Extraordinary People

The series exploring remarkable tales of human experience continues this week with the story of Flo and Kay, the world’s only female autistic savant twins. Savantism is a rare condition in which sufferers of developmental disorders, often autism, are capable of acts of genius that far outstrip their expected levels of ability. In Flo and Kay’s case, they each have extraordinary memories for facts and dates. Through interviews with several medical professionals, Extraordinary People: The Rainman Twins attempts to expose the truth behind this oft-misunderstood condition. Describing themselves as “human computers”, Flo and Kay can access their memories and make calculations more efficiently than most people.

The series exploring remarkable tales of human experience continues this week with an insight into the growing trend of freebirthing. The film follows the journeys of three pregnant women, in the UK and the US, who have decided to forego traditional medical care and give birth in their own homes with no professional assistance or pain relief.

In South London, Clair, a 26-year-old nurse, discusses the bad experience she had when delivering her first baby in hospital. “They insisted on monitoring me and intervening in ways that I didn’t want,” she says. She was also left alone in the delivery room until the final stages of labour.

When the midwife did check in, says Clair, she was more interested in looking at the machinery than in tending to the patient. “Births are overmanaged, over-medicalised,” she says. “Midwives seem to have lost that empathetic, caring side of their job.”

The series exploring remarkable tales of human experience continues this week with the story of a woman who calls herself ‘robochick’. After losing her eyes in car crash, Cheri Robertson was fitted with a bionic vision system and now has almost 500 electrodes implanted in her brain to help her see. The film also follows the experiences of a man who is in possession of the world’s most advanced bionic hand.

In 1989, Cheri Robertson was involved in a serious car accident which left her in a critical condition. Her head injuries were so severe that her eyes had to be surgically removed. After 15 years without her vision, Cheri learned of a revolutionary treatment that gave her new hope that she would see again.

The series exploring remarkable tales of human
experience continues with a profile of Dede, an
Indonesian man suffering from a skin condition that
has left him with tree-like growths on his hands and
feet. Unable to work and forced to appear in a
demeaning circus troupe, Dede’s only hope lies in
the visit of a dermatology specialist who may be
able to diagnose his condition. Meanwhile, a man in
Romania with a similar affliction undergoes
experimental surgery to cure him.
In a remote village in Indonesia, 36-year-old
fisherman Dede struggles to live an ordinary life.
He has baffled doctors with an affliction so terrible
that he can no longer work or venture out in
public. Dede has root-like structures growing out
of his limbs – branches that can grow up to five
centimetres a year, and welts that cover his body.
The mystery illness has robbed Dede of his
independence and he lives in the fear that the welts,
which first appeared when he was 15, may

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues
with another remarkable tale of human experience.
This film profiles autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire,
who is able to draw massively detailed landscapes
entirely from memory. The film charts his progress
from childhood to international success as an
artist, and shows how he has overcome his autism
to cope with social situations and achieve a limited
form of independence.
Stephen Wiltshire is a 33-year-old autistic man
with an extraordinary talent. He is one of less than
100 people in the world who is recognised as an
autistic savant. Whereas some savants excel in
mathematics or music, Stephen is an
accomplished artist, and is capable of producing
highly accurate drawings of buildings and cities
after seeing them just once.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, one of the
country’s leading experts in autism, claims
Stephen is remarkable because he represents a
combination of outstanding abilities, including

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another remarkable tale of human experience. This film profiles autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, who is able to draw massively detailed landscapes entirely from memory. The film charts his progress from childhood to international success as an artist, and shows how he has overcome his autism to cope with social situations and achieve a limited form of independence.

Stephen Wiltshire is a 33-year-old autistic man with an extraordinary talent. He is one of less than 100 people in the world who is recognised as an autistic savant. Whereas some savants excel in mathematics or music, Stephen is an accomplished artist, and is capable of producing highly accurate drawings of buildings and cities after seeing them just once.

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another remarkable tale of human experience. The Girls with Too Much Skin explores the lives of two sets of sisters who suffer from one of the most extreme skin diseases in the world. Lucy and Hannah Betts and Dana and Lara Bowen have harlequin ichthyosis, a painful and incurable condition that brings with it the constant threat of fatal infection.

This rare genetic disorder means that sufferers grow more skin in one day than a healthy person grows in two weeks. The Betts and Bowen sisters all inherited the condition from their parents, who carry the mutated gene. Historically, those stricken with the disease did not live long, and these days there is a 50 per cent survival rate.

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another remarkable tale of human experience. Oscar Pistorius, now 21, was born with a rare condition that meant both of his legs had to be amputated.

With the help of state-of- the-art artificial legs, he has become one of the fastest disabled runners in the world, capable of challenging able-bodied athletes. But the athletics authorities claim that his ‘blades’ give him an unfair advantage. This film follows Oscar over the course of a year as he fights for the right to compete at the highest level.

Eleven floors up, at the Institute of Biomechanics and Orthopaedics in the German Sports University in Cologne, Oscar Pistorius is watching as his legs are pressed in a mechanical vice. A graph appears on the screen next to the machine, recording the force required for each degree of flex. Pistorius yawns and wanders off to text his friends about his upcoming 21st birthday. He can do that; he has more than one pair of legs.

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand exploring remarkable tales of human experience from across the globe continues. This film catches up with progeria sufferer Hayley Okines, who has been the subject of two Five documentaries in the past.

‘Hope for Hayley’ continues the little girl’s bittersweet story in perhaps the most important year of her life so far –one in which she deals with the news that her condition may at last be curable. Progeria is an aggressive disease which ages its sufferers eight years for every year of their life. That is why, at nine years of age, Hayley has the body of a woman in her 70s.

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand returns for new run of programmes exploring some remarkable tales of human experience from across the globe. The series opens with an inspiring new film about conjoined twins Mohammed and Ahmed Ibrahim, featuring exclusive medical scenes and candid archive
footage of their journey towards separation.

The Boys Joined at the Head tells the incredible story of the Ibrahim twins for the very first time, following their journey from their birthplace in Cairo to the hospital in Dallas, where pioneering surgery
to separate them took place in 2003. The film also documents their recovery back home in Egypt.

The chances of twins being born conjoined at the head with a shared supply of blood to the brain are ten million to one. When leading American craniofacial surgeon Dr Kenneth Salyer received photographs of the boys from their doctor in Egypt, a plan for a pioneering medical procedure was immediately set in motion.

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand returns for a new run of programmes exploring some remarkable tales of human experience from across the globe. The series opens with ‘Hope for Hayley’, a new film catching up with progeria sufferer Hayley Okines who has been the subject of two Five documentaries in the past.

‘Hope for Hayley’ continues the little girl’s bittersweet story in perhaps the most important year of her life so far –one in which she deals with the news that her condition might at last be curable. Just months after the death of Hayley’s closest friend – an 11-year-old fellow progeria sufferer –she is to take part in the human trials of a drug that researchers believe could arrest and even reverse the effects of the disease. The documentary follows Hayley and her family as they make several trips to the Children’s Hospital Boston to take part in the clinical trials of a revolutionary new drug.

extraordinary people: the girl with a new face
21.00–22.00

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand comes to the end of another batch of absorbing programmes exploring remarkable stories of human experience. Tonight’s programme follows the incredible story of Marlie Casseus, a Haitian teenager who required pioneering surgery to remove a seven-kilo growth from her face.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 13-year-old Marlie is dying. Because of a rare genetic condition known as fibrous dysplasia, Marlie’s bones are transforming into a huge growth, or lesion, that distorts her face, stretches her skin, crushes her windpipe and forces her eyes apart. “People here say that this is a curse, not a normal disease,” says Marlie’s mother, Maleine. “They say it is voodoo stuff.”

With time running out for their daughter, Marlie’s family contacted two US-based Haitian nurses, sisters Gina and Ginette Eugene, who called on an American charity for help. The International Kids Fund immediately arranged for Marlie to be airlifted to a Miami hospital, two hours away, where the world’s media was waiting for a press conference addressed by one of the few specialists who could save Marlie: Venezuelan-born maxillofacial surgeon Dr Jesús Gómez.

extraordinary people: the boy who can never grow old
21.00–22.00

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another batch of absorbing programmes exploring remarkable stories of human experience. Tonight’s programme follows 19-year-old Stuart Wickison, who is refusing to let the debilitating condition Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) stop him from going to university.

DMD is a rare degenerative condition that affects boys, gradually robbing the sufferer of the ability to use all his muscles. Born healthy, boys with DMD will later begin to have problems standing up. As teenagers they will need wheelchairs and soon become effectively trapped inside their bodies. The incurable condition gets progressively worse until the sufferer’s heart and lungs stop functioning altogether, resulting in death. Young men with DMD do not live long into their 20s.

Incredibly, faced with this prognosis, 19-year-old Stuart Wickison has decided to go to university. Despite the fact that he is nearing the end of his life, Stuart’s determination to live as a normal teenager has never been stronger. He has decided to leave the comforts of Treloar College, a Hampshire college with a high level of specialist care for severely disabled young people, to study art. “I’m not here to suffer,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’m here to make an impact.”

extraordinary people: living with half a brain
21.00–22.00

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with another batch of absorbing programmes exploring remarkable stories of human experience. Tonight’s programme follows the stories of two young sufferers of epilepsy as they undergo radical surgery to remove large sections of their brains.

At the age of just three, six-year-old Cameron Mott developed a devastating and progressive brain disorder called Rasmussen’s encephalitis. This rare disease attacks the right side of the sufferer’s brain, causing a rapid decline in mental faculties and –if left untreated –eventually leading to partial paralysis. Cameron’s condition has left her with extreme epilepsy. Her daily life is plagued by sudden and frequent fits forcing her to wear a protective helmet at all times. She is only free from the fits for a precious 30 minutes at the beginning of every day, before she collapses and falls victim once more to the relentless cycle of seizures.

extraordinary people: living with half a brain

Five’s acclaimed documentary strand continues with more programmes exploring remarkable tales of human experience. Coming soon is the story of six-year-old Cameron Mott, who has undergone a radical operation to remove half her brain.

At the age of three, Cameron was diagnosed with a progressive brain disorder that attacked the right side of her brain and threatened to paralyse half her body. Doctors decided the only solution was to remove chunks of her brain in a seven-hour hemispherectomy operation.

This film follows Cameron and her family on their journey from their North Carolina home to the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore for this highly delicate surgery. It captures Cameron as she undergoes the procedure and battles the sudden and frequent epileptic fits that are a side effect of her condition. Incredibly, it is possible for her to make a full recovery – if her young brain can learn to reorganise itself.