In this first episode, a routine parachute jump goes drastically wrong for a group of six parachutists when one of the jumpers gets his foot tangled in a chord as he jumps from the plane, leaving him hanging upside down from the aircraft as it flies thousands of feet up in the sky. Alarmingly, pilot Garth was unaware that the final person to jump, Jeremy, was actually trapped underneath the plane: ‘I can see the parachutists leave the aircraft in my rear view mirror, there was no delay at the door, it was normal…Jeremy looked at me and gave me the thumbs up in the rear view mirror, he was very happy, things had gone well and fairly quickly Jeremy jumped out of the airplane.’ On the ground, alarm bells began to ring amongst the crew when only five parachutes could be seen in the skies above. Garth confirmed on his radio that all six people exited the plane. As Garth began his descent he was alerted to a static line leading out of the exit door preventing it from closing. And as the plane got closer to the tarmac it was then that the ground crew became aware that there was something hanging from the bottom, and quickly they realised that it was a person, it was Jeremy. With his knife having fallen away and unable to free himself, Jeremy was very aware that he was going to be landing underneath the aircraft: ‘I didn’t know what Garth was thinking at that point, but either way I could see him putting the flaps down, I could see the runway approaching, he was diving the aircraft to land it…Simple fact is, he’s going to land his airplane and he’s unaware at this point that I’m hanging underneath.’ With the aircraft now only 100-feet from the runway, Garth received the urgent radio call to pull up and very quickly the reality of the situation became clear to him: ‘In one moment everything is normal, and then the next moment…you are in a situation which is life or death…what scared me immensely was the realisation that Jeremy’
In episode two, a car bursts into flames after a crash with two young men trapped inside and a fishing trip in a kayak turns into a nightmare for a father-to-be. Neville Powell his and wife Gloria had enjoyed a day trip to Rye and had decided to drive home through the countryside. Eight miles away Peggy Langdown and her family were enjoying the Queen’s Golden Jubilee festivities at the Newingdon village green party. Her son Peter, 19, was excited to have been given a car after passing his driving test and decided to drive to nearby Hawkhurst with his cousin Adam, 17, to get some petrol. On the way to Hawkshurst, Peter tried to overtake a motorbike in front of him and clipped the kerb on the opposite side of the road, which cause him to lose control of the car. Coming from the opposite direction soon after the accident, Neville and Gloria were shocked to see a car engine in the middle of the road and the car itself mounted on the kerb. Neville went over to the damaged car and he saw that Adam, the passenger, seemed okay but realised that a wooden post from a fence behind the car had smashed into the vehicle, impaling Peter into his seat through his chest. Tim Slater, an insurance manager, then arrived on the scene and he and Neville immediately began to work as a team. Both men used brute force to get Adam out of the car and open the driver’s door. An electrical fire had started near the dashboard and Neville knew the fuel delivery pipe was close by. Eventually the men were able to free Peter from his seat and move him to the passenger side of the car. Moving him out of the car door with the post still in his body, they lead him to the other side of the road the car exploded into flames, which shot up into the sky. It had been an hour since Peter had left the jubilee party and Peggy’s daughter Anna had arrived, telling her mother that she and he boyfriend had been held up in traffic because of a terrible traffic accident. They didn’t bel
In episode three, an 18-year-old girl lies trapped in her overturned car and falls unconscious as it slowly submerges into a murky quagmire, and a motorway journey for a family of four turns into a nightmare when their car ploughs into the central reservation and into the path of oncoming traffic. Christmas Eve night, St Austell, Cornwall, and care worker Dannie Phillips lies trapped in her overturn car after it veers of the road during heavy floods and ploughs into a tree. She says: ‘The water was rising quickly and I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out, I’ve got to get out of this.’’ Spotting the upturned car, passer-by Mike Tate says: ‘As I approached the car my fears were the worst, I really didn’t know how anybody could’ve survived the impact and I steeled myself really for the worst kind of picture.’ With the murky waters fast approaching her face, Dannie says: ‘When they say your life flashes before you, it really does. I just remember looking up at the moon and thinking, ‘Is this really my time?’…I’m 18, I wanted to have a family, I wanted to get married one day and I thought that’s all going to be taken away from me.’ Off-duty Emergency Care Nurse Lizzie Wheatcroft and husband Lee appear on the scene and with a combined effort prise the driver’s side door open, though they’re unable to see anyone amidst the water and debris. Scanning the car in the darkness, Lizzie says: ‘My gaze came round and I could see this bright red hair floating and it just shone in the moonlight. I couldn’t see a face or any body, she was deep…I wrapped my hand round all this red hair until I got to her head and I just yanked it as hard as I could and a head came out of the water…but she was blue, I didn’t think she was alive at all. She had, in all effect, drowned.’ Knowing she must act quickly, Lizzie clambers into the car and starts giving Dannie some breaths and tells husband Lee to hit her hard on her chest.