Insight: June 9

Over the next two weeks, Insight looks at survival and discusses the ways in which humans keep going in the face of extreme adversity.

Fiona Wilde was on a guided tour in an Amazon nature reserve in Ecuador when she was abducted at gunpoint.

On September 11, 2001, James Dorney was on the 92nd floor when he saw a plane go into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. He walked the entire perimeter of the South Tower before escaping in the stairwell.

Rob Hewitt was separated from his dive boat off the coast of New Zealand in 2006. He survived at sea by treading water for four days and three nights.

Meet the Guests

James Dorney
James sat down at his desk on the 92nd floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when he saw a massive explosion in the building opposite. Ignoring announcements his Tower was secure, he started to evacuate; “It’s impossible to describe a Boeing 767 slamming into the side of the building you’re standing in”. Hundreds of people flooded the stairwells which James says was, “extremely challenging, the feeling of helplessness, Not being able to move”.

David Jacobs
In 2008, the world watched as Mumbai tackled eight terror attacks around the city. David took refuge in a cupboard in his room in the Oberoi Hotel. While terrorists took over the hotel for three days, David’s lifeline was his mobile phone, which he used to stay in touch with friends, family and security analysts who talked him through the siege.

Rob Hewitt
Rob was separated from his boat on a recreational dive off the coast of New Zealand in 2006. It wasn’t until the sun started to set he realised he was in serious trouble. He tried to think of someone who had survived something like this, “I’d come to the conclusion that no one had done it. No one had survived out at sea at night time floating in the water”. Rob would in fact spend four days and three nights adrift at sea, suffering severe hallucinations and exposure.

Fiona Wilde
When Fiona’s tour boat was stopped in the middle of the Amazon River in 2012 she thought it was a robbery, but “once they got us off that boat and got us to run at gun point, that was when I figured this might be real.” Fiona was held hostage for 30 hours, and throughout her ordeal, she knew she had to stay valuable to the bandits because the “only way out is relying on these three people that have just kidnapped me and are threatening my life.”

Prof Richard Bryant
Prof Bryant is a world expert in the psychological response to trauma. In times of extreme stress, when our lives are threatened, we experience a number of reactions, from tunnel vision, to time distortion and freezing. “As a species, we’ve worked out ways to survive; Adrenaline is released, and it creates all the body reactions that we need to deal with the threat”.

8:30pm Tuesday SBS ONE.