Burning Alive: Escape from the Wreckage

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28:21The plane has crashed into the side of a small mountain on South Thormundee Island. Though only a short distance from the Canadian mainland, it feels far more remote and is virtually uninhabited. But Tom doesn't know all this yet. He takes a steadying breath and assesses the situation. The thick fog surrounding him doesn't offer many clues as to his location, but he can at least make out the densely forested slopes of the mountain. He has two options. Wait at the crash site for someone to come and find him, or climb down the mountain himself and look for help. Neither is appealing. Tom's burns and cuts are serious enough on their own, but there's no telling yet if he suffered any internal injuries in the crash, or how severe they might be.

29:14Whatever the case, he needs medical attention quickly, and it's impossible to know how long it will take for help to come. Added to this is the weather. With severely burnt hands, he can't build a shelter, and his jeans and boots will do little to protect him from the cold. But walking away from the crash site isn't attractive either. In his current condition, every movement is painful, and battling his way through dense trees when his body is covered in burns promises fresh agony. Besides, he has no clue where he is or how long it will take before he stumbles on civilization. In the end, one factor sways his decision.

29:57I decided to leave the wreckage. I had to try and leave the wreckage to go find help because I knew, with my military experience that search and rescue wasn't coming. I knew that they would not risk the lives of their personnel to find the conditions that caused us to crash to come find us. Tom scans the smoke-filled clearing created by the crash, searching for the easiest route down the mountain. The sight is ringed by near impenetrable forest, but the plane has carved a rough avenue through the trees on the eastern side. It looks like the path of least resistance, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

30:39I've got no clothes on, I have no skin, so for me to try and climb down the side of a mountain through a forest was a sick, sick game of Twister. I couldn't touch anything, I couldn't use my hands, I couldn't do anything. Still, he has to try. Carefully, he begins to pick his way down the slope. As he moves, everything is muted, dulled, defined by an eerie silence. All he can hear is his own labored breathing. The foam earplugs he was wearing on the plane have been melted into his ear canals by his burning hoodie. And on top of everything else, he's also lost his glasses, so his vision is impaired.

31:24it. Not ideal for scrambling down the side of a rugged mountain. It doesn't take long before Tom's conviction in his plan is tested. You wouldn't even recognize how many tree branches brush against your arm and your hands on a normal hike. Unless you're in the condition that I was. I'm telling you a tree branch touched my arm. I knew about it. I screamed about it. I couldn't physically use my hands to move trees out of the way. I'd look five feet ahead, and I would have to plan on how I'm going to twist and contort my body to get through that next five feet without actually touching a branch.

32:12What would ordinarily have been a fairly easy hike has become a twisted game of three-dimensional chess. He makes some progress before encountering a ledge with a small, steep drop. Normally he wouldn't give it a second thought. It's something even the most inexperienced hiker could overcome. But in his current state, it's a major obstacle. Tom manages to squat and sit on his backside. He then wiggles forward to the ledge and starts to shuffle down it. What he hasn't yet realized is that his back is also badly burnt.

32:55As soon as I started to wiggle over it, the rocks touched all the burns on my back, and so that shot me forward. And as soon as it shot me forward, I missed the landing, I landed on my hands, and it took me back to this place of insanity. Just the sheer pain, just the constant pain, the struggle. White hot bolts thunder through him.

33:23Eventually, he swallows the pain, struggles to his feet, and continues his battle.

33:31As time goes on, the gradient of the slope becomes easier. Tom hits a shallow creek and decides to follow it, hoping it might lead to some sort of sign of life. Somewhere, anywhere, he can find help. Spirits buoyed somewhat by the prospect, he breaks into a light jog, gritting his teeth against the agony that sparks along his synapses with every movement. Soon, the creek drains into an inlet. Finally, I made it to a shoreline. I still had no idea where I was. I was looking for a culvert. I was looking for a golf course. I was looking for a utility shed, anything. I was just looking for help. And so I get to the rocks of the shore, and I realize that I'm on an island.

34:26While getting off the mountain has been an enormous achievement, it's instantly undermined by what Tom now sees. Drained, he stands on the shoreline and scans the horizon. There are no boats, no signs of civilization at all, just an empty, endless stretch of sea and sky. To his left is a steep wall of rock topped by forest. To his right are shallow cliffs leading to a peninsula of large boulders. It's one hell of a setback, but he can't stand still. If he can get to the tip of the peninsula, he'll increase his chances of being spotted. All he needs is one person to see him.

35:15Gingerly, Tom begins picking his way across the slippery rocks. He moves slowly, cautiously, aware of the danger. It's tough going, and soon he is forced to leap between the wet boulders. On his third jump, he loses his footing and falls. scraping his blistered skin against the jagged rocks. His raw hands slap the hard, rough surface and again he writhes in agony. By the time he reaches the far tip of the peninsula, he's exhausted. Then, as he squints out to sea, something catches his eye. The weather's still not improving, but I'm below the cloud ceiling because I'm at water level. And a couple miles across the bay, I can see houses and I can see boats.

36:11Civilization is just there, just across the water. Boats bob and chug on the surface. It's been around two and a half hours since the crash, and now help is almost mockingly close. I started losing my mind. Like I'm here, and I'm flailing my arms. I'm just trying to get someone to see me to come and rescue me, and it didn't take long to realize that none of the boats were turning towards me. As the boats continued to undulate serenely in the harbor, the hope of rescue ebbs away. Weakened and numb from the biting November wind and the sting of icy saltwater, Tom picks his way back across the boulders and returns to the shelter of the forest to recoup a little.

37:01He huddles in the lee of the trees, shivering, trying to prepare himself for another attempt. When he's regained some energy, he heads back out into the elements to try again. The only option I had was to get seen. And so I would go back out on the rocks and I'd stand there as long as I could and scream and wave. With less enthusiasm every time, just because no one was coming.

37:33It's a grim routine. Over the course of the next two hours, he goes back and forth four times. With every failed attempt to be seen, his hope and his strength fade a little more. I'm dying. I know I'm dying. I know I don't have much time left. I'm freezing. You know, I'm mortally wounded. Every second seemed like a week.

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39:08As the day crawls by, one of the most immediate dangers Tom faces is hypothermia. Having endured scorching heat mere hours earlier, It's now the cold that threatens to devour him. His body is shutting down, and it won't be long until sunset. After returning from his fourth expedition along the peninsula, he decides he has no choice but to head back up the mountain to the crash site. If he can at least huddle next to the smouldering wreckage, he might be able to stave off the cold for a little longer. It could buy him a few more precious hours. It's going to be a hard slog, and the prospect of trying to scramble back up that ledge is daunting.

39:53He forces one foot in front of the other and begins his long trek back into the trees. And then he hears something. Even with the melted earplugs impairing his hearing, it doesn't take long to identify the noise. I started walking back and I'm about 100 meters in and I hear the distinct sound of a helicopter and man I was so angry I've been out here for four and a half hours the last two hours I've been on these rocks and all I want is visibility I just want someone to see me and now that I'm Under the forested canopy, there's a helicopter? Like now, of all times. Tom sprints as fast as he can back to the shore.

40:45But even as he runs, the sound of the helicopter begins to fade. When he bursts back out of the trees, he urgently scans the sky and the horizon. Cruelly, almost like he's being teased, the lifeline has slipped away. and there's no noise. The sound of the helicopter is gone. At that moment in time, I had no fight left. None.

41:22It's about 3 p.m. on the eastern shores of South Thornby Island off the coast of British Columbia. The day is drawing to a close. Within the next couple of hours, the light will fade. leaving Tom alone in the freezing, clawing darkness. His one hope of rescue has just vanished out of sight. I just wanted to die. I couldn't deal with the pain anymore. I couldn't deal with the emotional trauma anymore. I had no fight left. I just wanted to die. I surrendered. I was so mad at God. I started yelling at him. Why did you punish me? Why didn't you just take me with everyone else? Why did you have to punish me before you kill me on this island anyway?

42:11I know what it's like to be lonely. I know what it's like to be overseas and miss your family, miss your friends, miss your home. Not like that kind of lonely. That's the loneliest moment I have ever experienced in my life. I would have given every physical thing I had or ever would have just to say goodbye to my mom. Just to call my dad and tell him that we had a good run. I'm so lonely and none of my friends got a chance to say goodbye to their family and I was realizing that I wasn't going to have that chance either.

42:49Everyone has a different fail button, fail point. everyone has a certain amount of stress they can take before they break, before they stop. I experienced that point. It took four and a half hours, so I fought as hard as I could, for as long as I could, but I literally had nothing left. He stands on the lonely shore and gazes up at the empty monochrome sky.

43:21Then, another sound slices through the silence. Fate was just so twisted with me that day. I'm standing there, I want to die, I got no fight left. And of course I hear another sound, and it's an engine, except this time it's a Zodiac. Hope surges in Tom as a small red Zodiac boat rounds the headland to his left. He begins waving and screaming, frantic to catch the crew's attention, desperate not to let another chance of rescue slip away. The Zodiac heads straight towards him. In his excitement, Tom starts wading into the icy sea. But the saltwater stings his burns so badly that he can't go deeper than his knees.

44:08As the boat approaches, he sees it's manned by a search and rescue team. They ask Tom if anyone else from the plane is alive. He tells them he is the only survivor. It's the first time he's had to say those words out loud. Delicately, the crew lift Tom on board, trying to avoid touching the worst of his injuries. They lay him down and cover him with fire blankets, then use their bodies to shield him from the biting wind. They gun the engines and head to the mainland.

44:42As the realization that he has been rescued begins to sink in, Tom is suddenly overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotion. Strangely, relief isn't the overriding sensation. It's rage. The whole time, I was screaming at him. I was yelling at these people about, where the hell have you been? And I've been out here for four hours. And the people that were saving my life, I screamed at. the whole way across the bay. His rescuers are volunteer coastguards from the nearby town of Sechelt. Tom will later learn that two local hunters on the island heard first the plane crash and then the subsequent explosion.

45:28But through the dense wilderness, they couldn't pinpoint where the noises came from. They notified search and rescue. However, at the time, there were no active reports of missing aircraft. So what actually happened was the plane crashed. It was so violent that it destroyed the locator beacon or any emergency signaling systems in the plane. So therefore, Pacific Coastal at the Vancouver airport didn't actually know the plane had crashed. So I was the speck on this island that no one was looking for.

46:06It was only when Tom's plane failed to show up at Toba Inlet that it became clear something was very wrong, and a rescue operation was launched. When the little Zodiac reaches the mainland, it's greeted by a throng of emergency vehicles, media reporters, and onlookers. Tom is loaded into an ambulance, which races him to the local hospital. As a paramedic starts to check his vital signs and cuts away his remaining clothes, Tom begs for oblivion. I need you to give me the drugs to just put me to sleep. My friends are dead. I've never experienced this kind of pain in my life. Just put me to sleep.

46:48Please just put me to sleep. And he couldn't because he didn't have the license. The paramedic is not permitted to administer the painkillers Tom so desperately needs, and he is forced to endure his excruciating agony for even longer. Eventually, when more medics see to his wounds, he receives some brief relief. After that, everything becomes hazy. Tom is airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital, where he spends three days in intensive care. Then he is flown to a specialist burns unit in Edmonton to begin the long, painful process of recovery. Drugs can only do so much to help. The Burn Lord was relentless.

47:38When you have burns, there is no relief from the pain. There's no reprieve. It's constant. And it's for a long, long time. It's not for four and a half hours. It was for months. Incredibly, he suffered no internal injuries or broken bones during his ordeal. But his burns are another matter. They are so serious his closest friend struggles to recognize him, as does his own father. Pumped, full of morphine, entirely reliant on others, and forced to endure a grueling routine of treatment and physio, Tom has to adapt to a new way of life. I went from being this really important guy that had succession plans and budgets and flights and meetings and this major career to laying in this bed.

48:30I couldn't feed myself. I couldn't go to the bathroom myself. I couldn't change the channel. I couldn't do anything. I literally could not do anything for myself. Everyone was celebrating me. Everyone that saw me, the first thing they did, human nature. Oh my god, you're so tough, you're so strong, you're so great. That's not where I was. The only thing stuck on repeat was all my dead friends. He struggles to come to terms with the cruelty, the senselessness of the disaster. He could so easily have been in the co-pilot seat, rather than the position he eventually took up for the flight. He also blames himself for not speaking up before takeoff.

49:16Then one night, when he's recovering in the burn center, he has a transformative meeting with a priest. I'll never forget these words. This was the turning point of my life. These specific words. He said, it is not your job to understand God's plan, but you've been given a gift. You've been given this gift that you're still alive. And there's a reason for that. And if you can search for and find the reason that you've been given this gift, it'll make it easier. And then he left. And I never seen that priest again. All of a sudden, I had this mission in life to find this gift because if you think about it, it's perspective change.

50:03None of the facts changed. I was still in a hospital bed. I still had no skin. I was still in pain. I was still in trauma. But instead of being a victim, I was now thankful. Determined to extract something good from the tragedy, Tom focuses on recovering as he tries to figure out what to do with the gift that he has been given. But it's not easy And after leaving hospital He finds it desperately hard to resume his life I ran away from myself And this is where I became an addict I couldn't function I couldn't live with myself And so That was the next eight years of my life It's a seesaw battle Between overwhelming gratitude And overwhelming guilt

50:57Then, one day, his psychiatrist suggests he tries writing. Tom is initially skeptical, but he's willing to try anything that might help. Going over the memories is traumatic but cathartic. In time, his reflections become a book, detailing his experience, and attempting to unpick the reasons why nobody on board that plane spoke up when they felt unsafe. Slowly, he starts to piece his life back together. I'll never forgive myself. I still carry guilt, but at least now I can live with myself because I understand my behaviors and I've changed them. These days, Tom is a public speaker who shares his experience with audiences around the world in the hope that it might encourage others to speak up should they ever find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation.

51:54He says he puts his survival down to his military experience, his determination to fight, and his ability to stay calm under pressure. I think that's something my father instilled in me and the military instilled in me, is to get rid of that panic. Panic is your enemy. As soon as you're starting to panic, you need to stop panicking because it affects your decisions. I meant the gift part of my journey. All these struggles, all this stuff that I went through, it changed me. And now I get to share that with others so they can share a little bit of my perspective without going through the journey that I did to get there.

52:35In 2014, on the sixth anniversary of the accident, Tom returns to South Thornby Island to meet his rescuers and place a cross at the crash site in memory of the seven who lost their lives. The crash was attributed to the pilot taking off in low visibility. It's believed he strayed off course in the fog and lost control of the aircraft upon hitting the treetops. For Tom, it's been a long, torturous road, but he is finally in a good place. Now married with two daughters, his priorities have shifted, and he says he has arrived at a place of greater understanding about what it really means to live.

53:18My focus was very inward. It was all about me. It was about my career. It was about my, you know, the money I had until the crash and then everything changed. It really changed what's important in life when you see everyone else lose it. I think the biggest thing is I don't take things for granted anymore. I really don't. I put a lot of effort and energy to not taking things for granted and being grateful for what I do have.

53:51Next time on Real Survival Stories. An extreme expedition, an unexpected storm, and an unlikely bolt from the blue all combine to create the most horrifying of situations. In July of 2003, Rod Liberal is part of a group of rock climbers who set out to summit Grand Teton, the largest mountain in the Teton Range of Wyoming. But during the final ascent, something shocking happens, which changes everything in a flash. Suddenly, Rod finds himself perilously suspended, with a deadly drop below. How did he end up here? Why can he barely move? And is there any hope at all? That's next time on Real Survival Stories.

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55:13We'll be right back. ends June 30th, terms at aka.ms slash collegepc. I am one of Mochenui. On July 10th. Maui, you will board my boat and restore the heart of Te Fiti. And here we go. The journey begins. See her light up the night in the sea. She calls me. The ocean chose you. Let's go save the world. I got your back chosen one. Disney's Moana. Boat's neck. His name is Heihei. His name is Yum Yum. when he goes in my tum-tum. In theaters July 10th. Rated PG. Parental guidance suggested.