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NARRATOR: Life happens fast...
and in an instant, disaster...
WOMAN: Oh, my God!
NARRATOR: ...could strike.
When the choices you make...
MAN: No, no, no, no, no!
NARRATOR: ...mean the difference between life and death...
what would you do?
MAN: We're going down, we're going down!
NARRATOR: Put yourself to the test
and see if you have what it takes
to stay alive.
Would you Do or Die?
[flatline beep]
Skydiving is not a sport for the faint of heart.
Even though statistically it's much safer than driving a car,
fatal accidents do occur every year.
Senior daredevil Laverne Everett
has no idea she's in danger of becoming one of them.
MAN: Who's idea was all of this?
LAVERNE: Mine! I'm real excited.
NARRATOR: For her 80th birthday,
Laverne is fulfilling her lifelong dream
of doing a tandem jump.
And you're taking the plunge, too.
At 13,000 feet, the pair barrel roll out of the plane.
As the tandem instructor deploys a small pilot chute
called a drogue, it looks like a picture perfect jump.
But when the cameraman moves in,
it's a scene of unimaginable terror.
Laverne is hanging half out of her harness,
two miles above the ground!
Her upper body straps have slipped down
around her shoulders,
and her shirt has flown up around her eyes.
She's flying blind,
and the only things keeping her from plummeting to her death
are her knees wrapped loosely around the straps
and her partner's shaky grip.
He's got his hands full.
Put yourself in Laverne's harness.
It's up to you to save yourself.
What would you do?
A) Get to your partner's ripcord,
and pull the main chute.
B) Spread your arms like an eagle to create wind resistance.
Or C) Grab your shins, and hang on for a wild ride.
Here's what you should consider.
You're in a free fall, thousands of feet above the earth,
and slipping out of your harness.
Your tandem instructor has just deployed the drogue chute,
slowing your descent from
170 miles per hour to about 120.
But that still means you're falling
at a rate of 170 feet per second--
that's nearly the length of a 20-story building
in the time it takes to sneeze.
At this rate, you'll hit the ground in less than a minute.
It's flight or fight.
Make your choice:
A...
B...
or C.
Choose wisely.
So, what would you do?
With the ground rapidly approaching,
you could try to buy time
by getting to your partner's ripcord,
and pulling the main chute to slow you down.
After all, how can slowing down be a bad thing
when you're hurtling towards the earth as fast a bullet train?
Once that canopy pops open,
you suddenly go from 120 miles per hour to just 18.
The force of such a rapid deceleration alone
can be up to 4 Gs--
that's more than an astronaut experiences at takeoff.
And way more than enough to jerk you right out of your harness.
Try to pull your chute now, and lose your safety net altogether.
If you want to slow down,
you might be tempted to spread your arms like an eagle
to create more wind resistance.
As soon as you let go, you're relying only on your legs
to keep you locked in.
This may work for a trapeze artist,
but they don't have to contend with
Category 3 hurricane-force winds.
Spreading your arms will create more wind resistance,
but it could also put you in a deadly spiral.
In an airplane, if a disturbance such as turbulence
causes one wing to drop,
the aircraft will pitch in the direction
of the downward facing wing.
But airplanes have dynamic stabilizers
to correct the imbalance.
You don't.
If your arms are spread out
and the rushing wind forces one of them to drop below the other,
you could go into an uncontrollable rotation
that will corkscrew you right out of your harness.
Try to take flight and you're en route for a crash landing.
So what should you do?
If you want to survive this perilous plunge,
your best bet is to grab your shins and hold on tight.
Knowing you can't pull the main chute
until you're secure enough to absorb the G-forces,
your only option is to create the strongest possible hold.
Picture your body as one big C-clamp.
Grabbing for your shins, or really anything below the waist
will close that "C,"
and keep you wrapped around your loose harness.
For Laverne, getting into this secure position
gives her instructor enough confidence
to pull the main chute.
Thankfully, she survives the initial jolt.
And in minutes, she's back on terra firma...
WOMAN: Oh, my God!
NARRATOR: ...shaken, but still alive
to celebrate her unforgettable birthday.
NARRATOR: It's a flaming wreck!
A motorcycle burns out of control beneath a smoking sedan.
And it's even deadlier than it looks.
Moments ago, the motorcyclist was cut off by another driver.
Now he's trapped beneath almost two tons of flaming wreckage.
His body is perilously close to the flames,
and his clothes begin to smolder.
Put yourself in the shoes of one of the first on the scene.
You need to act fast or the biker will die!
What would you do?
A) Gather bystanders to lift the car and pull him to safety.
B) Use your vehicle to push the burning motorcycle
away from the victim.
Or C) Jump in the driver's seat of the smoking car,
and slowly reverse.
Here's what you should consider.
The motorcyclist is trapped under a nearly two-ton sedan
just inches from gas-fed flames,
with temperatures that can reach 1,700 degrees--
that's as hot as molten lava.
Inside the car's front bumper
are pressurized, gas-filled shock absorbers.
As heat from the fire causes the gas inside these cylinders
to expand, the pressure builds, until finally, they explode,
turning the front end of the car into deadly shrapnel.
But for the motorcyclist, the bigger danger may be
what firefighters refer to as "the breath from hell"--
lethal fumes produced
when modern day synthetic materials burn.
High concentrations of these toxic gases
can claim a life within minutes.
There's no time to waste.
It's do or die.
Make your choice.
A...
B...
or C.
So, what would you do?
With the fire spreading fast, your instincts might be
to choose the quickest option available--
driving the car off the victim.
But with no way of seeing what position he's in,
you could end up rolling the heavy car over his body.
In addition, those same toxic fumes
that may be seeping under the vehicle
are also filling the cab,
and if you can't breathe, you can't help.
If you chose to jump in the driver's seat
and slowly back it off the victim,
you could be heading for a dead end.
With the flames growing more intense,
you might choose to use your vehicle
to push the burning motorcycle away from the victim.
But inside the bumper, the gas-filled shock absorbers
have been superheated and are ready to blow.
So if you're at the front of the car,
you're right in the blast zone.
Firefighters are taught to always approach the front
and back of a burning car
at 45-degree angles
for just this reason.
But even if you're lucky enough
not to get hit by flying shrapnel,
there's no guarantee you'll be able
to untangle the burning bike.
And trying to push it with your own car
only puts your vehicle at risk of catching fire.
If you chose to move the burning bike out of the way,
it may be the last move you ever make.
So what should you do?
While the safest, most ideal course of action
is to wait for first responders,
in this case, that's not an option.
This biker needs help now.
If you want to keep him from burning alive,
the best thing to do is lift the car
and drag him away from the blazing inferno.
First, gather as many people as you can
and approach the broad side of the vehicle.
Next, bending at the knees,
grab the car's undercarriage and lift.
Raising a 3,700-pound car may seem like an impossible task,
but technically, you only need to raise half.
In this case, it takes 13 people
to tilt half the car off the ground--
each of them holding roughly 140 pounds,
or nearly the weight of over three 5-gallon water jugs.
Usually, you want to move an accident victim
as little as possible.
But here, getting him out from under the combustible car
is paramount.
Moments later, police extinguish the blaze,
and not long after that,
paramedics are on the scene to save the motorcyclist's life.
Thanks to the quick action of bystanders, he survives.
Gather bystanders, lift the car, and pull the victim to safety.
That's what you do if you don't want him to die.
NARRATOR: 80 feet below the surface of the North Pacific,
the frigid home of oversized fauna
and mysterious sea creatures.
The perfect place for naturalist Doug Pemberton
and his diving partner to film the elusive inhabitants
of this underwater kingdom.
On this dive, they're hoping to get up close and personal
with one animal in particular-- the giant Pacific octopus.
And it's not long before Doug finds what he's looking for.
The seemingly timid animal quickly retreats
into its rocky den,
so Doug moves in for a closer look.
Big mistake.
Doug begins to panic as the giant octopus tightens its grip.
The more he struggles to break free,
the more entangled he becomes.
What's worse, the octopus has hold of his breathing regulator.
Now, wrap yourself in these tentacles
and see if you have what it takes to survive.
What would you do?
A) Use brute strength to pull off the arms.
B) Fight back and pinch the octopus' suckers.
Or C) Drop your weight belt, and head for the surface.
Here's what you should consider.
You're on a deep sea dive, 80 feet down
and caught in the death grip of a giant Pacific octopus--
the most intelligent of all invertebrates.
It has the brains to solve complex problems
and the brawn to snap a shark's spine in two.
Every one of the 2,200 suction cups on its arms
contains thousands of chemical receptors,
making them sensitive to both touch and taste.
They're also made of pure muscle,
enabling each sucker to create an airtight seal
around whatever they clamp down on.
Right now, they're clamped down on your breathing regulator.
You have fewer choices than the octopus has arms,
and only one is correct.
Make your choice:
A...
B...
or C.
Choose wisely.
So what would you do?
If you think you can muscle your way to safety,
you could use brute strength
and to try to pull off the octopus' arms.
But who's the strongman in this competition?
Each of the octopus' individual suction cups can lift 35 pounds.
The octopus wrapped around your head has nearly 300 on each arm.
Even if you do somehow manage to get one arm off,
the octopus has seven more waiting to take its place.
Try to outmuscle this mollusk,
and you could be locked in death's embrace.
If outpowering the octopus isn't the answer,
you could drop your weight belt and try to head for the surface.
Most divers go down with 30 pounds of lead or less
on their belt to counteract any buoyancy
caused by the air trapped in the cells of their wetsuit.
The octopus attached to your head weighs nearly 40 pounds.
So even if you lose the belt, you'd still be sunk.
And there's something else to consider.
The giant octopus can use its back two arms
to anchor itself in place.
Once that happens,
it can resist a pull more than 100 times its own weight--
in this case, roughly 4,000 pounds.
So unless you can deadlift a rhinoceros,
you're not going anywhere.
So what should you do?
If you want to escape this octopus' killer grip,
the thing to do is pinch its suckers,
then gently pull away its arms.
Pinching its sensitive suckers
will not only change their shape,
breaking the seal of their outer rim,
but will also trigger the animal's pain receptors.
If you were prey, the octopus might ignore this signal
and keep fighting.
But the intelligent Pacific octopus
has two extremely advanced eyes, similar to those of a human.
It can clearly see that you're not food.
In Doug's case, following these simple steps
was enough to release the animal's vicious hold.
Pinch and pry.
That's what you do to disarm this mighty mollusk.