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Our most powerful stories of 2016

Sunday Night is only weeks away from beginning its ninth year on air.

As we prepare for our next season, we’re taking a look back at 2016’s most powerful episodes.

Gripping, enlightening and uplifting, here are the top five stories that captivated our minds and tugged on our heartstrings.


Becoming Savannah

For 43 years, Daniel Kertcher felt like he was living in prison.

From the outside, the multi-millionaire businessman appeared to have it all, but he was struggling with his true identity.

In March last year, Daniel announced he was transitioning to become a woman named Savannah Jackson, a dream that felt like “every Christmas has come at once”.

“I can just be myself and that, to me, has been the greatest single gift that I have given myself, is the freedom to be myself,” Savannah said.

But the path to liberation was a rocky one, met with disappointment and denial from her father.

Savannah Jackson said she finally feels free.
Savannah Jackson said she finally feels free.

“(My father) said, ‘I’m grieving… I feel like my son’s dying in front of my eyes.”

“I can’t deny his need to grieve. He has to go through that experience and he’ll go through the anger and the sadness, but he’ll eventually get to acceptance,” Savannah said.

“I believe he’s got there now.”


The little boy who got his feet back

A lone child, walking along a dirt road with a twisted foot. The fleeting image was captured in the background of a Sunday Night episode, but for Aussie mums Lana Mayes and Lauren Christie, it was too heartbreaking to ignore.

Both mothers know how tough it is to raise a child with club foot and recognised the boy’s condition immediately.

Lana and Lauren knew little about Tobias, from Cateura, Paraguay, but with a Sunday Night screenshot in hand and endless determination, they began their mission to find him.

The women quickly learned Toby’s family were driven out of their home by flooding, but with the help of former Miss Paraguay, Fiorella Migliore, they eventually tracked down the family’s new home.

It was a stroke of luck that allowed a three-year-old a shot at a normal life.

Lana and Lauren found Tobias with this image, taken from a Sunday Night episode.
Lana and Lauren found Tobias with this image, taken from a Sunday Night episode.

With the help of America’s Miracle Feet organisation and local club foot organisation, Solidad, Toby began treatment.

Toby's mum Florenzia was overwhelmed that two parents from the other side of the world could change her son's life.

"Thank you Lana, and Australia. I would like to meet you one day," she said in a message to the mums.


In the presence of greatness

It was 1975, and heavyweights Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were preparing for their ultimate showdown in the Thrilla in Manila.

Sunday Night reporter Mike Willesee was a young gun journalist at the time, and flew to the Philippines to secure an interview with the man who had become one of the most celebrated sports figures in history.

Willesee was told he would be allowed only a couple of minutes with The Greatest. Instead, he got three hours one-on-one and an access-all-areas pass to Ali’s backroom antics and scalding training sessions.

“I don’t think that I’m the most effective puncher, but I do know that I’m the fastest heavyweight in the history of boxing with the feet and the hands,” Ali said, reclined on a couch in a white bathrobe.

“I’m the best looking heavyweight, more handsome than any other fighter, less marks. And I’m more intelligent.”

Muhammad Ali speaks with Mike Willesee during the interview in 1975.
Muhammad Ali speaks with Mike Willesee during the interview in 1975.

Ali triumphed in the fight after Frazier's trainer threw in the towel in the 14th round.

But in 2016, at the age of 74, the boxing legend died after being hospitalised with pneumonia.

“Muhammad Ali was regarded by so many as not only the greatest boxer, but the greatest athlete,” Wilesee said.

“What he’s left us really, is being what he always said, The Greatest.”


Riley’s legacy

Catherine and Greg Hughes lived every parent’s worst nightmare when their son, Riley, died from an illness that was entirely preventable.

Not even a month old, Riley began struggling to breathe and was diagnosed with whooping cough.

After spending five days in the ICU, Riley took his last breath in the arms of his mum and dad.

"It just wasn't right and you know… all these things go through your mind, like babies don't die in this country from a cough, and why my baby?" Greg said.

While babies aren’t old enough to be immunised until eight weeks, Riley could have been saved if Catherine had been offered a whopping cough vaccination in her third trimester.

"If I had lived in Queensland when I was pregnant with Riley, I would have been offered it, but no other states had implemented these programs,” Catherine said.

Turning their grief into purpose, they started the Light for Riley campaign that continues to protect thousands of newborns across Australia.

They first realised they were making a difference when the West Australian Government changed their laws, making whooping cough vaccines available to every pregnant woman.

Riley was only 32 days old when he died from whooping cough.
Riley was only 32 days old when he died from whooping cough.

By the end of 2015, every other state and territory had followed suit, giving Riley a lasting legacy.

But the best news was still to come.

Six months ago, the couple was thrilled to announce the arrival of their second daughter, Lucy Grace.

“[We are] feeling good, feeling really good, just relieved,” Catherine said.


Surviving the Blythe Star

The last remaining survivor of an Australian ship that was mysteriously lost at sea has told the harrowing story for the first time in more than 40 years.

Mick Doleman pieced together the horrific events that took place on October 13, 1973, during a trip to Tasmania’s King Island on the Blythe Star.

At 18, Mick was the youngest man on board and recalled the moment he was thrown from his bunk into a pool of icy cold water that began to fill the cabin.

The lifeboats couldn’t be freed from their holdings, so the 10 men onboard clambered into an emergency raft.

The raft was carried around the coast of Tasmania, but with no SOS signal sent, there was no knowing when the crew would be found.

After eight days adrift and the loss of one crewmate, the men arrived at rocky inlet known as Deep Glen Bay.

As they searched for a way out, two more men died from hypothermia, making Mick even more determined to get help.

Mick Doleman returned to Deep Glen Bay for the first time since the tragedy.
Mick Doleman returned to Deep Glen Bay for the first time since the tragedy.

Cutting up the lifeboat to use for shoes and clothing, Mick and two others walked through dense scrub for one and a half days before coming across a road, and eventually a truck driver.

"Seafarers around this country now are much safer than they were in 1973 as a result of the disaster of the Blythe Star,” Mick said.

“Those three men who lost their lives, that's their legacy.”