Original subtitles

Next, on a special episode

ofParanormal Caught on Camera.

A terrifying mid-air collision knocks a skydiver unconscious.

The closer I got to him,

I started to realize that he was in trouble.

A kayaker in Florida gets rammed by an alligator.

I'm assuming it's right below the boat at that point,

so I'm just trying to get righted as fast as possible.

A woman is trapped in a van...

Please get me out!

Please get me out!

...that's rapidly sinking into a river.

Move away!

Seconds would have changed life or death for her.

She was going to die.

A jet-skier in England...

gets sucked under a cargo ship.

At that moment in time, I was like,

"This is it. You're dead. Like, without a doubt."

And even more death-defying footage...

...that will have you screaming.

Oh, my God!

Getting knocked out is a risk in many sports

such as hockey, football and, of course, boxing.

For the most part though, medics are usually nearby

and can assist a person within minutes.

But what happens if you lose consciousness at 10,000 feet?

Such was the case in Texas, when a freak accident

sent a skydiver plummeting toward the Earth

at 160 miles per hour in a total blackout.

July 2014.

Whitewright, Texas.

Four skydivers, including Ben Pigeon and instructor Andy Locke,

are about to take their last jump of the day.

My name is Andy Locke and I am a professional skydiver.

It was a pretty normal day.

We did ten jumps.

Should have stopped at nine, but, uh...

Needless to say, their tenth jump doesn't go as planned.

Basically, we were gonna exit head down.

So that basically means our head is going towards the Earth

rather than traditionally, uh, belly to Earth.

And we were going to build like a circle, all holding grips.

We were gonna let go of the grips,

I was gonna move away,

they were going to follow, we were gonna all stop,

and not everybody stopped.

And that miscalculation set into motion

a devastating chain of events.

Watch this skydiver closely as he flies towards Ben.

Did you see that?

Watch again in slow-motion

as his leg collides with Ben's head at about 200 miles per hour.

I saw the collision immediately.

It didn't register that, "Oh, no, somebody is hurt."

The only thing that kind of popped up in my head was,

"That didn't look right and I need to get over there."

And with the Earth quickly approaching,

time is of the essence.

I was kind of on autopilot, in a sense.

The biggest thought was "get there."

That was all I was thinking about.

It was just, "Get there, get there, get there."

The closer I got to him, I started to kind of realize that he was in trouble.

Big trouble.

Ben has been knocked unconscious by the hit.

Immediately, once I got to him,

I realized he was pretty badly hurt.

His left eye was completely swollen shut.

His visor was blasted open.

So, he was in bad shape.

And with them both freefalling at 160 miles per hour,

Andy has mere seconds to come up with the solution.

OMG doesn't even begin to encompass what we are seeing here.

This is such a drastic and dramatic scenario

that you fully expect a man is plunging to his death.

Then, with less than 30 seconds to go until impact,

Andy does the only thing he can and pulls Ben's reserve parachute.

The reserve parachute, it's designed to be the backup

and it's designed to open...

open in less than ideal situations and fly more docile.

So I figured if I give him the reserve parachute,

with him being unconscious, that would give him the best probability of...

survival or lack of injury.

I feel like this is one of those things that we see in movies,

that we don't ever actually think about happening in real life.

Miraculously, Ben regains consciousness

after his reserve chute is pulled,

and in spite of everything, he's somehow able to safely navigate his landing,

though his recollection of the whole event is spotty.

My name is Ben, and I was knocked unconscious while skydiving.

And, uh, they asked me, "Ben, are you okay? Are you okay?"

and I said, "What are you talking about?"

How I got back to the drop zone, I have no idea.

I could've landed on a highway,

I could've landed on a telephone line.

I could've landed in a tree then fell...

I mean, there's all kinds of things that could've gone wrong.

But they didn't.

And not only that, Ben walks away with just minor injuries.

I had a pretty bad black eye and, obviously, a really bad concussion,

but obviously, nothing compared to what it could've been.

I mean, the fact that he survived this is really mind-blowing.

I don't like using words like miracle and such,

but this is really nothing short of a miracle.

I still get a little emotional.

Um...

Yeah. I don't know, it's...

Yeah, it's hard to explain.

It just reminds me of the fragility of our life

and how, you know, easily it could be turned off.

And it also reminds me that skydiving can be very dangerous,

but is a beautiful sport that I love very much,

and it is unfortunate that when skydiving does get publicity

it's typically because of an accident or, you know, some sort of tragedy.

Coming up...

Will this man be able to save this dog's life?

Oh, he's so tired.

The East River in New York City

is not known for being the cleanest of waterways.

In addition to that, it is a major thoroughfare

for barges, ferries and tugboats,

and the currents can be incredibly strong and unpredictable,

all of which, makes it a potentially deadly body of water

for your average human being.

So, what would it take for you to jump in?

A man from Queens found out the hard way

when he saw a life in need of saving.

May 4th, 2019.

Brooklyn, New York.

Gabe Castellanos is celebrating his 38th birthday

with a group of friends at the Brooklyn Barge,

a popular restaurant on the water,

when he spots a dog swimming in the East River.

My name is Gabe, and this is my video.

We noticed the dog in the water,

and we were like, "Oh, man! That's such a great idea.

I wish I could go, jump in and cool off."

But after nearly 45 minutes,

the dog shows no signs of heading back to shore.

Jokingly, my brother actually just mentioned,

"Hey, Gabe, you might have to jump in there and get that dog,"

I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, no, you know, the dog will go back to land, it will be fine."

But, you know, in the back of my head I'm like,

"Oh, man. What if I do have to jump in?"

The comment resonates

because Gabe had attended a maritime college in the Bronx,

where he was trained in water survival skills.

And when Gabe sees the dog start to swim in circles,

he knows it's go-time.

The first thing I did was to make sure I did not tell my girlfriend, Kimberly,

what I was about to do because she would've, like,

just clutched on to me and it would've been someone else's story.

I jumped into the water and I see the dog swimming away,

I'm like, you know, "expletive" like,

"Oh, now I got to swim?"

Come on.

When I was just six feet away from her,

you could see the panic in her eyes,

and she just started swimming towards the center of the river.

So, in my panic state I was like,

"Well, I can't let her get out there,

otherwise, this may not be a rescue at all."

But even when Gabe finally catches up to the dog,

the rescue is in danger of going awry.

Of course she's afraid, you know,

probably getting into the early stages of hypothermia,

'cause the water was still pretty cold at that time of the year.

And she basically just lunges at my face.

He's bleeding! Look, he's bleeding!

- Who? - He's bleeding.

- The dog? - No, the guy. It bit him.

Oh, The dog is like, "Why are you doing this?"

As I was kind of struggling to kinda control her,

I pushed her away for a little bit, just to let her calm down,

and I went to reach with my left hand,

and then she caught on to my left hand

and I was biting that for a little bit.

But by now, Gabe has already reached the point of no return.

The adrenaline is going,

so I'm not feeling any of this.

She did have a collar on, so I was able to just get my hand

in between her collar and her head,

so that she couldn't actually turn her head back to try to bite me.

Look. He's not even swimming.

He's just like...

Oh, he's so tired.

Oh, it scratched him in the face.

Heroic effort!

They both, amazingly, make it back to shore safe and sound.

This is someone trained in maritime rescue.

That's who's having a birthday party on the edge of river,

watching this dog in need of rescue?

I mean, this is really starting to feel like it's coming together on purpose,

like there's some sort of meaning

or serendipity behind this particular occurrence

because that unique skillset being required in that situation on that day,

at that time...

I mean, maybe that goes a little bit beyond luck.

First of all, diving into the East River

is death-defying enough with all the pollution and everything else in it.

I wouldn't have been thinking about whether or not

that river was treated or cleaned.

I could jump into a pile of sewage with crap in it to save a dog, you know,

because that's just who I am,

and I think that's the same thing with this guy.

The thing that he wasn't prepared for was the fear

of the dog going, "Who are you? What's going on?

And why are you trying to grab me when I'm in the water?"

The dog was probably thinking something along the lines of that.

And bit, out of fear, saying, "Leave me alone, give me space."

As I brought her onto the rocks,

you know, she was a lot calmer at that point.

Um, she actually just laid in the rocks for a little bit, catching her breath.

After paramedics treat Gabe for his wounds,

the dog's walker manages to catch up with him.

Turns out, the dog's name is Harper

and how she ended up here is its own crazy story.

While the dog walker was out,

a cab basically ran a stop sign

and hit the dog walker, so, he let go the leash

and Harper just took off running.

Only Harper knows how she ended up in the East River.

As for Gabe, though a few small scars remain,

he has absolutely no regrets.

I don't feel like I'm a hero in this situation,

I just feel like I did what needed to be done.

It's a living being.

My reaction was to make sure that it's got more years to live.

Coming up...

A peaceful kayaking trip turns terrifying.

The jaws of an alligator have enough strength,

over 2,000 pounds per square inch

to clamp down and easily break the bones of their prey.

They can even bite through steel.

And while it might seem like these large reptiles

mostly lounge around and sunbathe on the shore,

make no mistake, when they're hungry, they can move.

Which is it what makes this encounter in North Carolina...

so terrifying.

July 12, 2020, in North Carolina.

Pete Joyce, a firefighter paramedic,

is paddling through a remote swampy stretch

of the Waccamaw River.

My name is Pete Joyce and this is my video.

It was later in the evening, it was between five and six o'clock,

I had just got done with a mountain bike ride

and I was on my way back,

and I just decided to check out that area,

'cause that was actually the first time I was in that part of the river.

It is very isolated.

But Pete's peaceful isolation is about to come...

to a horrifying end.

I was looking to the right

and once I was heading towards the brush

and the branches to the right of me,

my attention was completely diverted.

What Pete cant's see is this alligator.

But the alligator can definitely see Pete.

Pete is now upside down and underwater with the alligator.

I'm assuming it's right below the boat at that point,

so I'm just trying to get righted as fast as possible.

And because his legs are still in the kayak,

he has only his arms to defend and right himself.

Then, suddenly, he feels something by his hand.

A branch.

I was very, very grateful that there was a limb just below the surface

to actually right the boat and get it back upright.

He's back up, but not out of danger.

I just waited for, like, a second blow to the boat

and once that little bit of a jolt disappeared,

I went, tapped the boat a little bit...

...made sure it wasn't still underneath or near the surface

and then grabbed the paddle.

Turned around and as delicately as possible,

just leave the area.

I didn't really process it until I was, like, hauling back in the other direction.

"Hauling back" is an understatement.

That was ten minutes to get down there.

I think it took me two-and-a-half minutes to get back.

This is one of those moments when you get that visceral reaction

watching it, screaming at your phone

or your TV or your laptop saying,

"I could not imagine being in this situation."

By far, I would say, one of the scariest situations that you could be in.

When he dumped over, my heart sank,

because I thought, for sure, that alligator was gonna grab one of his limbs

and he was gonna either drown or get death rolled, you know.

If that were me in the kayak,

you would hear so much swearing

coming out of my mouth, the minute that that happened,

and this kayaker's like, really calm and fairly quiet.

We can hear his rapid breathing,

we can tell he's obviously frightened,

but, I mean, this is someone who is staying level-headed.

That level headedness, I have to imagine

had a lot to do with how smoothly this situation went in the end.

So, how exactly did Pete keep such a level head?

As a firefighter, paramedic, dealing with, uh, behavioral problems

in the field,

this is kind of roughly the equivalent.

You just gotta keep your mind at ease somehow and just breathe through it.

You know, you're not gonna help yourself

by flailing about and getting crazy.

The fact that he's a firefighter does not surprise me.

We as firefighters and paramedics,

we are used to operating in dark,

unable to see areas with extremely high heart rates

and, you know, a lot going on around us.

So this truly just paid a lot of testament

to what he's done to train to be a firefighter,

and it helped him out immensely in this moment.

Look, all I know is that if I'm kayaking this river

and an alligator lunges at me and knocks me over,

I'm hanging up my kayak.

I'm done with kayaking.

Not Pete.

He kayaked the same river just two months later, albeit, a little more carefully.

I was very complacent with alligators before this all happened.

So I give them a little bit more space these days than I have done in the past.

If anything, it's made me more attached to them in an odd way.

As for the nightmare-inducing video?

I don't watch it anymore.

After that first or second day, I just stopped watching it.

I'm waiting for the next one, you know?

That's just it.

I gotta one up it somehow.

Coming up, the OMG miracles...

Please, get me out.

...continue.

Oh, my God.

Here! Here! Here!

It's a common scene in Hollywood films.

A car spins out of control...

...then catapults over the side of a bridge

into a body of water.

The driver struggles to get out before water fills their vehicle.

- Usually, it doesn't end well.

Unfortunately, that nightmare inducing scenario

recently played out in real life for a woman in Ohio.

And the difference between life and death

rested largely in the hands of two police officers.

Move away!

Do it again!

November 23rd, 2020.

Alliance, Ohio.

Alexus Carver has just woken up

to the sound of water rushing into her minivan.

She quickly realizes that she must've fallen asleep while driving

and somehow ended up in a frigid body of water.

Alexus grabs her phone and calls 911.

The dispatcher is able to get Alexus' GPS location from her cell phone.

She's in the Mahoning River.

Officer Shane Tallman and Christian Tussey

happened to be relatively close to the scene and are the first to arrive.

I'll have to.

Alexus yells to the officers,

which is picked up by the dispatcher.

Please, get me out.

We're coming.

As Shane's bodycam records...

Please!

...Christian gets into the water.

My name is Christian.

My name is Shane, and this is our video.

Once the door did not open

and I noticed that there was not enough room

for her to get through the window

'cause it wasn't down all the way,

that's when everything slowed down for me.

Internally your... mind's going a mile a minute,

but it's in slow motion.

And things are getting more and more deadly by the second.

I don't know if there was a current already

or if the pressure of the car created a little bit of the suction,

but starting to feel my feet move with that car,

that became a pretty scary thing.

- Oh, my God. Here! - I can't breathe!

And the frigid temperature of the water

is making it hard for Christian to breathe.

All right, I got you, Tuss! I got you!

Give me the... All right, I got you.

I got it. I got you, I got you.

I went down to assist him to start a chain

so we could get her out before it sunk.

Officer Tussey was up to his neck almost in water trying to get her out,

and I knew the water was incredibly cold.

My focus was on Officer Tussey and seeing his actions to remove her.

- Relax. - Shatter it, please.

Yeah, we will, miss.

Thankfully, Office Tallman was able to kind of snap me out of it.

I don't know what the magic words were,

divine intervention, whatever it was,

but you can see in the video how I am locked up

and then it's like, "Oh, here's a tomahawk, let's go back to work."

Tell her to get away and bust that window.

Open the back door! - She can't!

- I can't! - Let go, let go, let go.

I'm gonna hold your hand.

Oh, my God.

Please! Please!

- Okay, miss. - Here, take this tomahawk.

Turn away! Turn away! - Turn away!

Do it again.

Christian pulls Alexus through the window as the van quickly sinks.

Breathe, relax.

Get up, here we go.

Being stuck in a car while water is just filling up the car,

has to be one of my worst nightmares.

Situations like these are extremely intense

because most of us are just thinking

about getting the woman out of the vehicle,

but in this type of situation, it's so dynamic

because it's slick because of the water and also the mud,

so you can fall between the vehicle and the mud itself.

The vehicle's most likely not stable.

So, on top of that, it can rock and also pin you in there,

and then just attempting to get the person out,

breaking glass can be dangerous as well.

There is a lot of people that were going to die that day

if they didn't take swift precise action.

A fact that is not lost on Christian and Shane.

Seconds would've changed life or death for her.

She was going to die because there was no getting her out of that

without breaking the window,

and if that car would've started rolling anymore,

that water was gonna keep filling up,

and swinging a tomahawk under water wasn't gonna do anything.

Bob, watch out.

You could go through with hundreds,

literally hundreds of different variables

that could've changed that outcome.

If her phone would've been on the floor,

if the dispatcher would've not been trained appropriately

and panicked, if the phone would've disconnected,

or if the GPS system didn't work right.

I mean, if Officer Tussey and I weren't in the location

and as close to the call as we were.

She could've hit her head, she could've become unconscious,

which would've allowed her to slump below the water line

and drown in the situation.

So, the fact that she made it out is a miracle.

Alexus somehow walks away

with only minor cuts and scratches,

despite having crashed through a guardrail

and plunged nearly 14 feet into the icy waters of the river.

And like true professionals,

Officers Tussey and Tallman continue on with their shifts after they save her life.

I got back here as soon as I was able to clear.

I took one of the hottest showers I've ever taken in my entire life

and then I had to put on a fresh uniform, new boots,

and, um, be ready to go out on another call.

You're seeing a very minute portion

of what any police officer across the world does every day.

All right, I got you, Tuss. I got you.

Dude, I can't breathe.

I got it. I got you. I got you.

Coming up, jet-skier versus cargo ship.

Guess who wins?

Cargo ships are massive

and can weigh nearly 200,000 tons,

and reach heights of almost 20 stories with containers on board.

Because of this, a larger cargo ship's engine

turns propellers that are taller than some houses

and are about 1,250 times more powerful than your average car.

So, when you're sharing the waterways with one of these behemoths,

the most important rule is this...

Stay out of their way.

Advice that one daring jet-skier in England failed to follow.

August 27th, 2016.

Just off the southern coast of England in the Solent,

one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet.

Rob Warner and three of his friends

have jet-skied from the English mainland

to have lunch on the Isle of Wight.

While there, Rob spots something in the distance.

My name's Rob and I survived what you're about to see.

We were sat there, having our lunch after the crossing over

and I saw an absolutely massive super-container ship coming down the dock,

and that's kind of when the trouble began.

The trouble Rob is talking about is his sudden decision

to do something extremely dangerous.

I was like, I'm gonna touch that

'cause I had never done it before, but people do do it actually on jet skis,

and I'd never done it.

So we got on out skies. It's about four of us.

Shot out to it...

Whoo!

And as I was riding out to it, I was full of adrenaline.

I went up towards the side of it and then I reached over to touch it,

which would've been all right, actually, if it was a nice, calm day.

Except the week before at the jet ski lake,

I had snapped my lanyard, so I tied a knot in it.

So it was quite a lot shorter than it should've been.

And the lanyard, the bit that goes

from your wrist to a pull switch on the jet ski,

and if it pulls out then the jet ski stops.

You can't start it without putting it back in.

And as I reached over to touch the container ship,

the lanyard pulled out, and cut the engine

and then I was in pretty serious trouble quite quickly, actually, yeah.

Serious trouble, indeed.

Because as Rob struggles to plug the lanyard back in,

he is suddenly overwhelmed by the ship's powerful engine.

I fell off the ski and I went under,

and the container ship was going so fast, actually, when I was up against it,

and you can feel the pull.

And it did feel like I'm fighting for survival

because I was getting sucked under.

You know, I was under for quite a lot of time, actually.

What felt like an eternity.

I was in a pretty seriously bad position at that time.

Not only is Rob being pulled under,

he's also being quickly dragged toward the massive rear propellers.

At that moment in time, I was like, "This is it.

You're dead. Without a doubt.

You're either gonna drown or you're gonna get chopped up by the propeller."

My immediate reaction to this is "Why?"

This is a moment where you go from zero

to "I don't know where I am,"

to, "Oh, I'm in ten pieces 'cause I just went through a propeller."

People, when they look at these things,

they think they're just giant, lumbering ships.

But they don't realize that they have an enormous amount of power,

and they have to, to move such a tremendous volume of weight.

And those gigantic, churning propellers beneath it

are sucking in water from all sides

and the last place you wanna be is up against the side of that vessel,

when the water starts to get sucked beneath it.

And unfortunately, for Rob, that's exactly where he is.

I remember there was lots and lots of bubbles.

And I thought I was gonna drown.

But, to be honest, it was just sheer panic,

like, absolute terror of, like, you know,

like, it was total, just madness.

This is definitely the closest I've ever come to death.

Wasn't good.

Then, in the nick of time,

Rob's flotation device lifts him to the surface

just clear of the ship's propellers.

All of the sudden, the ship passed, like,

at a pace you wouldn't believe, and I was up.

But I'd have thought I'd have been happier than I was,

but I was like, "Holy, what just happened?"

This dude got lucky.

Had that guy not had the life jacket on,

I'm not sure he would've been a strong enough swimmer

to avoid being sucked toward that propeller.

So the guy definitely lucked out.

After resurfacing...

...Rob is able to start his jet ski

and race away from the ship as fast as possible.

All I wanted to do was to get to dry land.

I mean, that was all I wanted to do

is put my feet somewhere where I wasn't gonna drown basically.

That was more than enough for one day.

Amazingly, Rob was unharmed from the ordeal.

Physically, at least.

No injuries whatsoever, I was absolutely fine.

Just psychologically scarred.

It's not a nice memory, really, drowning.

And though his near-death experience

hasn't stopped him from jet-skiing,

it has taught him a valuable lesson...

You'll never see me going up and touching another container ship on a jet ski.

It's done.

Coming up, a woman crosses the tracks...

Oh, no.

...as a train barrels toward her.

Did you know that every year

an average of 500 people are struck and killed on railways in the United States?

And though some believe that if the engineer

sees something blocking the tracks ahead,

they'll have time to stop the train,

that couldn't be further from the truth.

In fact, due to their immense weight,

the average freight train traveling 55 miles per hour

can take a mile or more to stop after the emergency brake has been applied.

Meaning, by the time the engineer sees something, it's already too late.

So, when an 89-year-old woman in New Jersey was caught on the tracks

with a train barreling toward her...

Oh, no.

...it was going to take nothing less than a miracle to save her life.

March 8th, 2017.

Saddle Brook, New Jersey.

Jon Mango, a salesman, is between clients, grabbing some lunch.

Hey, how's it going?

I'm Jon, this is my video.

I went to go get lunch at a fast food place

and as I'm in the drive-thru, I see a lady with two canes,

literally walking with two canes.

He takes note, but doesn't think too much more about it.

I started eating my food.

I eat half my food from the place and I have to leave.

So then I leave the parking lot,

make a right, make another right...

Jon, then comes to a red light

at a railroad crossing and stops his car.

So I'm sitting there, and I see the lady again.

I'm like, "Okay..."

And then I start seeing a light flash.

I'm like, "Okay, this isn't good."

That flashing light means that a train is coming...

now!

Oh, no.

So I'm like, "Oh, crap!

I gotta do something."

Because she was gonna get plastered.

'Cause at this intersection the train doesn't stop,

and it doesn't slow down.

Without hesitation Jon jumps out of his car and runs on to the tracks,

but when he reaches the older woman,

getting her to move any faster proves difficult.

She wanted to keep walking.

She called me a curse word in Polish and kept walking.

And the train is now seconds away.

I kind of hold her bag and I'm like,

"Come on, let's go." And I'm trying to coax her.

Like, "Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Train's coming. Train's coming. Train's coming."

And she started moving a lot quicker.

Another bystander rushes in to assist

and then...

I'd say it was, like, three feet,

probably a yard away from the train.

I felt the wind, I felt everything.

Somehow, all three of them make it safely off the tracks.

This is absolutely the definition of a heroic act.

This is something that was not done

with no risk for Jonathan or the other bystander who helped.

This was undertaking personal risk to save someone else

in an impossible-to-imagine situation.

But for Jon, the risk was never even a consideration.

Oh, no.

There was never any thought of, you know, myself.

That wasn't really the thought at that moment.

But once I cross the street,

got back in my car, that's when it really set in.

I was like, "Wow. That could've potentially been really stupid."

To do something like this, so selfless in saving her,

just shows you the type of character this person has.

Oh, no.

And true to that character,

Jon is just happy he was there when he was.

I was there for a reason

and being there for a reason, I did what I would do.

And I would do it, to this day, probably the same thing.

I'm not a hero, I'm just me.

Honestly, I don't consider myself a hero and I never will,

I did what I needed to do.