01x03 - Escape

[bunniefuu]

[soft suspenseful music playing]

[Yaar] It felt like,

"This is my way of helping."

And I thought to myself,

"I can't leave this behind."

I asked Shahar,

"Do you think this is a good idea?"

He said,

"If I were you,

I wouldn't do it."

[Jhangbu] I said, "Don't go to the village

because many houses are destroyed

and many people have died."

"We should go there

only after our villagers come back,

because the people from the village know

what belongs to whom."

[dramatic burst of music]

[Aashis] I see four people

coming up from Langtang Valley,

and I see one of them

carrying a plastic bag.

He said, "We found this money."

Why would you bring money?

It's of no value right now.

It means that you went through stuff

that wasn't yours.

Because I would not personally do this.

If I had to look for food,

if I found something, I'd leave it there.

I would only take

the things that I would need.

[in Nepali] I saw that two of our Israeli

friends were carrying a bag of something

in their hands.

I asked them where they brought it from

and why they brought it.

They told me

that they brought it from the village

and that it belonged to a trekker.

I told them they couldn't be sure of that,

as the money could also be a villager's.

If it's a villager's, it must be returned.

They were reluctant to give me the bag.

When they didn't agree, I snatched it.

[dramatic music playing]

Inside, we found the ID

of one of our villagers.

[Aashis] Finding

the Nepali citizenship card

meant that the money

was from one of the villagers.

I was really scared for the Israeli guy,

because the yellow-jacket guy,

he was really pissed.

You never know what an angry person can do

in that state of mind.

[dramatic drumbeat]

[baby crying]

[indistinct chatter]

[reporter 1] Four days after the quake,

hope is fading

that more survivors will be found

under all this wreckage,

but the search continues.

[reporter 2] Rescue workers there

have been desperately digging

through the rubble,

searching for any signs of life.

[thud]

[man 1] This is a race against time.

It's also a race against a moving target.

[Durga] It's nearly impossible

to survive after four days

especially when the person

is trapped under the rubble.

[drilling]

I mean, if you don't have any access

to clean air or water,

food, I mean,

how many days can you survive?

[drilling]

[Durga] The more delays

you are going to do

the more dead bodies

you are going to count.

[suspenseful music grows]

From where you're standing,

it's a humongous void underneath here.

[machine beeping]

[dog barking]

[Arjun] My youngest daughter

was quite small.

She was waiting

to eat her lunch in another room

when the earthquake occurred.

[man 2] How about I run that

as far as it can in this building?

[man 3] Okay.

[Arjun] I had a strong intuition

that they were alive,

so I was very positive,

and we sped up

the digging process.

[man 2] I think my line's caught.

Somehow, I got it wedged.

[machine beeping]

[Durga] All of a sudden, I got a call

that we have a lead or information

that a person could be alive

under the rubble in Gongabu.

[man 4] Is there a person there?

[man 5] Hold on. Let me check and confirm.

[Durga] Then I asked him,

"Who gave you this information?"

Then he said,

"Sir, we have a small team from the USA."

"They are scouting the whole area."

[man 6] We're gonna run

listening equipment,

and we need everyone

to just be quiet for a few minutes.

[man 2] US 1 and 2,

just hold on one second.

If you guys can be quiet

over there for a second.

[machine beeping]

Don't shuffle. Don't talk.

Just stand perfectly still.

[suspenseful music playing]

[noise quietens]

[alarm blaring in distance]

[dog barking]

[machine beeping]

[dog barking]

[man 2] What's the matter?

There's someone to rescue on this side.

- [man 2] Rescue?

- Yeah, rescue. Here.

[man 2] Do they have a live victim?

[dog barking]

[dramatic music grows]

[dramatic music crescendos]

[music fades]

[soft melancholic music playing]

[Dave Hahn] I don't think

I could have imagined

being in a worse place than sitting

in the bottom of this U-shaped valley,

with 3,000-foot cliffs of rock

and ice towering above us.

[Sara] Damian went to figure out

if we can walk down the mountain.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Sara] And he came back saying,

"It's not safe."

"It is not stable

and we cannot walk down."

"We just have to wait

until we get rescued."

And we asked, "How long?"

And he said, "We don't know."

And that was a very scary moment.

[dramatic drumbeat]

[Damian] It was a serious situation.

We're on an island.

We are on an island. We cannot go down.

[Sara] All of a sudden,

one of our group mates,

he came to our tent and he's like,

"Do you guys want to go up?"

And I'm like, "What?!"

I am doggedly determined.

I-I don't take no for an answer.

If you want to climb Mount Everest,

you need a shitload of cash.

40,000 is about the bare minimum.

You can't get back the money

that you paid into your expedition.

That money had already been spent.

I'm not just gonna give up the dream.

[Sara] I didn't want to go up.

I felt like, mentally,

I'm not ready anymore,

and I didn't want to tell him

that I cannot make it

and I'm not capable of it anymore.

I didn't want to show

that I'm weaker than him.

[nostalgic music playing]

[Sara] I grew up in Iran.

It was a very oppressive,

restrictive environment.

I always pretended

that I'm playing with dolls

and I'm enjoying it.

Really, inside me, I was thinking,

"I'd really prefer

to go biking right now."

[camera shutter clicks]

[Sara] I remember, once,

I climbed this tree

all the way to the top,

and these boys went to my dad and said,

"Sara is wearing shorts,

and girls are not supposed

to wear shorts."

My dad came to me and he said, "Go home!"

And I was like, "This is a setup!"

"I climbed a tree."

"He's jealous of me.

That's why you're sending me back home."

It's frustrating knowing

that you can do so much more,

and you can't.

Because the system doesn't allow you.

[deep rumbling]

[Dave Hahn] Another tremor?

I didn't anticipate

that there would be aftershocks

in the five and six range

on the Richter scale.

- You're okay, you guys.

- [Dave Hahn] Okay.

[woman 1] Remember,

a lot of stuff came down yesterday.

- [man 7] A lot came up yesterday, right?

- Yep. Just take a deep breath.

I know it's scary as sh*t.

[Dave Hahn] I looked up

at this 3,000-foot cliff of ice and rock,

and I felt like we were too close to it.

Over the years, I'd seen avalanches

come off of that west shoulder

and take out tents at Camp 1.

[Dave] Are we done

accounting for everybody?

[woman 1] Camp 1, we're fine.

[Dave Hahn] Yeah, we got one

that came off of Nuptse.

- Scary, huh?

- [Sara] Yeah.

[Dave] Big sound.

[Sara] Not only sound.

[Pat] You know,

it's kind of moving here and there,

but I knew

that we could salvage something.

Now, I didn't check in with

our expedition leader, but, in my head,

I was ready.

[Phurba] In Sherpa culture,

every mountain signifies God.

We respect mountains

like they're our mother.

If there's no respect,

it becomes difficult.

[Damian] You'd be surprised

what I heard from people,

that they wanted to go to the summit.

"I don't care about anybody else here."

"This summit is very important for me."

"I must summit, no matter what."

"I'm going up Everest.

I don't care what happened."

That's the way they think.

For those people,

there's such a detachment of reality.

[Pat] I felt the ground

going up and down six, eight inches.

[Dave] Yeah. It was moving up and down.

It was like, "This is a big one."

I'm not dying pushing a lawnmower.

I'm gonna die doing something

where I said, "You know what?"

"I crawled over the finish line,

and this is what I got,

and this is my end."

[dramatic music playing]

[music fades]

[soft melancholic music playing]

[Athena] Things had been

dialed up to nine,

and it was only a matter of time

before they went to ten.

I remember

a lot of that tension coming from

just the sternness of everyone's faces,

and the obvious gravity

that they were holding

this particular indiscretion in.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jhangbu] The brother of the person

whose money was taken came,

and I told him what happened.

I told him,

"This guy took your brother's money."

He repeatedly asked me who it was,

so I pointed to them.

[Yuval] And then, suddenly,

I saw two locals

walking up to one of the Israelis

and asking him,

"Who went down to the village?"

"Who took the money?

Where are the Israelis?"

[indistinct shouting]

And then, suddenly,

one of the locals just gives him a shove

and pushes him back.

And that's when violence started.

Our friends picked up rocks.

They did as well.

[shouting]

Stones were thrown,

may there be no mistake.

I got kicked and thrown rocks at.

And I was afraid.

[Shahar in Hebrew] What I saw was chaos.

I saw the Israelis defending themselves.

I looked at the local Nepalis

and I could see a desire for revenge.

[Yuval] And right at that moment,

the most unexpected thing happened.

The Nepali Army came in.

And then they managed, somehow,

God knows how,

to separate the two sides.

[dramatic music fades]

[Jhangbu] Many of our villagers had died.

Our village was destroyed.

Instead of helping us,

they took our money.

Everyone in that situation,

if they had found someone taking money,

would react the same way.

Everyone gets angry.

[Aashis] And the guide said to me,

"Hey, I just lost my mother,

and I just lost two children down there."

"Every bit of penny or cash that I have

is in that house,

and that house is gone."

I-I was like, "Yeah, you're right."

"We absolutely had no right going

down there and getting all their stuff."

[solemn music playing]

[Yaar] With the earthquake and that crazy,

hectic situation that we were in,

that made them act that way,

made me act that way.

My intentions were good.

But I can't change it.

[Yuval] Yaar was devastated

by the situation.

I told him, "Listen, first of all,

you did nothing wrong."

And I was trying to focus him

on what to do next

because this was a survival situation,

and my main goal at that point

was to keep him focused on surviving.

After one moment,

I was most afraid of the earth,

an earthquake, and landslides, and nature.

The next moment, the most terrifying thing

around is humans.

And that was a feeling I've never

I've never experienced before.

Even in the army, you barely get

into a face-to-face situation

where you actually see your enemy's eyes.

I really felt in danger after that.

I really felt as if,

when night comes,

someone's gonna come over with a knife

and try and stab someone to death.

[solemn music fades]

[foreboding music playing]

- [drilling]

- [siren wailing]

[Durga] When I reached the site,

oh my God,

I could see thousands and thousands

of people surrounding that area.

A lot of international

search-and-rescue teams.

[man 2] Did you make it down there?

It's amazing that the US government

has sent us across the world

to help people in need,

and we're here to

to actually help the people.

So it's an amazing feeling.

[Durga] That's when I was called

by the Ministry of Home and I was told,

"We don't want to see any international

search-and-rescue teams taking a lead

in any of these sites."

It's good that everyone wanted to respond,

but most of the time,

I had a difficult time to convince them,

"You should support us."

"You know,

it's not that we are supporting you."

[man 8] Hey! Get out of there!

[shouting]

[Durga] Because I knew my men.

I knew the challenge.

I knew each building

because I spent 20 years in Kathmandu.

I know every nook and corner.

A bit flatter!

I could see the three

search-and-rescue officers,

including Mr. Laxman Basnet.

[man 9] There were lots of guests

in that hotel,

so there might be lots of victims

inside that building.

I asked, "Who's going to take the lead?"

And I said to Mr. Basnet, "Why not you?"

Because I trained him.

I know him personally.

And I knew

if Mr. Basnet cannot do it,

nobody can do it.

[Laxman] We communicated with Arjun,

the owner of the Hotel Bheemeshwori.

He told us his wife

and children were buried inside.

[Arjun in Nepali]

We still had to look for Sangeeta.

We kept shouting her name,

"Sangeeta! Sangeeta! Sangeeta!"

[Kanchi] People were saying that my

daughter and granddaughter were fine.

I also believed that they were all right

and I thought my luck was strong.

[Aashika] There was a rumor

she had been asking for water

and a child was heard crying.

[indistinct chatter]

As I entered,

it was complete darkness inside.

[grunting]

His whole body was inside that pigeonhole.

Because there were

aftershocks continually

[rumbling]

if stones fell, or the building collapsed

some more, or if debris fell,

it wouldn't be just the victim dying.

The rescuer would also die.

[indistinct chatter and shouting]

[Durga] Suddenly, he came out. He said,

"Sir, I can feel a leg

of a person still moving."

So that gave me a glimmer of hope

that a person is alive.

[dramatic drumbeat]

[wind howling]

[Dave] See the guy wire

moving from the tent?

Another tremor.

- Did you feel the ground shaking?

- Oh, yeah.

I think that was a big one,

and that shook something loose

from over on the west shoulder.

Twenty-four hours after the earthquake,

we're sitting inside the tent.

I had all my gear on,

and I was really cold and really weak.

[Dave] We're gonna get a powder shot.

And there's another one

from the other side of the valley.

[indistinct chatter]

And I heard our guide yelling,

"Avalanche! Avalanche!"

[Dave] Here comes the powder blast!

[avalanche roaring]

[Dave] Close your tents up!

[Sara] I panicked,

and I don't know

how I managed to put my helmet on.

I was shaking so badly,

I couldn't clip it.

[gadget beeping]

[Dave] Here comes one

from the other direction.

[roaring]

[beeping]

[Sara] And then I heard

the guide yell again,

"We are safe. We are okay."

And I was like, "Oh, my God."

"I'm not gonna take my helmet off."

"I'm just gonna keep this on

for the rest of my life."

[roaring stops]

[Sara] It was just

a really weird sensation of,

"Nothing is safe."

"Whatever I do,

there is no way I can survive this."

- That was a pretty strong aftershock.

- [Dave] Yeah, that's

I want to say that was in the sixes.

[Dave sighs] Probably.

Yeah, okay.

Powder blast is subsiding.

[Pat] That's when it hit me.

This climb was over.

This was just Mother Nature saying,

"This is not the time to climb me."

Now it wasn't so much of,

"Can we get up to Camp 2?"

But, "Can we actually

get off this mountain?"

It was not clear how.

So, we set up a meeting

with the rest of the team leaders.

I explained to them that there was no way

that we're bringing people

down the mountain.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Dave] Everybody's looking to the leader

in a situation like this,

and people were looking to us

to pretend that we had a strategy.

We knew we had this other solution,

but it wasn't a solution

that any of us felt all that good about.

We knew we could wave

our credit cards in the air

and get helicopters

to come into the Western Cwm,

but I didn't want

any more resources going to us.

I didn't want anything more

getting in the way

of Nepalese being able to help each other.

[Pat] I don't suffer from guilt.

The contemporary pressures

are for us to all feel guilty

that we have any type of privilege,

that we should all be apologetic

for what we have.

I don't feel that way.

I spent a lot of time

looking at every insurance option,

and I paid for the best.

I have a lot to live for.

[solemn music playing]

[Athena] After the fight,

people felt very subdued.

It changed the dynamic.

It turned the Israelis into the pariahs.

Miss, you can tell them

that two portions is one, two.

[Athena] Okay. So

[Jhangbu] The Israelis

didn't behave badly with me after that.

They hesitated even to come near me.

Now there's a line, I can give you

two portions, one, two, then go away.

[Jhangbu] How I found out is

I had brought some food up with the boys.

The Israelis came to receive the food too.

They hung their heads low.

They didn't hold their heads up

or talk to me.

I think they realized

they did something wrong.

[foreboding music playing]

[Shahar in Hebrew] Our sole mission

was to get out of there alive

and hug our families.

It was the only thing

we had in mind at that moment.

[Yuval] I remember myself coming up

to the highest-ranking officer

of the army guys that were there,

and asking,

"You guys understand the situation."

"We need you. We depend on you.

You're not gonna leave us, right?"

"You're not gonna strand us here?

You're gonna take care of us, right?"

I asked him. I needed the reassurance.

And he was like,

"My soldiers are going to stay here."

"They're going to be here

to help and protect you guys."

I was thinking to myself,

"Okay, nighttime is about to come,

but we'll make it through the night."

"The army guys are still here

and it's gonna be okay."

And then the next thing happens.

[dramatic music builds]

[Yuval] I hear a huge chopper

coming towards us.

[Aashis] This army chopper was big,

because they could well take

at least 20 people at a time.

And everyone's hoping,

like, we'd all be getting off.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Yuval] I'm telling

the rest of the Israelis, "Listen,

we all are in the most danger

out of everyone here."

- "We have to get on this chopper."

- [camera shutter clicking]

Suddenly, I see soldiers being pulled

into the helicopter from the crowd.

And at this point,

the helicopter is more than half empty.

More than half empty.

[Aashis] Once the army guys stepped on

the chopper, it started closing its door.

I was looking at it and I was like,

"What's happening?"

[camera shutter clicking]

And suddenly, it just goes up.

And the helicopter starts rising,

and at that point, I completely lost it

because I was thinking to myself,

"God, we're screwed."

[Athena] It was

a tremendous disappointment.

They did leave some noodles.

They did leave some biscuits,

and they took no one but their own.

[Aashis] As that chopper flew away,

my hopes of getting back

were flying away with them.

I felt in despair.

I felt helpless.

[dramatic crescendo]

[Aashis in Nepali] Okay, hopefully,

this is our final day here.

[Aashis] Nobody was coming for us.

And that night, this other group

that we were sharing the room with,

we found out they had some vodka.

[Aashis in Nepali] We survived.

[Aashis] And I'm not

much of a drinker, myself.

I could never drink vodka straight up.

[Aashis in Nepali]

We are here in Langtang, drinking.

We lit a fire. We're having a good time.

[Aashis] There was nothing else

we could do now.

And then we had a few drinks among us,

and I guess that kind of helped us

get through Monday night.

[in Nepali] We should love each other.

We are all Nepali brothers.

[in Hebrew] Ironically, it was

the most beautiful night in Langtang.

It was the first time

the sky had a clear, open view.

Suddenly, I was reminded

of why I am here in the first place,

and how, just a moment ago,

everything was so different to me.

It was, wow, a very powerful moment.

[foreboding music playing]

[horns honking]

[indistinct chatter and shouting]

[man 10 in Nepali]

Here, I have a torch. Here's a light.

[Arjun] When Laxman's team came,

they didn't stop working.

[saw whirring]

Six feet long.

[Durga] Now I had information that

a person could be alive under the rubble.

I said, "Mr. Basnet, can you in any way

make it to the upper body

so that you can feel the chest?"

And he said,

"Okay, I'll try my best again."

He went in again.

[dramatic music grows]

[Durga] Having that lead,

I was still a little bit skeptical

that we would be able

to extract a live person.

I knew the chances

were very little, very bleak.

[grunting]

[Durga] Mr. Basnet, he said,

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

And then they started speaking.

That was when we came to know

the true identity of the person.

[in Nepali] He told me

that his name was Pemba Tamang.

[emotive music playing]

[Arjun in Nepali]

He came to the hotel looking for work.

He was very young.

His parents separated when he was a kid.

The only time he experienced

a loving family home was with us.

[in Nepali] I didn't have any brothers,

so Pemba was like my own brother.

He loved me a lot

and would take me out sometimes.

[indistinct chatter and shouting]

That news went through the crowd

like a wildfire.

Stop rolling.

I'll let you know when he's coming.

[man 11] No, I've got plenty of tape.

[reporter 3] Inside there, there's

a person who's been communicating.

He says he's 15 years old

and his name is Pemba.

Someone who's possibly survived there

under the rubble.

Durga asked me if I could do it.

I told him it was possible,

that I could, we could.

I said, "Okay, but make sure that his head

or his neck is not struck, you know,

in any of the physical obstruction

in between."

Uh "We want to make sure

that he has been extracted alive,

at least until he goes to the hospital."

[Laxman] So I went back in there,

got to where he was,

and held on to his shirt collar.

For about 25 feet,

I struggled and pulled him alone.

[groaning]

As we approached the outside,

my team pulled me and we dragged him out.

[hopeful music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[man 12] Here we go!

Back up, back up!

[indistinct chatter and shouting]

[man 13 in Nepali] You are okay.

Don't panic. Everything is okay.

He was completely shaken.

You know, out of food,

out of water for more than five days,

and he was fragile.

[man 13 in Nepali] Don't panic, brother.

You will be fine. Everything is okay.

I didn't want him to die, you know,

after we pulled him out

from under the rubble.

You know,

that was another critical moment.

[in Nepali] Clear a path!

Clear the path!

Make space! Clear the path!

Let's take him to the hospital.

Let's take him.

[American rescuer] Just wait. All right.

Good job.

[dramatic music playing]

[loud commotion]

- [man shouts]

- [crowd chants back]

[Durga] And then we put him

in the ambulance.

And I told the ambulance guy,

"Don't worry about anything.

Just pull away."

[siren wailing]

[Durga] "And if you don't respond fast,

in any moment, we will lose Mr. Pemba."

[American rescue worker]

Hey, hey! Slow down!

[music fades]

[soft emotive music playing]

[in Nepali] I didn't know what

an earthquake was. It was my first time.

The beam of the house

came down and hit my head.

I fainted.

I was moving my hands around

to see if I could find anything.

People used to sell ghee there,

so I found some jars.

I ate about two fistfuls.

I didn't know if I was dead or alive

when they pulled me out.

[uplifting music playing]

[cheering and applause]

[chanting]

No matter what,

my biggest achievement is Pemba's rescue.

[wild cheering]

[Laxman] That moment gives me energy.

I still get re-energized when I see it.

[shouting and cheering]

There is no other satisfaction

in your entire job

than to pull a person alive, you know,

from the clasp of death.

[Aashika] I heard Pemba had been found

and that he survived on ghee.

I was happy.

Pemba was rescued

and my mother must be close to him,

so I was sure she was also safe.

[Pemba] I called for them.

They were also buried.

I knew they were buried.

I could hear them crying and shouting.

[Laxman] He told us that he had heard two

people, a woman and a kid shouting there.

The challenge now was to find out

where the cries were coming from.

[siren wailing]

[Yuval] So, the morning comes

and the army's gone,

and we're thinking to ourselves,

"Okay, what's next?"

And then the guy with the yellow jacket

gathers everyone.

He says he has an announcement to make.

And he says,

"We, the locals, we're here to stay."

"This is our home.

This is where our families are buried."

"We're staying here."

He pointed towards the Israelis

and he said,

"And the Israelis,

if someone comes to rescue you,

you're not going on any helicopter."

"You're not getting out."

Clear-cut that the locals

would make trouble

for the Israelis to be rescued

as kind of, like, "payback," I guess,

for what happened.

The one thought I had in my mind

was that getting rescued

would be a freaking battle for my life.

And maybe a violent one, potentially.

[Jhangbu] I didn't say

they wouldn't be flying.

I told them they would be flying last,

as they were fit and fine.

I was still angry

because of how they had behaved.

[Yuval] There was no reasoning

with the locals.

And the only resolution in my mind

was a crazy one.

Shahar had this GPS gadget,

and somehow, in the aftermath

of the earthquake and the avalanche,

he manages to find the gadget.

And this thing is our only way

to communicate with the outer world.

As a matter of fact,

we were the only people with the ability

to communicate with the outer world,

which is a huge advantage

in such a situation.

Right after the fight with the locals,

I told Shahar, "Listen,

you have to send over

a message that we're in danger

and that they have to come

and rescue us ASAP."

[Shahar] Yuval told me,

"Not just a rescue,

but we must be rescued

by people with weapons,

as the situation

could deteriorate any minute."

[Yuval] I told him, "Listen,

make sure that there's no chance in hell

that anyone that comes here isn't armed,

because it's such an expl*sive situation."

[producer in Nepali] Did you know

that the Israelis had a satellite device?

[Jhangbu] I didn't know about that.

It is a remote area. There is no way

to communicate with anyone.

Everyone was really disturbed then.

Not only locals,

but even the guides and porters were

wishing they could contact their families.

They wanted to know their condition

and let them know they're alive.

They could have at least mentioned

that they had a way of communicating

if we required it,

even for the sake of humanity.

I think they are really selfish people.

They are sinful.

[solemn music playing]

[Dave] It looks different.

It felt like a big plateau.

Yeah, exactly.

- [Dave] We couldn't see much.

- You couldn't see.

[Dave] It became obvious

with the aftershocks

that we couldn't ask anybody

to go into the icefall

to rebuild the route,

and we couldn't let

a good flying day go by

without taking advantage.

We couldn't hem and haw and say,

"Well, is it ethically correct

to get a rescue going

when so many must need help?"

Uh No, we needed

to pull the trigger on this.

[Damian] The conclusion was

that we needed to come up with

a major evacuation plan by helicopter.

When sh*t hits the fan, call Maurizio.

[man 14 in Italian]

When you fly at high altitudes,

there's a reduction in performance.

We are really flying at the limit.

[Dave] A helicopter rescue at 20,000 feet

didn't used to be possible.

Flying in the mountains

is still inherently very dangerous.

To fly that many people out

had many of us wondering

how it could possibly get done

without something going wrong.

[Maurizio in Italian] I was aware

of the fact that, at that altitude,

we could rescue

a maximum of three people at a time.

[dramatic music grows]

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Damian]

One of the biggest issues was that

there were more than 150 people

on the mountain.

Who goes first?

Who goes last?

[Sara] There was a line of people

waiting for the helicopter.

And they said, "Women first."

And I was so excited.

I was like,

this is the very first time in my life

I'm a woman

and I'm happy I'm a woman. [laughing]

[Sara] They threw us into the helicopter.

The helicopter didn't have any chairs.

They took off all the chairs.

I was very thankful

that they finally came for us.

It was one of the most beautiful flights

of my life.

[pilot speaking over radio]

[Sara] All of the crevasses

that we crossed two days before,

they were right there,

we were watching them.

And in five minutes,

we were in the base camp.

[Dave] Where they were choosing

to use as a landing pad

was the center of the blast zone

because that made a good helipad now.

Getting out of the helicopter,

you would think there would have been

some high fives or some celebrating,

and it was just the opposite of that.

It was just a very solemn

and sad occasion.

You finally understood

the scope of the destruction.

[solemn music playing]

[Pat] I hopped off the helicopter

and I looked around,

and I was curious to see

the landmarks that we had,

because all the landmarks were tents.

And none of them were there.

It-it looked like a b*mb went off.

[Sara] It felt like a graveyard.

People had blood on their jackets,

and you didn't want to ask them,

"Where is this coming from?"

And there were those blue tarps there,

like, next to each other,

and the size of the blue tarps

were like the size of a person lying down.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Sara] One of the climbers told me

that these are all the bodies

that are waiting for the helicopter

to take them down the mountain.

[Dave] We finally understood

what this disaster had been.

If you were in the wrong place

at Everest Base Camp

when that blast came through

there was nothing that was gonna help you.

And that we'd been extremely lucky

up there at Camp 1.

[dramatic music grows]

[man 15] At first, when I saw

the messages from Shahar,

they were really disturbing.

It was messages about violence.

And they asked if we can come armed,

which is really unique.

This is not acute mountain sickness.

This is not hypothermia.

This is not what I know.

So you have to think out of the box

and understand

that you have to do something urgently.

[dramatic music playing]

[music fades]

We were getting messages from Israel

that rescue's on its way,

it's a matter of hours.

[helicopter blades whirring]

Then, suddenly,

I see a helicopter in the distance.

And a few hundred meters away,

this helicopter lands.

Out of this helicopter,

some guy jumps out.

And I look at this guy

in the distance and I see,

"Okay, he's wearing shorts,

he's wearing a T-shirt."

And I'm looking at him,

and I'm looking for his g*n.

And this guy comes in,

and everybody's around him,

and everyone's expecting

to hear what he has to say.

And then he says a sentence

which I'll never forget. He says

"My name is Yochai."

"I'm from Israel,

and I came to help everyone."

"came to help everyone."

In one second, with one sentence,

the whole tension drops flat.

The second everyone felt like we're all

going to be rescued and believed in it,

then there was nothing to fight over.

[Yochai] I think, to defuse a situation,

the best way is to have

a very, very, very strong tool,

which is hope.

[Athena] He said, "As long as the clouds

hold, as long as they don't come in,

anyone who wants to leave will leave."

It didn't feel real.

It didn't feel real

that someone could just appear.

It just seemed

It seemed too easy. [chuckles]

[Shahar] That was very joyful.

I remember trying to hide my smile,

um but I couldn't.

It was the realization that this is over.

[Yochai] After that speech,

I, uh, spoke with the guy

with the yellow jacket,

and, uh, I promised him

that the first helicopter will be for him.

[Jhangbu] I asked him if he could request

other helicopters to come,

as lots of people were injured there

and needed to be rescued.

[Yuval] Yochai came in

with a satellite phone,

and that satellite phone

was more powerful than any g*n

because that satellite phone

gave everybody hope.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Yochai] Once defused this situation,

everything is more calm

and it's about bringing more helicopters

just to evacuate.

[Athena] Getting on that helicopter,

I mean, I was ecstatic.

The second that the door was closed,

everyone cheered.

And then, a moment later,

it was like being punched in the heart.

And it was a really sober trip from there

to further down the valley,

especially as we passed over

the site of Langtang village.

[Jhangbu] Before the earthquake,

from a helicopter,

the landscape looked so beautiful.

The houses were beautiful.

There were villages.

My heart was crying inside.

I just didn't cry out loud.

I couldn't handle my heart.

[Yuval] I wish I would have been

more respectful

to the locals and their tragedy,

more aware of the tremendous pain

and the consequences

of going down to the village.

[Yaar] I misinterpreted

what had to be done there.

How can you comprehend

the magnitude of it

how much pain was involved in it?

I can't.

[melancholic music playing]

[Laxman] After the crowd lifted me,

we got back because Pemba said

there could be two more people down there.

He said he had heard them shouting.

So we went back to the worksite

and started searching again.

[Arjun] It wasn't possible to dig by hand,

as three to four stories

were piled up against each other.

We had to dig it with a dozer.

After a day of searching

we stopped hearing voices,

even though we shouted for them.

After that,

I felt she was no longer alive.

She was gone.

Then we found Sangeeta,

my brother's son and my youngest daughter.

She was carrying my brother's son

and holding our daughter

as they tried to run.

[in Nepali] I was eating dinner

and my uncle came by.

He didn't say anything

until I finished dinner.

Then he said

that they had found my mother.

He told me that she was no more

and asked if we wanted to visit.

I didn't go. I couldn't.

I didn't know what happened.

Everyone was numb.

My grandmother was crying [sobs]

[crying]

[Arjun] Even after I found

Sangeeta's body,

I couldn't fathom that she was dead.

It felt unreal.

I wish I was there

and would have died with Sangeeta.

Maybe if we had died together,

we would meet each other again.

[sobbing]

[sobbing]

I miss her.

[sobbing]

[soft melancholic music playing]

I can't believe this is happening.

[Jhangbu] Hello.

[all] Hi!