Original subtitles

WILLIAM SHATNER: A horrific plane crash,

deep in the jungle.

A struggle for survival

in freezing water.

And a daring escape from a submarine that sank

to the bottom of the ocean.

How are some people able to cheat death?

Is it just a matter of dumb luck?

Or do we all have powerful survival instincts

locked within us that come alive when we need them the most?

Can the harrowing stories of individuals

who looked death in the eye, and lived to tell the tale,

give us clues about how to dodge our own demise?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

SHATNER: Banker Annette Herfkens, her fiancé,

and 29 other passengers board a small plane

and head to the coastal town of Nha Trang for a vacation.

But what is supposed to be a short, routine flight...

...is about to turn into a nightmare.

When I saw the plane, I didn't want to enter it

because it was awfully small.

I've, I am very claustrophobic

and I said, "There's no way I'm entering that plane.

I'm not going to go in there. It looks old, but mostly small."

And my fiancé said, "Well, don't worry,

you have to, it's only 55 minutes,"

and "Do it for us because I have this beautiful vacation planned

"and I knew you were gonna

speak up about it but please, please do it."

And then we entered it from the back of the plane.

So we sat down, we were told to buckle our seat belts.

And they were going across

and then, I was restrained enough as it is,

and I did not buckle my seat belt.

And the flight took off.

For the next 30 minutes,

I just kept counting the minutes,

and the 50th minute, there was a gigantic drop

and people were screaming,

and my fiancé looked at me and said,

"Well, this I don't like."

And then another drop.

More people screaming.

He reached for my hand and I reached for his

and then everything went black.

I woke up to this eerie sound of the jungle.

(birds chittering)

The plane broke in three pieces,

the wings, the fuselage, and the cockpit.

Then I looked at my left

and there I saw my fiancé still strapped in his seat.

He was dead.

SHATNER: In shock,

grief-stricken, and with her legs and hips broken,

Annette painfully pulls herself out of the wreckage...

...only to find that every passenger on board has perished.

Except her.

It all seems impossible.

In this plane crash, Annette was the only survivor.

Of 31 people, she's the only one that survived.

Did it have to do with just the randomness

of her being in the right seat,

that hit the ground in just the right place

that had just the right structural integrity

based on how they crashed?

Or could it be something else?

JEFF WISE: When we hear stories of survival,

we sort of imagine, can I learn from that?

Could I do that?

And many times we can't.

Maybe they're lucky

or maybe there's just some X factor

that we'll never really get our heads around.

THOMAS COYNE: We know the safest places to sit on a plane,

and we know, generally, our seat belts will save us

in the event of a crash.

But this was the one instance

where the seat belt not being attached saved her.

Who could have predicted that?

There's too many variables at play.

♪ ♪

SHATNER: Miles from civilization, injured and alone,

Annette finds herself in an unbearable predicament.

But somehow, from somewhere deep inside her,

she finds a way to survive.

I felt this enormous energy lifting me up.

I would just be quiet...

...and listen to my instincts, just make it complete quiet.

You breathe out all the way...

...and then you listen to this other voice

we all carry inside of us.

(birds chirping)

I completely felt that things will work out.

What's interesting to me about this case

is that Annette attributes her survival

to hearing this mysterious voice.

I can only imagine what that must've been like.

The plane has crashed in the Vietnam jungle,

you have a broken hip, you're surrounded by wreckage,

dead bodies, and here you have this voice

telling you, "Don't lose hope."

I just listened to that voice and I acted on it.

And it said, "Make a plan,

"divide it in achievable steps.

"And when you achieve one of those steps,

congratulate yourself."

That's exactly what I did.

I realized that I was gonna need some water.

So I looked at the wing of the plane,

insolation material, some kind of foam.

So I figured that could work as a sponge.

And then I made seven little bowls

and I lined them up for it to rain.

And then it rained and it poured.

Then I was very happy to see these little bowls

filling up with water.

Tasted like the best champagne as you can imagine.

She was able to survive the plane crash,

but maybe what was even more remarkable is

that she was able to survive eight days in the jungle...

...with no prior jungle training or experience,

and no conditioning to be in the jungle.

Of course, being the only survivor,

it's an incredible story, but then the survival happens

because you hear a voice directing you through it.

It just shows how we know very little

about what happens

in these kind of encounters and situations.

On the afternoon on the eighth day,

out of nowhere...

...men came up the mountain...

Hey, there it is!

HERFKENS: ...and they showed me a passenger list

and I had to point out my name.

I just realized how amazing it was

that they actually found me.

SHATNER: It may have been random chance

that allowed Annette to live through the horrific crash.

But what was the so-called "voice"

that gave her the guidance she needed to survive?

TAYLOR: A lot of people when they get into dangerous situations

they'll say that they had a voice tell them

that they needed to do this, they needed to do that.

We don't really know,

scientifically, where these inner voices

that tell you to get out of the dangerous situation

are coming from.

Is it some kind of deep-seeded electro-biochemical force

that's innate in the brain that suddenly gets activated?

Or is it something that comes from outside?

Is it faith from an outside power that brings that energy

to the person who's in desperate need?

Whether or not you view yourself as strong and capable,

you have the potential to tap into these things

and get in tune with these strengths,

with these capabilities, whether you know it or not.

Maybe there is something to this inner voice

telling them the right way and maybe some people

have a better inner voice than others.

And maybe there's just some dumb luck involved.

It's possible that it's just

one of those unexplained mysteries

that we're never gonna figure out.

We all have that voice inside of us

that we can listen to,

and in extreme situations, it's always there to help you.

Just listen to that voice.

Be silent. It's there, it's there.

SHATNER: Did the mysterious voice that guided Annette Herfkens

to safety come from her subconscious?

Or did she hear something that was far more mysterious?

We may never know for certain.

But perhaps further clues about

extraordinary powers of survival

lie in the story of a man who reportedly

escaped a mile-high death trap

because of his faith in God.

SHATNER: After ten years of Fidel Castro's

tight-fisted Communist rule,

the island nation's economy is in chaos.

Food shortages

and a government-mandated seven-day work week

only serve to heighten the Cuban people's sense

of desperation and despair.

Many attempt to flee Castro's oppressive regime

only to be caught, imprisoned or killed.

But for 17-year-old Armando Socarras

the chance for freedom and a better life

are worth the risk.

SHATNER: The plan was indeed dangerous.

If they were caught, it meant prison or worse.

If they weren't, they might die trying.

But after some careful reconnaissance,

Armando believed

that he and his friend could pull it off.

And on the morning of June 4, 1969,

their bold plan would be put into action.

Iberia Flight 904 was scheduled to depart Havana at 6:30 p.m.,

arriving in Madrid, Spain nine hours later.

The DC-8 airplane was already taxiing to the end of the runway

when Armando and his friend crawled through the tall grass

bordering the runway, ready to make a break for it.

SHATNER: Lodged inside the wheel well

and dangerously outside

the pressurized sections of the airplane,

Armando began falling out of consciousness

as the air outside screamed by at nearly 600 miles an hour.

JOHN NANCE: Normally, the cruising altitude

on a trip as far as Havana to Madrid,

you'd probably be up around 37,000 to 39,000 feet.

At 37,000 feet, for somebody who has

just experienced a rapid decompression,

your time of useful consciousness

is as little as eight seconds.

At that altitude, you're going to be around temperatures

that are minus 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

SHATNER: Nine hours after taking off in Havana,

Iberia Flight 904 landed in Madrid.

And as the captain stood on the tarmac

saying goodbye to his passengers,

Armando's unconscious body

fell from the wheel well onto the ground

with a sickening thud.

SHATNER: Incredible as it seems, for Armando,

surviving in a mile-high death trap was,

indeed, possible.

But how?

Medically, you're not dead until you're warm and dead.

Armando was found without vital signs,

he was hypothermic.

I think what happened is

because of the severe hypothermia,

his cardiac function decreased.

The blood flow to the brain and organs decreased.

There are reports and cases of people being found

in the snow and ice,

frozen, without any vital signs, that have made a full recovery.

TAYLOR: There's a thing called the mammalian response.

If we reach certain cold temperatures,

our bodies shut down instead of degrading and dying,

it just goes into hibernation.

Well, this is what happened to Armando.

When he gets up to the 30,000-foot atmosphere

and he has no air to breathe

or just a tiny amount of air, he goes into hypothermia

and then when the plane lands, his body starts to warm up

and then he comes back to.

SHATNER: Could Armando's amazing story of survival

really be attributed

to the act of being frozen and then defrosted back to life?

Or might there be another, even more profound explanation?

SHATNER: Was Armando's incredible survival due

to divine intervention, as he claims?

Or is it possible that the power of belief itself,

gave him the strength he needed to survive, against all odds?

It would seem that the answer is ultimately a matter of faith.

However, there are other people who have been able to live

through freezing temperatures, not by looking to a higher power

but by indulging in spirits of an earthly nature.

(ship horn blows)

SHATNER: RMS Titanic sets out on her maiden voyage,

bound for New York.

Billed as "unsinkable," the more than 46,000-ton vessel

offers passengers the very latest in transatlantic comfort.

But what the men, women and children on board don't know,

and could never suspect,

is that Titanic will not reach its intended destination.

The Titanic had 2,208 on board,

891 of whom were crew.

The Titanic was not just the largest

and most luxurious ocean liner of the time

but it was also seen as a kind of industrial miracle.

It was the largest moving object in human history.

It was four days into its voyage.

Very late in the evening, about 20 minutes before midnight,

the lookout spotted a growler iceberg, in its path.

Iceberg, dead ahead, sir!

Iceberg, dead ahead, sir.

And unfortunately, the ship was going too fast.

-Hard a-starboard! -Hard a-starboard.

HUGH BREWSTER: They tried to turn the ship

but the iceberg struck along the starboard bow...

...bashing in the riveted steel plates

that comprised the Titanic's hull.

The Titanic was proclaimed unsinkable

because it had 16 so-called watertight compartments,

except only the first forward four compartments at the bow

and four compartments at the stern were truly watertight.

And this was the fatal flaw because

the iceberg breached more than the first four compartments.

And the order was given to man the lifeboats.

(alarm sounding)

It's endlessly repeated

that there weren't enough lifeboats on the Titanic,

and strictly speaking, it's true.

Every passenger and every crew member had

a different moment when they began to move

from complacency to concern

and finally to panic.

SHATNER: As panic spreads across

the decks of the Titanic, male passengers scramble

to place their wives and children on lifeboats.

Many unfortunate souls

choose to take their chances by jumping overboard

into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.

They didn't live long.

That is, with the remarkable exception of one man--

Charles Joughin, the ship's chief baker.

Charles Joughin was asleep in his bunk

when the Titanic hit the iceberg,

and where his quarters were, were a part of the ship

that felt the collision quite significantly.

So he sat up with a jolt...

...and realized that there had been

a fairly serious collision for the ship

and he went up on deck to see.

BREWSTER: When he heard that the order for lifeboats

had been given,

he returned to his cabin and poured himself

a tumbler full of liquor.

And he drank a half tumbler full.

Then he went back up on deck

and helped to supervise the loading of lifeboats.

He helped load lifeboat ten.

After that lifeboat was loaded, he went back to his cabin

and had another nip or two so that he was

really quite well-lit as it got later in the night.

RUSSELL: At about 2:10,

passengers reported hearing a sickening roar.

And that was the bulkheads giving way

after this incredible stress from the incoming ocean.

BREWSTER: After the Titanic broke in two,

Joughin himself climbed

onto the stern railing, not far from the flagpole.

And as the ship sank,

he rode it down like an elevator.

The water temperature was

between minus 1 and minus 2 Celsius,

or about 28 Fahrenheit, which is below freezing.

RUSSELL: Joughin then jumped or was washed overboard,

depending on one's interpretation of it,

into the water

and eventually reached one of the overturned lifeboats.

He claimed he was floating in the water,

four times longer than the maximum survival

for other passengers or crew

who hit the water after the ship sank.

He was in the Atlantic for a lot longer

than other survivors were.

BREWSTER: Joughin paddled around for a while and eventually

came across the overturned collapsible lifeboat.

And at least 28 men found refuge there

and survived on the back.

Joughin says he paddled up to the lifeboat and was rebuffed.

They said, "No more men. You'll sink us."

Of the 2,208 passengers and crew

who sailed upon the Titanic on its maiden voyage,

only 712 survived.

1,496 perished.

SHATNER: Among the survivors was

Charles Joughin who, after floating in 28-degree water,

for nearly two hours, managed to stay alive.

But how?

He should have been a candidate to have his legs amputated.

There should have been severe damage and there wasn't.

Joughin reached New York in relative good health.

He went back to his career at sea not long afterwards.

And when they asked him later,

"What do you think it was that allowed you to survive?"

He said that the alcohol warmed his blood and kept him alive.

But no medical science shows that this is the case.

In fact, it's believed that alcohol actually makes it worse

if you're encountering a situation of hypothermia.

BREWSTER: Experts say that when you drink alcohol,

something called vasodilation occurs

and the blood goes to your skin

which is why your face turns red if you drink a lot.

So that when you actually are plunged into cold water,

you're more susceptible to hypothermia.

You actually would die more quickly if you were drunk.

TAYLOR: Alcohol is a toxin.

Perhaps it drives your body temperature up

because your immune system has to kick in

and start fighting off a toxin.

That's one possibility.

The other possibility is

that the alcohol in his system just kept him calm

so that he didn't panic and was able to survive longer

because he kept a cool head about it.

So stories like Charles Joughin cause us to question.

Was he different from normal people?

How could he have survived

temperatures like that for that long?

We don't really know the answers to this,

and maybe we'll never know.

Did Charles Joughin possess some unique physiology

that helped him survive

one of the darkest days in maritime history?

Or was it liquor-- and luck-- that saved him?

The same question can be asked of another ocean disaster,

where a sailor managed to escape being trapped

at the bottom of the sea.

SHATNER: As World War II rages throughout Europe...

...British Royal Navy submarine HMS Perseus is

patrolling the waters

off the coast of Greece.

With both German and Italian forces occupying Greece,

and the threat of underwater mines lurking,

it is a dangerous mission.

HMS Perseus is a 260-foot submarine.

As she's on a mission sailing from Malta

to Alexandria,

HMS Perseus carried 58 crew and two passengers.

SHATNER: One of those two passengers

is a sailor by the name of John Capes.

He had hitched a ride aboard the submarine

so that he could return to his home base in Alexandria,

where the Perseus was scheduled to dock

after its mission was complete.

During the night,

the submarine comes up to charge its batteries

so that it can operate underwater during the day.

And they go along very slowly

keeping a very, very sharp lookout.

SHATNER: At approximately 10:00 p.m.,

the crew of the Perseus was awakened by a violent explosion.

And everyone on board scrambled for their lives.

CALYTON: She hit a mine,

which made a big hole in the bowels of the vessel,

so that it sank very, very fast towards the bottom.

John Capes happened to be in the safest place on the boat,

the place that was furthest away from the explosion.

Capes is suddenly jolted awake.

He kind of gets himself together,

realizes what's happened

and he goes forward to see what he can find.

SHATNER: With only moments to spare, Capes has to act fast.

Fortunately, he finds a potential lifeline

in the form of an emergency escape suit,

which is designed to protect sailors against the effects

of water pressure.

Exiting the submarine at a depth of some 170 feet,

Capes and one of the crew's sailors

desperately attempt to make their way to the surface.

As if surviving both

the explosion and death by drowning weren't enough,

the tremendous weight of the water leaves them vulnerable

to a potentially fatal condition

dreaded by deep-sea divers, known as "the bends."

The bends is similar to opening up a can of soda.

When you open up a can of soda, the gas that's in the liquid,

which is carbon dioxide, all of a sudden

starts releasing, bubbling to the top of the can of soda.

So the nitrogen that's in the body does the same thing.

So when you ascend too fast,

the nitrogen that's built up in the body tries to escape

and this can bubble out into any of the organs

including the heart, the brain, the lungs.

It can cause malfunction.

It can also kill you.

SHATNER: Even though his escape suit was not rated to handle

water pressure deeper than 100 feet,

John Capes' will to survive was formidable.

In spite of everything, including the bends...

...he made it to the surface alive.

MALCOLMSON: Capes made quite a swim.

I think it was about six miles or so swimming.

He reaches a rocky beach, manages to drag himself ashore,

and collapses.

It's amazing

that John Capes' lungs did not explode

or at least hemorrhage badly as he was surfacing.

Maybe this guy was just

lucky enough that he was resilient enough to survive.

SHATNER: Against all odds, John Capes escaped

what should have been a death sentence.

He defied everything we know about both human physiology

and the laws of physics.

But how?

So in the British Navy, for a long, long time

there had been an alcohol ration every day.

And the rum was 95% proof.

In order to settle his nerves,

John Capes took a big swig out of his rum bottle.

So I guess, by the time that John Capes was

actually leaving the submarine,

he was more than a little bit drunk.

TAYLOR: Actually drinking alcohol might've helped him out.

It could have lowered his blood pressure a little bit

and it could have actually kept him calm.

Both of those are things that you may need

in this type of situation.

You need to remain calm in an emergency

and your blood pressure is gonna get really high

at some point.

And so if you have a way to artificially

bring it down some, I suspect that helped.

SHATNER: Unfortunately, John Capes' story

was so remarkable, so inexplicable,

that many people didn't believe it was true.

They even went so far as to question

whether or not he had ever been on the submarine

in the first place.

CLAYTON: People didn't believe

that you could survive that, that escape from 170 feet.

So there were all sorts of people

cast doubts on John Capes.

And it wasn't until nearly 50 years later

when divers discovered the wreck of HMS Perseus

that there was the hatch opened.

And John Capes' story was at last validated.

And his, his behavior and his courage was rewarded.

SHATNER: How did John Capes summon the courage he needed

to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds

and make it out of the submarine alive?

It's hard to imagine how anyone could find

the nerve to do what Capes did,

but the fact is that somehow, he managed to defy death.

But, remarkably, there are those who have not only survived

a deadly circumstance--

they actually attract danger

again and again and again.

SHATNER: Park Ranger Roy Sullivan

is driving south along Skyline Drive

when suddenly...

-(thunder crashes) -a bolt of lightning

strikes him

through the open windows of his truck.

FRIEDMAN: Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning,

driving along a mountain road.

He wasn't hurt that much.

He was lucky.

Lightning can cause

all kinds of damage to a person.

It can injure one's nerves.

It can cause headaches that last for many,

many months, if not years.

And of course,

a lightning strike can be fatal.

SHATNER: The blast burned off Roy's hair

and left a black burn mark on his ranger hat.

One out of every ten people struck by lightning dies.

(thunder crashing)

Those who survive often suffer debilitating, lifelong injuries.

But somehow,

Roy Sullivan walked away relatively unscathed.

But what's even more remarkable is that between 1942 and 1977,

Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning

on six more occasions and survived

each and every time.

FRIEDAN: Roy Sullivan was in the Guinness Book of Records

for having been the person who was hit the most

in his lifetime by lightning.

He was dubbed The Human Lightning Rod,

Spark Ranger, and Lightning Man.

There are a number of factors

that increased Sullivan's odds of being struck.

He was outdoors,

not only on tops of mountains, but on lookout towers,

moving around a lot in open spaces.

But the fact that he was hit seven times

and didn't die is incredible.

SHATNER: Lightning is one of the most devastating forces on Earth.

A single bolt can carry

more than 100 million volts of electricity,

and is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

So, how was Roy Sullivan able to survive

such destructive power seven times?

Well, according to some experts, it might have been because

certain people's bodies are more resistant

to being electrocuted.

The human body is not

the greatest conductor for electricity,

but in these cases, maybe there are compounds

in their bloodstream that do

increase their ability to generate energy

or hold energy.

For example, someone who has

a higher degree of iron in their bloodstream

could potentially conduct lightning a little bit better.

SHATNER: Is it possible that Roy Sullivan possessed

some physical or genetic trait

that allowed him to both attract lightning

and withstand surges of electricity,

that could otherwise kill a normal human?

Perhaps a clue can be found by examining another person

who was struck by lightning multiple times

and lived to tell about it.

After a long day of competition, bull rider Carl Mize is

about to head home when he grabs the door handle of his truck

and is instantly hit by a powerful bolt of lightning.

Right when it happened, I knew I was struck by lightning.

The-the flash of the light

and the shock, you know,

that went through my arm and through my body.

And it knocked me back four or five foot on my tail end.

And I just jumped up and tried to brush the mud off,

and got in my truck and left.

SHATNER: Aside from some achy muscles,

Carl was left uninjured by the experience.

And like most people, he wasn't worried

about this happening again because he believed

the old adage that "lightning never strikes twice."

But between 1994 and 2006,

Carl was struck by lightning

an astonishing five more times.

MIZE: For 39 years,

I've worked at the University of Oklahoma

in the electrical department in the utility shop.

And we take care of all the high-voltage electricity.

So I often think there's got to be something

that, you know, attracts lightning to me,

because it's just unheard of to be struck that many times.

SHATNER: After each incident, doctors who examined Carl

were shocked to discover that his injuries were minor.

None of his internal organs

suffered the kind of significant damage

normally seen in victims of lightning strikes.

There's not a whole lot of people

that get struck by lightning,

so doctors really treat you as a guinea pig.

They actually had a man come down

that was an electrical engineer

to measure the DC voltage in my body.

A common person has six volts DC to run your body.

Whenever they tested me,

I had 1.7 DC volts in my body.

I'm more conductive than an average person.

And it makes me wonder,

and even the doctors have wondered, too,

could that have been what's kept me alive.

SHATNER: The stories of Carl Mize and Roy Sullivan

offer living proof that lightning can,

indeed, strike twice.

And it's a strange thought to know that your body can both

attract and protect you from life-threatening danger.

But there are times when survival may come down

to simply grabbing whatever you can hold on to.

SHATNER: 47 stories above the ground,

brothers Alcides and Edgar Moreno

step onto a hanging platform to wash windows.

But when they start working...

...disaster strikes.

SHATNER: Edgar plunges 472 feet onto a fence, dying instantly.

But as emergency responders arrive on the scene,

they approach the wreckage of the scaffolding

and are shocked to discover that Alcides is still alive.

Mr. Moreno actually fell with the scaffolding

and landed onto some garbage cans in the alleyway.

Our rescue paramedics,

they thought that it was gonna be a recovery.

But when they got to him,

he opened his eyes and took a breath.

SHATNER: Alcides was rushed to the hospital for surgery.

Several of his vertebrae had been crushed,

and his skull was fractured, causing his brain to swell.

He was given 24 pints of blood

and put into a drug-induced coma,

undergoing 15 more surgeries.

But on January 18th, a mere six weeks after his accident,

Alcides was discharged from the hospital.

COYNE: Any fall from greater than

one and a half times your own height

is considered potentially deadly, so...

for someone to fall from this great a height,

and live, you know, a productive life

is absolutely fascinating.

SHATNER: Statistically, falling from a height

greater than 40 feet is almost always fatal.

So, how did Alcides Moreno survive a fall

from more than ten times that high?

JIM HAMILTON: It's not the falling that kills you.

It's the stopping.

And so, if there is a tree, bushes,

wreckage that's between you and what you hit,

those factors contribute to survival.

And so the main factor that caused

Alcides Moreno to survive, is that platform that he was on.

He held onto that all the way down.

He didn't fall directly 47 stories

without anything cushioning his fall.

COYNE: In just about any emergency,

your initial reactions are gonna be

a big part of your survival.

These can be the little things that make the difference

between life and death.

It shows everybody

that they're capable of a lot more than we may realize.

It just takes these extraordinary circumstances

to show us that.

So, what can we learn

from these remarkable cases of people

who were able to defy death?

While many survival stories involve a fair amount of luck,

it's also clear that in times of great danger,

certain individuals possess a powerful will to live

that is not fully understood.

And in all likelihood will remain...

...unexplained.

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