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5 Shocking and Compelling Events

MSNBC has searched for the most amazing footage of people in extreme, desperate situations. The “5” series presents eight half-hour episodes, each containing 5 shocking and compelling events, all told by the people who experienced them.

Dennis Rader was a civil servant and church president. Gary Ridgway had a job at truck factory and a house in the suburbs. David Berkowitz worked for the Post Office, and Jeffrey Dahmer had wild nightmares that became reality. Some were known by other names, like BTK, Green River, or Son of Sam, but they were all serial killers, hiding in plain sight.



Five animal attacks, caught on tape: In Washington State, an angry buck kicks a hunter, knocking his bow out of his hands, then drives the man into the

ground, all while his wife records the scene on video. At Yosemite National Park, black bears weigh up to 400 pounds, can sprint almost as fast as a greyhound and climb a tree like a cat. And while black bears usually won't attack people unless surprised or provoked, they can rip the door off a car, and will do so if there's food inside. But the problem isn't confined to the wilderness. In fact, from the Rockies to suburban New Jersey an estimated 750 thousand black bears are bumping into humans at an alarming rate. A woman going for a dip 300 miles off the coast of Chile gets some unexpected company. A great white shark lurks just inches away, causing her to swim for her life. Across the globe, a 16-year-old boy decides to brave the waters off South Africa's Eastern Cape, known as a surfer's paradise but also as a feeding ground for great white sharks. While at San Antonio's SeaWorld, a killer whale turns on his trainer, dragging him into a nightmare game of Marco Polo. And a raging bull turns an animal rights protester into a human rag doll during the annual festival in Pamplona, Spain.



Five bungee jumpers hurl themselves 200 feet off a Tampa, Florida bridge, but somewhere between the bridge and the bay, a daring thrill ride turns to horror. A first-time skydiver decides to jettison his main parachute canopy and drift to earth on his reserve chute. But by the time he acts, he's only about 250 feet from the ground. A roller coaster called The Demon runs off track in mid-loop, trapping 23 people upside down 50 feet in the air.  skateboarder going for the gold in the X-Games Big Air event loses control and plunges about 45 feet. And a snowboarder gets caught in an avalanche that throws him off a cliff the size of a six-story building. 5 incredible stories of thrilling rides that take terrifying turns.


Dramatic footage of 5 Close Calls. Three girls slip through the ice into a frigid lake, but their would-be rescuer crashes through the ice himself. The girls get out but he is trapped below for an excrutiating 20 minutes. Two boys hang on for dear life hundreds of feet above the ground and only inches from certain electrocution from utility wires. A young woman driving to school is suddenly pushed onto the tracks at a railroad crossing and her car is instantly pinned to the side of a moving train. A hot air balloon bursts into flames in full view of the friends and family on the ground who have just jumped to safety themselves. And a young girl is thrown from her car only to become trapped inside a tomb of several tons of concrete.



A man shot point blank five times. A woman whose scarf helps save her life. Plane passengers who survive a crash because of a twist of fate. A lifeguard who lives through a ball of fire. A teenager trapped underwater for almost an hour. Five stories of people who should not be alive.





Imagine this, a construction worker stranded in a crane 25 stories above a raging inferno in Atlanta. A badly-injured man hanging off a beam 120 feet above the ground at Seattle's Space Needle. An 11-year-old boy stuck in an inches-thick crevice between 2 rocks, slipping deeper with every breath. A family trapped in a boat that's teetering over the edge of a dam in Indianapolis. And a New Zealand couple on the open ocean, battling gale winds, roaring seas and the immediate threat of being swept away. All of them are desperate people in deadly peril. Would they be saved? Could they be saved?


A deadly collision in midair tests a man's will to live. A megatwister rips apart a town but spares the smallest. A firestorm destroys everything in its path while one determined woman finds a way out. A teenager injured and trapped in her wrecked car for days fights for her life. And a couple caught underwater when a ferry sinks. 5 cases of  beating the odds, people who had the will to live, and it's all caught on tape.





Dream vacations are supposed to be carefree, but some turn out to be downright deadly. There's the fishing trip that turns into an inferno 16 miles offshore. A husband struggling to save his wife from a tsunami. An Alaska helicopter trip that becomes a fight for survival. A train going 90 miles per hour jumping the tracks in the middle of the night. And a swimmer caught in an undersea cave seeing his life flash before his eyes. They're all caught on tape as vacation dreams turn into 5 vacation nightmares!