatric physio, is Leyton's therapist.

The day I first met him on the ward I was just surprised, because his dad had said,

when do you think he's going to be able to get back to running,

and when do you think he's going to play football?

I remember thinking, "Wow, we've got a long way before we get to there."

Clare predicts it will take about two months of intensive daily physio

to give Leyton any chance of walking again.

However, he has other ideas.

He was just, yeah, remarkable,

considering the number of injuries and the nature of his fall,

he was making progress day by day.

Amazingly, just 15 days after his accident, Leyton is allowed home.

Thought I wasn't going to talk again.

I thought I wasn't going to do anything again the same as what I was

and I thought I was going to be disabled.

I thought I was never going to make it.

So they nicknamed me Miracle Boy.

All the money in the world couldn't buy the feeling that you get the day

you come home and...

..you know he's going to be OK.

Now, Leyton's only permanent injury is the loss of hearing in his right ear.

An unbelievable result that none of those involved in his rescue

would have predicted.

Leyton is probably within the 10% of patients that

we see every year who are the most severely injured.

They would normally die with the injury profile that they have.

So he was incredibly lucky to survive.

I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

And the good news is Leyton's back to playing football, too.

See you next time on Close Calls.

When it came to my TV habits, I'd watch anything.