WILLIAM SHATNER: 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.
♪
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
November 1992.
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
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.
And my fiancé said, "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.
-[screaming] -And people were screaming,
and my fiancé looked at me, 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.
[birds chirping]
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?
[indistinct chatter]
JEFF WISE: 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.
[screaming]
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.
[grunts]
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...
[indistinct whispering]
...and then you listen to this other voice
we all carry inside of us.
I completely felt that
things would work out.
[whispering continues]
What's interesting to me about this case
is that Annette attributes her survival
to hearing this mysterious voice.
[indistinct whispering]
WHITEHEAD: 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.
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-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.
SHATNER: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
[wind whistling]
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.
TAYLOR: 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.
SHATNER: 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....
[groaning]
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.
SHATNER: 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.
GUY: 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.
[groaning]
COYNE: 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.
NARRATOR: 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.
[tires screeching, metal clattering]
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.
SHATNER: 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.
BOYLE: 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.
WISE: 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.
MICHAEL DENNIN: 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.
COYNE: 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.
TAYLOR: If we can learn how to control our minds and use it at will,
that would be like being a superhuman, a superhero.
SHANE HOBEL: 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.
BOYLE: 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.
[horn blows]
RMS Titanicsets 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 Titanichad 2,208 on board-- uh, 891 of whom were crew.
The Titanicwas 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.
And unfortunately the ship was going too fast.
-Hard to 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'shull.
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 blaring]
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 Titanichit 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.
-[loud metallic creaking] -RUSSELL: That was the bulkheads
giving way after this incredible stress from the incoming ocean.
BREWSTER: After the Titanicbroke 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.
[passengers screaming]
The water temperature was between -1 and -2 Celsius,
or about 28 Fahrenheit, which is below freezing.
RUSSELL: 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.
BREWSTER: 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.
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, uh, 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. 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.
SHATNER: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
RYAN SHEEHY: 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!
RYAN: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
-[phone rings] -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.
SHATNER: 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.
[crickets chirping]
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.
SHATNER: 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.
CODY: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
HENRY: 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.
SHATNER: As Clare pulls
onto the M27 motorway,
she notices that the highway is shrouded in fog.
HENRY: 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.
SHATNER: 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. -[tires screeching]
[glass breaking, metal clanging]
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.
SHATNER: 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.
DENNIN: 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.
[monitor beeping]
CORY: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
SHATNER: 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.
WHITEHEAD: 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.
SHATNER: 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!
WHITEHEAD: 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! -WHITEHEAD: 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. -[screams]
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...
[whispering]: unexplained.
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