The journey to becoming the world’s first full face transplant recipient was fraught with challenges.
One moment the helicopter was running perfectly. The next, it was hurtling towards the wind-whipped ocean.
‘It was comforting to know you were with her during her final moments. We couldn’t ask for a finer, more caring doctor,’ wrote the grieving son of one of Dr Harold Shipman’s older patients. But why had so many of his patients died without warning?
In a 1998 bush fire that tore through rural Victoria, five firefighters made the ultimate sacrifice.
The woman was dying, and the jumbo jet had no time to land. ‘I have to operate,’ the surgeon said.
Dodging the highway traffic, her runaway car was clocking more than 140km per hour.
A lightning strike at 10,000ft saw a 17-year-old girl free fall into Amazonian rainforest – and live to tell the tale.
It was thought that the baby girl was severely handicapped. But the love of her foster parents changed all that.
When a yacht sends out a call for help, it leads to a turn of events that three helicopter rescuers never saw coming.
Scrambling from the downed chopper, the three stunned survivors confronted vents of hissing steam and a boiling lava pit. Sulphurous fumes made them gasp. If there’s a hell, one thought, it’s definitely like this.
A bond was broken by a thoughtless act years ago. Could all be forgiven with a simple “I’m sorry”?
For hours, no-one knew that Arick Baker had fallen into a 58°C grain bin and was slowly being squeezed to death.
It was a split-second decision. The predator had the young woman in its jaw and he might be her only chance of survival.
He was a corrupt youth and spent years as a slave-ship captain, but the man who once was lost, truly found salvation.
Surrounded by a wall of flames, a young New Zealand girl put her last hope in the pledge of a courageous firefighter.
