TV Cameraman Goes Wherever Tragedy Strikes

For Leslie Clemmer it was a terrifying experience. But when the Costa Mesa man hurtled across two freeway ramps Monday and crashed his Pontiac Firebird into a restaurant parking lot, it was pay dirt for “On Scene: Emergency Response.”

Cameraman Willy Boudevin had been staying at Orange County Fire Station No. 22 since Friday, waiting for life-and-death accidents to film. His syndicated program, produced in Irvine, uses actual footage shot at the scene of emergencies involving paramedics, firefighters and other rescue workers.

Boudevin had spent much of Monday morning bantering with firemen and staff. But then, about 1:30 p.m., the call came in--accident, man down. Clemmer had just landed in the parking lot of a Bob’s Big Boy.

Within seconds, Boudevin had donned his vest and grabbed his camera to hop aboard the red paramedic truck.

“On Scene” focuses on emergency workers, the “incredibly selfless” men and women who “risk their own lives to save people,” said Dave Forman, executive producer and host of the show. “They are truly America’s unsung heroes.”

Footage of Monday’s accident, which will probably air in February, came after Boudevin shadowed the moves of firefighter/paramedics Rocco DiFrancessco and Randy Adamson and other emergency crew members and spectators.

Boudevin hoisted his 17-pound video camera above his head, stepped across water hoses and climbed into the front seat of the ambulance that finally took Clemmer away. The cameraman had stayed within inches of workers, filming them as they took the victim’s vital signs, pried his car hood open with a metal crow bar and shifted him gingerly onto a stretcher.

“There was a lot going on,” said Boudevin after returning from the scene of the accident. “There was smoke coming from the car, and it could have blown.”

Clemmer escaped the spectacular crash with only minor injuries. He was later arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving and evading an officer.

About half of all “On Scene” footage is shot in Southern California, although some has come from as far afield as the Bering Sea, where ice swells trapped a crabbing vessel, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Boudevin followed paramedics of the city’s Royal Ambulance Corps to tape the bloody aftermath of two shootings and a beating in the war-torn region.

In Orange County, “On Scene” has filmed car crashes, swimmers caught in riptides and other life-and-death emergencies involving Laguna Beach and Newport Beach firefighters and lifeguards, California Highway Patrol officers, Life Flight, the helicopter medical emergency crew based at UC Irvine, and other rescue teams.

The show airs locally on KNBC-Channel 4 on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. The day and times change to accommodate live sports programs.