The UnXplained (2019) s01e08 Episode Script

Horrific plane crashes,
far from civilization
failing parachutes,
sending skydivers plummeting
to the ground
and freezing temperatures
that no one
should be able to survive.
How do some people live
through the impossible?
Is it divine intervention?
Luck?
Or could it be something else?
Something incredible.
Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.
The UnXplained S01 - EP08
Extreme Weather Mysteries
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
November 1992.
Banker Annette Herfkens,
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
and I am very claustrophobic.
And I said there's no way
I'm entering that plane.
I'm not gonna go in there.
It looks old but mostly small.
"Well, don't worry, don't
"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
from the back of the plane.
So we sat down and 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 at 50 minutes
there was a gigantic drop.
-And people were screaming,
and he 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.
The plane broke in three pieces:
the wings, the fuselage
and the cockpit.
Then I looked at my left,
still strapped in his seat.
He was dead.
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?
When we hear stories
of survival,
we sort of imagine,
"Could I learn from that?
Could I do that?"
And many times we can't.
Maybe they're lucky or-or maybe
they're just some X factor
that we'll never really
get our heads around.
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.
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.
I completely felt that
things would 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 have 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,
insulation material
was 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.
And 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 days, out of nowhere
men came up the mountain
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.
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?
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-seated,
electro-biochemical, uh, force
that's-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.
Did Annette Herfkens
manage to survive a deadly
plane crash because of luck?
A simple twist of fate?
Or was there something
inside her,
a hidden reserve
of willpower perhaps,
that gave her the means
of staying alive?
It's an interesting question.
And there are some who believe
the answer can be found
by examining accounts of people
who have also found a way
of cheating death
by using superhuman strength.
Melbourne, Australia.
August 1, 2013.
High above the city,
22-year-old Brad Guy
is excited to make his first
skydiving jump.
The self-professed adrenaline
junkie wants to push the limits,
but he'll soon find
that this is going to be
the fall of his life.
I was given the opportunity
to choose
which height I wanted
to jump from.
And I decided to go as high as
possible, which was 15,000 feet,
very high.
So my tandem instructor
ran me through
how it would feel to jump
and what I need to do
to ensure maximum safety.
Then he asked me
if I had any final questions.
I think because
I was so nervous,
I made the joke saying,
"I hope my parachute opens."
I remember when that rickety
door of the aircraft opened
and my instructor just edging me
closer and closer,
I was so terrified.
And eventually my instructor
said, "Three, two, one, jump,"
and he pushed us out.
I was moving so fast
that I couldn't even comprehend.
Just that four, five,
seven seconds of free fall,
it's totally euphoric.
It's indescribable.
It's kind of like magic.
When a skydiver jumps
out of a plane,
they're accelerated by gravity,
at a rate of 32 feet
per second, per second.
His speed would have been
upwards
over a hundred miles per hour.
Brad's skydive is an even
greater thrill than he expected.
But as he and his instructor
plunge toward the ground,
something goes horribly awry.
There just was this point when,
as we were falling,
I was expecting
a thrust of a parachute to come
as per the safety instructions,
and it never came.
I felt a bit of a thrust
from a parachute,
but it wasn't enough
to slow us down.
And that's when I noticed
that the first parachute,
it's been deployed,
but it hasn't opened.
And the emergency parachute got
stuck in the original parachute.
And because they are
tangled together,
we're not slowing down.
We were tumbling towards
the ground from 15,000 feet.
I start freaking out.
I'm really panicking.
All I could really see was the
earth getting closer and closer.
And I knew I was going
to hit the ground and die.
The impact
just smashed through my body.
It really didn't feel
like a fall,
it almost felt like the earth
just came and hit me.
And when I hit the ground, I'm
still strapped to my instructor.
He's unconscious.
Eventually he did come to.
We were just strapped
to each other, screaming.
I remember I was just
hysterically crying,
so confused, having no idea
what had happened.
Partially still thinking
that I was actually dead.
Against all odds,
the two men survive
a fall of nearly three miles.
Brad and his instructor
are rushed to the hospital,
where they both begin a long
and miraculous recovery.
My physical injuries,
I broke my upper spine,
fractured my lower spine,
tore the ligaments in my neck,
cracked and bruised ribs,
mild head concussion.
I had suspected
that I was a quadriplegic.
I was numb from the neck down.
It took me a long time
to feel my body again.
You would think that, after all
these years and all the time
I've had to reflect on it,
that I would be able to look
at the situation
and seriously ask myself,
was this luck
or is it just all the odds
being in my favor
on a particular day?
I don't know. I don't know.
I would love to know.
Sometimes, when humans
face extreme danger,
the normal parts
of our operating brain
kind of get pushed aside
and the sympathetic
nervous system kicks in
and can institute an
adrenaline rush into the body,
which can do
some amazing things.
It forces blood into the muscles
and pumps them up
and becomes hard to strengthen
and protect your skeletal system
and connective tissue.
Was a surge
of adrenaline responsible
for protecting Brad's body
from the extreme impact?
Or was there something
even more incredible going on?
Perhaps an explanation
can be found
by examining
another case of survival.
One that involves
an extraordinary feat
performed by an ordinary man.
Tucson, Arizona, July 26, 2006.
Tom Boyle, a supervisor
at a local aerospace company,
is driving home with his wife.
The couple are about
to exit a parking lot
when another car
pulls alongside them.
What happens next
actually changes Tom
in ways that seem to defy
the very laws of nature.
The driver he had taken
upon himself to peel out
out of the parking lot,
and as he did that,
he sucked in a, a bicyclist
underneath the vehicle.
I jump out of the car.
I go running after the Camaro.
And as I approached the Camaro,
there was a boy underneath
on a bicycle, yelling for help
and asking people to please
get the car off him.
I just reacted.
As the boy's cries ring out,
Tom has no time to think.
A powerful force comes alive
inside him.
A force that allows Tom
to do the impossible.
It just got me so,
I guess, nervous
and, uh, compelled to help
that I just lifted
the side of the car.
As I started lifting the car,
I could hear the bicyclist
telling me, "Higher, higher,
mister, please go higher."
So I did.
I just held it as long
as I possibly could,
and I just thought,
"Don't let go."
And fortunately we got him out.
I'm six-three,
at that time I was 275 pounds,
and, uh, the most I've ever
lifted, I think, was
800 pounds?
As I lifted the car,
I never thought
about how much it weighed.
I just thought
about saving this kid.
Now, Tom's a big guy.
Solid guy, but we're talking
about a car, okay?
This is a car that weighs
about 3,000 pounds,
and yet he just jacks it up.
Bare hands, lifts this thing up.
Human beings can't normally
just lift cars.
These situations where people
manage to do
superhuman feats of strength,
like lift a car off someone,
as often happens in science,
these are rare events.
We don't have
detailed measurements.
And so really understanding the
true biophysics and physiology
of all the details that go in
remain a bit of a mystery
and an interesting area
for us to explore going forward.
We don't use most
of our muscles' capability
throughout the day.
It's capable of much more,
but for some reason, only under
these extreme circumstances.
If we can learn how to control
our minds and use it at will,
that would be like being
a superhuman, a superhero.
That will, that power,
is being driven both
not only by the adrenaline
but, more importantly,
it's that energy.
It's that type of thing in China
that's called fa jin:
"animal explosive energy."
It's a burst
of absolute decision.
It's that unknown, that
unexplained energetic place
that we all know about,
we talk about it,
we have feelings
and vibes about these things.
So, this was a once
in a lifetime moment for me.
I've never done anything else
like this again.
I think you can tap
into some amazing power.
I truly do. It's there.
We just have to have
a reason to use it.
Sometimes the difference between
certain death and survival
isn't only due to adrenaline,
something that's already
inside our bodies,
but because of something else.
Something you'd never expect
could keep you alive.
Southampton, England.
April 10, 1912.
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
uh, 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 to starboard.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At about 2:10, passengers
reported hearing
a sickening roar.
- That was the bulkheads
giving way after this incredible
stress from the incoming ocean.
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 -1 and -2 Celsius,
or about 28 Fahrenheit,
which is below freezing.
Then, at about 2:30 a.m.,
so ten minutes
after the ship disappeared,
the cries for help
had finally stopped.
So we would say survival time
in that water
was about ten minutes
for most passengers and crew.
Joughin paddled around
for a while
and eventually, uh, 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.
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.
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, uh, would die
more quickly if you were drunk.
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.
Uh, that's one possibility.
Uh, the other possibility is
that the alcohol in his system
just kept him calm,
uh, 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.
Saved by alcohol?
Or was it that,
by being intoxicated,
Charles Joughin
simply had no fear?
But whatever the reason,
there are many who believe
that the ability
to fearlessly survive
almost certain death
isn't limited to adults.
They insist that children
also possess
a unique ability
to survive danger,
as we will soon find out.
Wallowa, Oregon.
April 1986.
Six-year-old Cody Sheehy is
with his family on a picnic
in Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest.
The young boy is playing
with his older sister
amongst the trees
when he gets separated from her.
When he tries to find his way
back to the picnic,
he realizes he can't.
At some point,
my sister had said
that she hadn't seen
my brother in a while.
After a few minutes, when
my brother still didn't show up,
-we started to call out for him.
-Cody!
And we thought
that would bring him
out of the woods immediately,
but there was no response.
And there were
several adults out there,
and also my sister and I
started to look for him,
yelling out his name,
trying to get his attention.
So I'd guess it was maybe
3:00 in the afternoon.
Cody had probably been gone
for an hour and a half.
I think at this point my mom was
starting to get really worried.
With no sign of the boy,
an official search party
is formed.
But as day turns into night,
their desperate attempts
to find Cody fail.
The six-year-old is now utterly
and completely lost and alone,
wandering the rugged wilderness.
A professional search and rescue
team from the county came out.
And one of the first things
that they did was they started
by driving the roads
and calling out his name.
And they alerted local pilots
to start flying over there.
This was a scary situation
for us.
-The next morning
my grandmother
received a phone call
that he had been found,
and that was great news.
It was a huge sense of relief.
My six-year-old logic was
that if I could just get home
and get into bed,
then I wouldn't be in trouble
and everything would be okay.
So when the sun came up,
I was
leaving that forested area
and that plateau,
and looking down below me
was a valley
with some houses in it.
I got down the-the hill,
and there was a girl,
and so she talked me into going
into this house.
And that's when I just totally
fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke up, there was
a county sheriff there.
So that officer drove me
to my grandpa's house,
and then eventually
they brought my mom,
and my sister and brother were
there all of a sudden, and so
at that point, I kind of knew
that that I was home.
In the days after his survival,
Cody's journey through the
Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
back to civilization
becomes headline news
across the country.
But the story raises
more questions than answers.
How did a young child endure
frigid temperatures,
hostile terrain, and a walk
of nearly marathon distance?
Cody was missing from
early afternoon
till 8:00 the next morning,
about 15 or 16 hours,
and somehow in that time period
he covered 18 miles
over rugged terrain in an area
he'd never been in, at night.
It just really amazes me
that he had the conviction
to keep heading
in the correct direction,
and somehow he knew that.
By the time it got dark,
I'd probably walked,
I think,
around three or four miles.
And as a six-year-old,
that probably was the furthest
I'd ever walked in my life
up to that point.
And I had found a larger road,
but then it got to a fork,
and I had to make a decision.
And I decided to go right,
and I went down
this other way
for probably half a mile.
And then something
inside me said,
"This is not
the right direction."
More scary that way,
but I don't know why.
So I turned around.
And once I made a decision
to start walking,
I don't really remember
questioning it.
An adult can sit there
and think of all the fears,
all the mistakes, all
the bad things that can happen,
where the child
just knew he was in trouble
and had to get out of it.
But what if it's more
than just a child's lack
of self-consciousness
that allowed Cody
to make it home alive?
What if there's
a more supernatural explanation?
For some reason, he knew
that he was on the right trail.
Is it because there is
so many people and activity
on that trail in the past that
he's picking up on that energy?
Whatever he's picking up,
he trusted it,
he knew it, and he went with it.
We are all connected
to our higher guidance
and, in fact,
we receive messages
from our guides
on a daily basis.
This is our internal
guidance system
keeping us on the right path,
telling us what to do next.
The reason why Cody
stayed calm and did not panic
it is because he sensed
the presence of his spirit guide
or perhaps his guardian angel
protecting him, guiding him,
telling him
to walk back to safety.
Children are very comfortable
with these feelings.
They get a sensation
and they act on it.
Looking back over my life,
there's no doubt
that I defied the odds.
And science would probably say
that a six-year-old
is capable of that
because I did do it.
But the reality is that most
people are not put
in that situation
as a six-year-old.
Cody Sheehy withstood something
that would have challenged
any adult.
But does his battle against
nature suggest that children
have an innate knack
for survival,
as counterintuitive
as that may seem?
Survival experts say yes.
They also claim that some people
have even more extraordinary
survival skills,
including the ability
to avoid danger entirely
by sensing it before it occurs.
England, February 1998.
Interior designer Clare Henry
is driving to her home
in the county of Hampshire,
nearly 100 miles from London.
It's a trip that she's made more
times than she can remember.
So I'm sitting in the car.
I was driving back
from London to Hampshire.
It was about
the 8th of February, 1998.
It was six months
after Princess Diana had died.
I met Diana when I was
a member of the Harbour Club.
And I would meet her many times
when I was working out
in the gym.
And I wasn't a close friend
I wish I had been
but we used to have
a giggle together,
and we had a lovely time.
And she was a very dear soul.
Full of light, full of love.
There was something about her.
I couldn't quite put
my finger on it.
As Clare pulls
onto the M27 motorway,
she notices that the highway
is shrouded in fog.
I came across a fog wall.
It had been raining in
the morning, and when it rains,
you know, you often get
damp weather in England,
and you get foggy evenings,
especially in the West Country.
Instead of pulling
into the fast lane,
as she's done
countless times before,
Clare slows down
and proceeds with caution.
And then
Clare suddenly has a strange
and disturbing vision.
She sees a woman's face
but not just that of any woman.
She sees the face
of Princess Diana.
And suddenly I see this vision.
And I was very surprised,
very shocked
to see the face
of Princess Diana
just here.
Literally here
in front of my face.
Because I see her face,
and I put two and two together
Diana killed in a car crash
in the tunnel in the Mercedes
I suddenly realize
Diana is trying
to tell me something,
and something is about to happen
in front of me,
and I need to pay attention,
and I need to change
what I normally do.
So I had
a very, very, very short time
to think about what
I was gonna do next.
I shot across, left,
towards the hard shoulder,
and I kept on going.
And all of a sudden,
-I hear this awful sound.
And the sound
was metal on metal
and breaking glass.
And I realized
there's an accident.
I just remember passing
this barrage of cars.
And I couldn't believe
how glass didn't hit me.
It was a pretty big pileup.
And then I stop 'cause I realize
there's nobody next to me,
there's nobody behind me,
and nobody got out
of that accident.
I was the only one
who got out of that accident.
And if I had done
what I normally do that day
and gone straight
into the fast lane,
I don't think I'd be sitting
here today, to be honest.
This strange ability
to anticipate danger
before it happens
may seem like
a far-fetched notion.
But if not for seeing the face
of Princess Diana,
Clare Henry believes
that she would have met
a rather sudden and tragic end
on the highway that day.
Was the vision
that she claims to have seen
simply a coincidental figment
of Clare's imagination?
Or was it something more?
Clare had a glimpse
of the future
in that one instant,
which is exactly the time
she had a vision
of Princess Diana warning her.
"This is not your time to die."
"Be careful.
Get off the road now."
Clare and Princess Diana
may have been just friends
at the gym,
but perhaps there was a deeper,
stronger connection
on a spiritual level,
on a much higher level.
A bigger story, so to speak.
I think many of us
have had that experience
of, you know, your hair tingling
or ducking just before
something was coming.
And if our brain is good
at interpreting it
without us knowing,
we can get a premonition
and get out of harm's way.
But at the end of the day,
science doesn't really have
a good explanation of this yet
because we haven't studied it
in the ways,
I think, that needs to be done.
Sometimes premonition
comes from what we call
our spirit family.
They are communicating with us
from the other side,
giving us messages
that something's
about to go wrong.
Because premonition is coming
from our higher consciousness,
it is not part
of our normal awakened state.
It is coming
from another dimension
beyond this human reality.
If it's true that some humans
can avoid danger
by seeing through time,
could it also be possible
for some of us
to protect ourselves from harm
by making time stand still?
There's at least one man
who would insist
that the answer to that question
is a profound yes.
Ragged Falls, Ontario.
Summer 1995.
13-year-old David Whitehead
is hanging out with friends
by a river,
enjoying the simple joys
of sunshine and the outdoors.
But what happens next
is anything but fun.
We start playing truth or dare,
and I started getting the sense
that my friend was thinking,
"Well, the next dare
will be that I'm gonna jump
into the river."
I didn't think
it was a good idea,
but he did it anyways.
He jumped in.
Immediately, he gets swept
towards the edge of these falls,
and they were very rocky,
sharp, jagged edges.
They would actually smash you
all the way down.
I don't know what it was,
but something activated
inside of me,
and I knew
that my friend was gonna die.
In an instant,
David was able to react
because, in that moment,
he found
he possessed
the extraordinary ability
to slow down time.
The whole thing I remember
in crystal clear detail
to this day.
Time stood still.
Everything seemed to slow down.
I remember everything feeling
like I was operating
in slow motion.
And luckily,
I was able to finally get ahold
-of one of the rocks.
-Help! Help me!
I grab the rock.
I grab onto my friend's hand.
-Help me! -His feet are literally dangling
over the edge
of this waterfall.
-Help! Help me!
All that went through my mind
was, "Don't let go.
Don't let go.
-Don't let go."
-Help!
I'm just a small,
scrawny 13-year-old kid,
and here I am,
bicep-curling this kid
off the edge of a waterfall.
I often think back
to that feeling
of time slowing down,
and I wonder,
how could I be
in one state of consciousness,
and then,
during a traumatic event,
I'm in a completely different
state of consciousness?
Time dilation isn't just
something we perceive.
It's something that really
happens to us in our brains.
It may seem like time
is moving slower,
but we're just processing
information
-so much more quickly.
Our synapses
are literally firing off faster.
The way you make
a slow-motion movie
is by taking
a lot of frames of film.
And that's essentially how
the human brain works, too.
Intense experience
means lots of dense,
rich memories,
which creates a perception
that things have taken
a long time
even if they've taken
a short time.
So that means that there's
a gear that we have in our minds
that we don't play with
on a daily basis
but, during traumatic events,
gets activated.
And this is
yet another testament
to the true potential
that we all have.
If, after hearing these stories,
you still think
surviving disaster
is nothing more
than a matter of fate,
then maybe you're the type
to ignore
the safety instructions
before an airline flight
or trust someone else
to pack your parachute.
No?
Then maybe you'd better
take destiny into your own hands
and rely on your wits
to survive,
especially since your future
is still
unexplained.