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Los Angeles, California...

with 13 million people...

and over 1,000 emergencies a day...

it's often referred to

as the local news capital of the world.

Video journalists have captured an unbelievable catalogue of events.

To see what our members had to endure is very difficult.

This is almost like a movie. It's hard to believe this was real.

With our first-on-scene heroes' perspectives,

this is an insight into their most thrilling moments.

In this episode,

a firefighter's life hangs in the balance

after a horrific building collapse.

That's something every firefighter dreads to see.

A daring nighttime rescue of a man and his furry companion.

No normal situation for most dog walks in the evening,

but somehow he ends up 100 feet over a cliff with his dog.

And a cameraman must make the tough decision

to risk his life to save a life.

Our first story takes us

to the sprawling city of Phoenix, Arizona,

known for its scorching desert climate.

Police officers are responding to a domestic violence call.

Nothing can prepare an officer, or anyone for that matter,

for seeing horrific incidences.

This was a huge story.

This didn't just make local Phoenix news.

This made US news.

I saw it in LA. My family saw it in the UK.

Officers show up on scene to a domestic violence call

where a woman had been shot inside of her residence.

The first thing the officers need to do is secure the area.

They need to get anybody that is within the perimeter

outside of the perimeter, to safety.

You never know how something like this is gonna end.

Emotions are high. The people involved are unpredictable.

I've been on situations like this. On hostage and barricade situations.

And all of those have ended peacefully.

Well, this one didn't.

Someone comes out holding a baby.

As a father... You see a baby being brought out of a house.

What kind of situation you put this kid in?

Seriously, it's a brand-new infant.

You can see it wiggling around on the floor.

You have, you know, people inside,

and then you have this baby coming out.

Everybody's on the tip of their toes waiting to see what's gonna happen.

Officers apprehend the surrendering man

before cautiously making their way towards the house

to rescue the abandoned baby, who lies innocently on the doorstep.

When the officers go to check the residence,

all hell breaks loose.

Someone appears in the doorway and ambushes the cops.

There's a baby on the ground, and there's gunfire.

It is common among criminals,

when they believe they're gonna be apprehended,

to ambush police officers.

That person made a choice to just go out shooting at the cops.

You have nothing left to live for

if you can come up with that in your brain

knowing there's a baby there,

and you're gonna shoot five police officers?

All up, five officers were shot,

including four who were trying to save the baby.

These situations are terrifying.

I mean, from personal experience, I've had bullets whizz by my head,

and that's something I don't ever wanna go through again.

The cameraman was pretty close.

It felt like you were right there in it.

It's a cameraman's dream to get this footage,

but, personally, would be my worst nightmare.

After having my own child and becoming a mother,

it would become really difficult for me

to be able to be on the scene here

and not get emotional telling this story of what happens.

Like, I would have some internal struggles,

whether this was something I would wanna see.

So they enter to find this suspect dead.

He'd taken his own life.

But the baby...was unscathed.

How that baby survived is beyond me.

Not just survived, but is uninjured.

The bravery is a 100 plus.

They don't even think. They don't think about themselves.

They think about what's most important,

and the baby was most important.

Our next story takes us to Arcadia,

a quaint city just east of Los Angeles,

where a truck is headed for devastation.

How often do you see a big rig on residential streets

crashing into multiple cars?

There's a whole lot of damage.

About 1:40, the whole neighbourhood was sleeping,

and I heard an extremely loud crash.

It was a horrific sound.

We were sure that there were fatalities.

I'm thinking to myself, "Is that a gas tanker

full of flammable liquids or what?"

Is it safe to be in this area?

When the fire department arrived,

they quickly assessed the situation.

They're looking for special markings on the trucks.

In this particular situation... it ended up being milk.

Got milk?

At first, this wouldn't be such a big news story.

Until the cameraman found out it was full of milk,

and that becomes a bit of a story

they can have a bit of a joke with.

There are no injuries, luckily.

This driver definitely caused a big scene.

Between seven and ten cars were totalled in this wreck.

Thankfully, no one was injured, but the owners of these parked cars

will undoubtedly be crying over spilled milk after this crash.

Coming up later...

Stopped vehicle, stopped in the lanes of traffic,

is a disaster waiting to happen.

But first...

It was one of the craziest things I've ever filmed.

High-speed pursuits have become

an all-too-common occurrence on American roads,

with an estimated 40,000 police chases

taking place each year.

It's 7:00 p.m. in Los Angeles,

and a radio call catches video journalist Howard's attention.

This was one of those pursuits I'll remember for as long as I live.

This is one of the most bizarre pursuits I've seen in LA.

This was fantastic video of being first on the scene.

It literally looked like it was out of a movie.

It was one of the craziest things I've ever filmed,

and I've filmed lots of crazy things.

This happened close to where I live,

so I was on this pursuit really quickly.

This woman's stolen a big RV,

sheared off the front of it after hitting a palm tree.

She's just ramming people coming off the freeways.

She had no regard for life.

Suddenly, I realised this motor home is up on me.

My adrenaline is going and going. I mean, I am buzzed.

So I grab my camera, and I'm filming out the window.

This demolished RV comes cruising through the intersection.

This motor home was completely mashed up

with a dog so loyal to the driver, sitting there on her lap.

And you can see one on the front hanging on for dear life.

Halfway through one of my shots, you can see it.

It was absolute absurdity and craziness

on the streets of Los Angeles.

There was a news helicopter.

And for me to make a sale, I had to get something different,

something that the choppers can't get.

At the end of the pursuit, she crashed with the dog in there.

When she was finally arrested, that dog was right next to her.

And I got a close up of that dog and that female suspect

sat next to each other.

That was the shot I needed to make that sale.

And boy, did they make a sale.

Both dogs involved in the incident are rescued

and have since been adopted to new homes.

So happy ending for the animals.

When it comes to breaking news, every second counts,

and in many cases, it's the video journalists

who arrive on scene before law enforcement.

This was an international hit story.

This is almost like a movie.

It's hard to believe this was a real life.

This was a story that affected my life,

affected my family's life, affected my brother's life.

I mean, ultimately, this story made him put his camera down.

He's out of the business.

What he did was truly amazing.

It's 3:30 a.m.,

and Howard's brother, Austin, has heard a call

about a stalled vehicle on the freeway.

The cameraman got the call,

was close by enough

before law enforcement arrived on scene.

He pulled over on the hard shoulder

and focused his camera on that vehicle.

My brother filmed the entire thing.

Most cars barely get around it.

But then a vehicle comes barrelling through

and clips the side of the stranded car.

When a vehicle is stopped

in the lanes of traffic without lights,

they're very difficult to see.

Unfortunately, the gentleman who stalled out

was stalled in between lanes,

and it wasn't safe to exit to go to either direction.

A stalled vehicle stopped in the lanes of traffic,

no lights or indicators, is a disaster waiting to happen.

And it did.

The car that was hit had somebody inside it,

and it exploded when it was hit.

Knowing the driver has minutes, if not seconds, to survive,

Austin switches into rescue mode.

He decided at that point

it was more important to save the guy's life

than to get anything else on camera.

He put his camera down

to switch from cameraman mode

into life-saving measures without even thinking about it.

-Coming up... -Seeing an SUV

slammed on the freeway is one thing,

but to put yourself in a danger like that

is something else.

It's the dead of night in Los Angeles,

and video journalist Howard's brother, Austin,

is the first to arrive on scene to a car stalled on the freeway.

Stopped vehicle, stopped in the lanes of traffic,

no lights or indicators, is a disaster waiting to happen.

-And it did. -Oh, sh...

Events take a dangerous turn.

Austin makes a split-second, life-or-death decision.

My brother filmed the entire thing.

What he did was truly amazing.

He put his camera down...

to switch from cameraman mode

into life-saving measures without even thinking about it.

Due to the nature of the crash, of course,

other news cameramen are gonna show up quickly.

And as you can see,

one of the cameramen filmed the entire rescue.

My brother ran across five, six lanes of freeway traffic,

smashed the window of the vehicle on fire,

pulled the guy out, saving his life.

It is literally a matter of seconds before that person would have died.

Seeing an SUV slammed on the freeway,

bursting into flames on camera is one thing.

But to put yourself in a danger like that is something else.

It's more than heroic.

He absolutely saved his life.

Hey, sir.

Breathe with me, alright? Breathe.

-I need to pull him back. -Okay.

Luckily, this story had a happy ending.

The driver of the vehicle survived,

and the cameraman was awarded two commendations.

I mean, this affected my entire family,

but especially Austin on a very, very deep level.

I mean, he truly risked his own life to save someone else's life.

And that triggered something in him

that's now made him put his camera down for good.

What he went through that day and the risks he took,

it's not worth it for him anymore. And it was a passion of ours.

And to have him now not do it... it's hard.

I mean, I miss him.

It's 2:48 a.m. in Los Angeles, and firefighters are rushing

to tackle a gymnasium that's erupted in flames.

With hundreds of fires reported each night,

the brave men and women of the Los Angeles Fire Department

are all too familiar with this dangerous routine.

So, for a news cameraman,

when you hear of a structure fire coming out,

you listen carefully.

As soon as the callback comes, there's heavy fire showing...

So this fire appears to be happening in a one-story commercial building,

doing business as YMCA Gymnastics.

With the equipment in there, there's a lot of items

that could be very flammable,

and so the fire can be very intense.

What we got to witness here in this video

is firefighters putting on their personal protective equipment

that can easily add more than 60 pounds to you.

In a place like that, a gymnasium,

split level, gym equipment, everything else in there,

they probably couldn't see five feet ahead

due to all the smoke and the flames.

The hazards inside are not always known.

Is it a compartmentalised building? Is it all separated?

What is burning? How long has it been burning?

The cameraman focuses heavily on the front of the building,

where the first responders are entering the place.

Then he hears over the radio,

"Firefighter down."

Among the chaos of the structural collapse,

a firefighter finds themselves in dire need of assistance.

That's something every firefighter dreads to see,

one of our own having to be pulled out along the ground.

I'm a big supporter of law enforcement

and the fire department.

And seeing one of those guys go down, it really hits home.

Thankfully, his brother and sister firefighters

were there to get him right away.

The brave trapped firefighter is successfully pulled to safety

and immediately rushed to hospital in a stable condition.

Coming up later...

This isn't just any monster truck.

This is a truck that's owned by a celebrity and DJ.

-But first... -No normal situation

for most dog walks,

but somehow he ends up 100 feet over a cliff with his dog.

Our next story takes us

north of Los Angeles, to Santa Clarita.

It's the early evening, and a man and his dog

have found themselves on a road less travelled.

Los Angeles is known for lots of beautiful areas to hike,

and sometimes people veer off those trails

and get into a perilous situation.

Not a normal situation for most dog walks,

but somehow he ends up 100 feet over a cliff with his dog.

Did the dog run off and fall off the cliff

and then the owner chased after the dog?

This is just a really sad situation.

I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere.

It's a remote area.

But the good thing for me is when I hear the call on the scanner,

I have enough time to get there.

That's what happened in this case.

We evaluate all aspects and potential rescues,

and we choose the one that'd create the best outcome for the patient.

In this case, it was deemed a helicopter hoist.

I've filmed and been on a lot of these rescue type calls,

and these hoist rescues can take hours.

That pilot's gotta get to the helicopter.

He's gotta get it out of the hangar.

He's gotta get in the air.

He's gotta go through air traffic control.

This is an AgustaWestland 139 helicopter you see there,

so it does have some significant downwash.

It could be challenging for some people,

especially if they're scared of heights

'cause you're kind of getting hoisted

through midair in a wind tunnel,

and you're usually going to spin around to some extent.

They're in for quite a ride.

And the shot that I wanna get

is the person being airlifted and pulled into the helicopter.

And in this case, with the dog,

I mean, the shot that's gonna sell is that firefighter hugging a dog,

spinning around, heading up to that chopper.

I mean, that's an amazing shot.

You see the man being rescued and hoisted up,

and then you see this adorable dog that looks like a big bear.

But dogs like to use their teeth when they're scared.

Firefighters will have to have a very strong grip,

and we just ride it through as we hoist them up

and then hand that canine off to its owner

and firefighters inside the helicopter.

Firefighters skilfully execute a daring aerial rescue,

whisking the man and his four-legged friend

out of the treacherous canyon in under 45 minutes.

Talk about a cliff-hanger.

Hollywood, a place where stars are born

and dreams come true.

But beneath the shimmering facade, lies a darker side.

We live in LA, the entertainment capital of the world.

People wanna know about celebrities. They wanna know about their lives.

They wanna see where they live, what kind of cars they drive.

And so when they become the actual victims

in these everyday crimes

that so many of us deal with living in Los Angeles,

sure, it's gonna become a much bigger story.

It's 9:30 p.m., and authorities are in pursuit

of a driver in a stolen mammoth T-Rex truck.

This isn't just any monster truck. This is a truck that's owned

by a very well-known celebrity and DJ.

DJ Marshmello's

massive monster truck with multiple wheels

was stolen from a mechanic shop.

This is a celebrity's car

that is being involved in a high-speed chase.

This is every cameraman's dream to get a great pursuit like that,

especially of a monster truck.

Normal police stop tactics

can't be used against a vehicle like this.

Tires are too big for stop sticks

and a pit manoeuvre.

That wouldn't work at all.

The pursuit went on for over an hour.

People are sitting in their living rooms at home, glued to the screen,

watching how this is all unfolding.

Lucky for everyone, the driver of this truck

can't drive very well.

He ended up colliding into a pole.

The vehicle could no longer go, flat in the tire.

He was taken into custody without incident.

This truck is a $400,000 custom pickup truck.

Expensive car to crash.

I guess DJ Marshmello is gonna get his truck back

with a little more personality...

and a couple more dents.

Subtitles: Lea Espector plint.com