Make It Out Alive

On a warm summer night in July 1988, the Piper Alpha oil rig in the middle of the North Sea was the scene of the world's deadliest offshore accident. After a pipe malfunction left gas leaking, an explosion was triggered, which, as the gas pipes melted in the ensuing blaze, became a series of massive blasts. With over 300-foot-high flames, helicopter rescue was not an option for the 230 men on board – workers were forced to battle their way through the smoke and fire-filled labyrinth of the Piper Alpha oil rig in order to survive.

At midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sailing west on the Pacific toward the Philippines with 1,197 men on board when it was hit with two Japanese torpedoes. Within 12 minutes, the ship was at the bottom of the ocean and 900 men were left floating in shark-infested waters. Over the course of the next four days, the sailors struggled through dehydration, starvation, exposure and shark attacks in an astonishing tale of human survival.

On October 9, 1963, the Vajont Dam in northern Italy was the scene of incredible devastation. In just 45 seconds, a massive landslide of forest, earth and rock collapsed into the reservoir, sending an 820-foot-high wave of water flowing towards the dam wall. This tsunami of water blasted over the top of the dam, crashing into the valley and rushing towards the villages below, where thousands of unknowing residents were living. Follow the journeys of a handful of men, women and children who found themselves in the path of disaster.