Having lost the engine at 750ft AGL it was 1.5miles and 60 seconds that was 10 secs to check & think 50sec to execute. Was a 200 degree left turn to a suitable field, that was short but had a longer one over the hedge, which I ended up in.
The last thing on my mind was saving the aircraft. She end up with a couple of dents in leading edge of the port wing chopping down a willow bush.
Thoughts in my head, don't stall it in on approach, keep up the speed.
Better to run into the far hedge at low speed. Also if I got it right I had a better than 50/50 chance of walking away.
5000ft would give you a lot of time to check, think and position for a chute pull or forced landing. So I think he may have panicked a bit and 1minute is a bit quick.
I would have liked ATC to have run through an emergence check list, I think this should be standard procedure, as I lost a friend who attempted a turn back after an EFOT at 300ft, stalled it in from 100ft due to low airspeed.