What I survived

The Night Mumbai Burned - Will Pike p2

On the evening of November 26, 2008, British freelance filmmaker Will Pike and his girlfriend checked into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for a one-night stopover on their way to Goa. It was meant to be a treat. A single night in one of the world's most famous hotels. By midnight, terrorists were moving through the corridors executing guests. Will and his girlfriend barricaded themselves in their room as the siege unfolded around them. They could hear the gunfire, they heard people being executed in the hallway outside their door. When smoke began filling the room they had no choice but to act. They broke the window, knotted together bedsheets and curtains, and tried to climb down the outside of the building, Will fell fifty feet. He broke his back, his pelvis, both wrists and his elbow. He was confined to a wheelchair. 167 people died that night at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Will Pike survived and then came the part nobody tells you about, rebuilding a life, a body and a sense of self when the world that existed before November 26, 2008 is simply gone. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Night Mumbai Burned - Will Pike p1

On the evening of November 26, 2008, British freelance filmmaker Will Pike and his girlfriend checked into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for a one-night stopover on their way to Goa. It was meant to be a treat. A single night in one of the world's most famous hotels. By midnight, terrorists were moving through the corridors executing guests. Will and his girlfriend barricaded themselves in their room as the siege unfolded around them. They could hear the gunfire, they heard people being executed in the hallway outside their door. When smoke began filling the room they had no choice but to act. They broke the window, knotted together bedsheets and curtains, and tried to climb down the outside of the building, Will fell fifty feet. He broke his back, his pelvis, both wrists and his elbow. He was confined to a wheelchair. 167 people died that night at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Will Pike survived and then came the part nobody tells you about, rebuilding a life, a body and a sense of self when the world that existed before November 26, 2008 is simply gone. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Becoming Mr James: Undercover Inside North Korea P2

Jim Latrache grew up poor in Denmark, joined the French Foreign Legion as a young man, and spent years as a high-end cocaine dealer to Copenhagen's wealthy elite before a prison sentence gave him five and a half years to reconsider his life choices. What came next nobody could have predicted. When Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger needed someone to pose as a shady arms dealer willing to negotiate illegal weapons and drug deals with North Korean regime officials, he needed someone who could be utterly convincing in the role. Someone with the background, the nerve, and the complete absence of fear that the job required. He called Jim. Under the alias Mr James, Jim travelled to Uganda, Spain, Norway and deep into North Korea itself, meeting with regime officials, sitting across tables from people willing to discuss Scud missiles and methamphetamine factories, all while wearing hidden cameras and knowing that if his cover was blown, people have been killed for considerably less. The result was The Mole, one of the most extraordinary undercover documentaries ever made. But behind the footage is the story of the man who lived it — what it actually felt like to walk into the world's most dangerous dictatorship wearing a wire, and what it takes to come back out the other side. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Becoming Mr James: Undercover Inside North Korea

Jim Latrache grew up poor in Denmark, joined the French Foreign Legion as a young man, and spent years as a high-end cocaine dealer to Copenhagen's wealthy elite before a prison sentence gave him five and a half years to reconsider his life choices. What came next nobody could have predicted. When Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger needed someone to pose as a shady arms dealer willing to negotiate illegal weapons and drug deals with North Korean regime officials, he needed someone who could be utterly convincing in the role. Someone with the background, the nerve, and the complete absence of fear that the job required, he called Jim. Under the alias Mr James, Jim travelled to Uganda, Spain, Norway and deep into North Korea itself, meeting with regime officials, sitting across tables from people willing to discuss Scud missiles and methamphetamine factories, all while wearing hidden cameras and knowing that if his cover was blown, people have been killed for considerably less. The result was The Mole, one of the most extraordinary undercover documentaries ever made. But behind the footage is the story of the man who lived it what it actually felt like to walk into the world's most dangerous dictatorship wearing a wire, and what it takes to come out alive. Jims books can be found here [https://www.storytel.com/tv/books/how-to-buy-missiles-and-sell-drugs-12984220] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

On Fire: The Jamie Hull Story p2

On the 19th of August 2007, British Army reservist and SAS trooper Jamie Hull was days away from completing his private pilot's licence when his aircraft engine caught fire during a solo training flight over Florida. He had 45 seconds to decide how to survive. With the cockpit engulfed in flames and the plane descending rapidly, Jamie did something that should have been impossible. He climbed out of the burning cockpit, stood on the wing of a plummeting aircraft, and jumped. The plane exploded sixty feet behind him. What followed was six months in intensive care, six months in a coma, third degree burns to 60% of his body, over 60 operations, and a 5% chance of survival. And then the longer, quieter battle, rebuilding a life, a body and an identity from the wreckage. This is not just a story about surviving a plane crash. It is a story about what happens in the years that follow when the world moves on and the hardest fight is still ahead. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.