"In An Instant" -- An amazing TV series!

[Linda O'Donnell]

If you're a fan of survival stories, I found a wonderful new TV series that I think you'll like. Introduced by ABC earlier this year, it tells the true stories of people who went through horrific experiences and lived to tell the tale. Professionals acted out the stories, and during each of the reenactments, you could see what the survivors looked like while they narrated what was taking place.

This year (Season 1), seven episodes were aired:

Episode 1: Flying Blind
Episode 2: Rush Hour Disaster
Episode 3: Grizzly Bear Attack
Episode 4: Left for Dead
Episode 5: Bad Guys at the Good Guys
Episode 6: Buried Alive
Episode 7: The Shootout

So far, I've watched five of the programs and enjoyed them all. Here's a list of the ones I've seen so far, with my favorites first: Grizzly Bear Attack, Buried Alive, Left for Dead, Flying Blind, and Rush Hour Disaster.

Unfortunately, the series is no longer being shown on TV, but I found a link so you can watch it on your computer: http://abc.go.com/shows/in-an-instant/episode-guide. To watch any of the videos, scroll down to the episode you want and click on "WATCH" on the right side of the screen. There will be a short commercial before the video begins. Another option for viewing would be cable. My family has Comcast (Xfinity), and I noticed that some of the episodes are available through their "On Demand" feature.

As you'll notice in the episode guide (see above link), ABC did a horrible job describing the videos, as they don't sound interesting at all. Fortunately, that's not true, and I'm glad that I decided to give the program a chance, as I would have missed out on some really riveting stuff. The first episode that I watched was "Buried Alive," which was about a farmer's son who accidentally got "buried alive" in a huge silo (grain bin) as he was tamping down on some stuck corn in order to loosen it. He was drawn down into the corn the same way a person would be sucked into quicksand, and he missed being "chopped up" because someone turned off the auger in the nick of time. It was very exciting to see the events leading up to and including the accident, how his father and co-worker discovered where he was, and how he was finally rescued. After I saw the episode on TV, I couldn't stop talking about it, and I've rarely done that before--with anything.

If you haven't done so already, I hope you'll watch at least one of these videos and that you'll enjoy it (or them) as much as I did.