Episode 3 Connie's People

I'm on a very personal journey across Wales

in search of our most valuable resource - the people!

I've met an amazing range of individuals

from the men and women who save lives in their spare time

to the colourful

and eccentric.

SHE SCREAMS

Hold tight and be prepared to be shocked,

-surprised...

-And that's the liquid nitrogen coming out there.

or just plain grateful for their heroic effort...

You've just got to keep going.

..as I introduce you to Connie's People.

Today, I go deep into the bowels of the Earth on a rescue mission.

You're all right, mate.

And I'm on emergency duty with the medical volunteers on match day.

We've a patient collapsed at Gate 4.

Ready? After three. One, two, three.

But first, I'm heading to the historic border town of Monmouth

in South Wales to meet a team of investigators

who are preparing for a long night in search of the unknown.

Wales is a country full of legend and I, for one,

love a good ghost story to scare my friends with.

But there are those amongst us who claim there's more to these stories

than simple thrills and chills,

and that ghostly apparitions wander this Earth.

And there's a group of men and women who spend

a great deal of their spare time testing that theory.

RIP, Research and Investigation into the Paranormal,

are going to spend the night ghost hunting in the Shire Hall building

that's renowned as one of the most ghostly locations in Wales.

Spooky!

For centuries, it was a courthouse

where judges would pass death sentences on convicted prisoners.

Gareth Mates and his RIP team use the latest technology to test

centuries-old ghost stories.

The way we do it is scientific.

We try to debunk any activity, to be able to present you with facts,

to look at to make your own assessment from.

I've been to some places where you can clear a natural activity

but they just don't want to accept that it's normal.

They've convinced themselves it is paranormal.

You seem to have a lot of technical, expensive equipment here.

-Yes, we do.

-Is this the nerve centre?

Yes, it's where we monitor the whole location from,

and hotspots and areas where there's been reported paranormal activity.

-All the spooky areas?

-All the spooky areas, yeah,

to make sure if something happens, we'll have it recorded on camera.

'And there's another piece of technology that Gareth and his team

'are utilising tonight.

'An electromagnetic field monitor.'

I'm looking for beeps and stuff?

Yeah, just move it back and for.

MONITOR BEEPS See if you can find the source.

SHE GASPS

What does it mean? It's off the scale.

It's more than likely a power box or something behind this here.

Pull it further away. Well, hopefully there's a power box and not a ghost.

'Ah, so here comes the hitch with this technology.

'It responds to electricity as well as the paranormal.

'Bit of a problem in the 21st century,

'but that won't dampen the spirits of Gareth and his crew.'

Girls, why, oh why, oh why are you doing this?

Are you a true ghostbuster?

I wouldn't go that far. I try my best.

Have you seen anything tonight...

LOUD THUMP

What was that? Ha-ha, very spooky!

Ooh, the mobile phone!

And you're a field investigator. What's your role tonight?

Just looking around with equipment seeing any changes or anything.

Are we looking at temperature changes?

Yeah, temperature or, like, negative ions and stuff.

Oh, those negative ions! Of course! I'll look out for those.

'And before we settle in for a night of ghost hunting,

'I get worrying information from Tony Lambert

'who was a caretaker here for over ten years.

'He wasn't using hi-tech equipment. Just his nose.'

What it is, I smelt it several times.

On these four steps,

you could be walking up there in the day or evening,

and you can smell like a very oily scent and it's very cold.

-Right, about here?

-The fourth step upwards.

-One, two, three, four.

About here?

That's where I used to come up and that's where I used to smell it.

SHE INHALES

Can't smell perfume.

And coldness.

I'm quite warm. I've got to be honest.

I didn't say every time, though, did I?

SHE LAUGHS

'So later, when everyone goes to bed, I'll be back with

'the RIP team, as it's lights out for a night of investigation.

'Stay tuned to see if we discover the smelly ghost in the Shire Hall.'

-OK, if you'd like to maybe touch one of us.

-No, no, don't say that!

But first, I'm off to Cardiff on a very special day.

An international weekend.

Tens of thousands of people come to the city to have a good time

and celebrate yet another Welsh victory.

For many of them, though, it isn't always the perfect day.

Follow me.

In just a couple of hours' time, 70,000 people will fill this stadium

and, by the law of averages, some of them will need medical help.

That could be something simple like tripping over hurting themselves.

It could be a headache or it could be something far more serious.

Help is at hand, though,

in the form of 80 volunteers who are all medically trained

and here to save the day, and I'm going to be part of the team.

'St John Ambulance volunteers have been giving first aid to us

'for over 900 years, but before I can join for a day,

'I'm heading to one of the stadium's medical rooms

'for a crash course in emergency medicine by trainer, Huw Davis.

'He warns me my first patient is totally legless,

'but relatively armless!'

-That's not a good state to be in, is it, Huw?

-Not really, no.

What we need to do now is find out

whether we can get a response from the casualty.

-Hello?

-Excellent. Well done.

-Is that a good start.

-That's a good start.

Then we need to check to see if there's any breathing.

-Heel of the hand on the forehead.

-Yeah.

-Two fingers in the chin.

Lift, and then listen and feel and look for breath.

Now we know that the casualty's not breathing,

we need to start chest compressions.

Smack in the centre of the chest on the breastbone.

Interlock your fingers and push down directly

at about a rate of 100-120 a minute.

How do I know what that is? 100-120 a minute?

-Have you seen the British Heart Foundation advert?

-I have.

-Staying Alive.

-# Ha-ha-ha-ha, stayin' alive... #

-30 compressions.

-Just like Vinnie Jones.

-Just like Vinnie Jones.

'All joking aside,

'this is serious work and before I join my team

'I'm going to meet one of the longest-serving volunteers,

'Angie O'Sullivan.'

-47 years.

-47 years?

-Yeah.

That's a long time to be volunteering.

An awful long time, yeah.

Why'd you do it?

Passion... I started as a cadet with my parents

and then you just carried on doing it, you know.

It's great because I don't only just work on the ambulance,

I go and train children in schools and I just think giving somebody that information is brilliant.

Is there a nice sense of camaraderie amongst the troops?

Good gracious me, of course there is. We all have a good laugh.

You've got to, because it is serious. You're dealing with people's lives

but you still got to have that good laugh, otherwise it's not worth doing it.

Can we have everybody in for the briefing, please?

A few hours before kick-off and it's time for the final briefing.

Equipment has been checked and ready to go.

OK, all your red gasses, your defib and first-aid kits have been checked.

The St John Ambulance control room sends teams to emergencies around the stadium

and there is soon a call for help.

All units, all units stand by, general message.

-We've got a patient collapsed at gate 4.

-Just stand by.

-The problem we've got now, it's a bit time critical - the team bus is coming in.

-Right.

This could cause us a bit of a problem, hopefully it won't.

With veteran volunteer Richard Jones, we get to gate 4 just as the team bus is arriving.

But our priority is to treat the collapsed man.

Right, we've got Gareth here, Connie, who's not feeling very well.

He's fainted a little bit. He hasn't had very much to eat today.

Basically, what we're going to do, we'll get him into a wheelchair,

get him down to the first-aid post and take it from there.

I've got some chocolate. Would you like it?

We can't give him chocolate yet until we check his blood sugar.

'Not a good idea, Connie. We need to take a good look at him first.'

We're going to get you into there.

Mind your feet.

Get him to the first-aid post, we've got doctors there. It's better than treating him on the floor.

We'll check his blood sugar and make sure everything's fine. We've checked he has a ticket.

-He's allowed in?

-We can take him into the stadium.

-That was a bad time to collapse, wasn't it?

-Yes.

-You missed the team coming in.

-But you got to see Connie.

Some consolation.

-Sounds a real baptism of fire, for you, wasn't it?

-Wasn't it?

Just on the hoof, we never know what's going to happen.

The good news is, Gareth's in here now. He's being seen by the nurse

and we can get him hopefully back on his feet and see the match.

-I hope so, we don't want him to miss it.

-It would be dreadful.

-Gareth, how are you feeling now?

-Feeling much better.

You've got colour back in your cheeks.

You know I offered you the chocolate to make you feel better?

-I'm really sorry, but I ate it.

-I hope you enjoyed it.

-Yeah.

-How did you find the service?

-Great.

They look after you, don't they?

Without the volunteers from St John, many big public events like this couldn't go ahead.

They're amazing people. They give up their time.

People see them at matches. They see them at different events and fetes.

It's their Saturdays and Sundays. They give them up.

If it wasn't for them giving their time up, these events just couldn't take place.

Restored to health, Gareth will be able to watch the match

but as the stadium starts to fill before kick-off,

we get another emergency call.

We got a collapse on level 6. The response team are there.

-We're going to see what's happening, see if we can lend a hand.

-OK.

613...614.

Ouch!

Excuse me, chaps, can I just get you to move from here, please.

The gentleman may have had too much to drink, we don't know yet.

It looks as though he's fallen over. He has a nasty cut on the head

and we've asked for the doctor to attend, see if they need stitching or anything like that.

Right, sir, if you just jump into there.

This gentleman will take you down and let the doctor have a look at you.

Mind your backs, please, wheelchair coming through.

I'll go in and have a chat. Just wait out here a minute.

Our first major casualty and I've seen blood. Ugh!

I hope he's all right.

Richard, what's the situation, then?

The gentleman's obviously come from Scotland for the weekend.

He's fallen over. He's got a nasty head injury and he's a bit concussed

and he's a little bit confused.

He won't be seeing the match but then neither will we.

At least, as the anthems begin, we can show our allegiance.

# Gwlad

# Gwlad

# Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad... #

APPLAUSE

Come on, Wales!

-COMMENTATOR:

-They need to get it out, they're under pressure there.

As the game gets underway, I'm about to meet Dr Jens Klocke,

one of the doctors who gives up his free time to help out.

We can hear the excitement out there. I mean, people get really hyped about these things.

Do you often get a lot of illnesses because people get overexcited?

Very much so, especially with the concerts.

At Take That, we had Take That twice last year,

and we get a lot of faints and hysteria.

-Excited girls?

-Yes.

I think I was one of them.

So, why do you do it?

I enjoy the action, being part of a team.

You feel good about doing something positive, making a contribution.

-Giving something back to the community?

-I think so.

And you get the behind-the-scenes action.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Trying to get out wide.

Should be another try. It's one to Halfpenny...

As Wales take the lead in the second half,

I'm off to find some of the other volunteers as they get ready

for the end of the game, and potentially more casualties.

-It's quiet at the minute.

-Quiet?

-You should never say that.

-Have you had any casualties at all?

-Erm, we will now.

-You've just said the Q-word.

-Ha-ha-ha, you've jinxed it now.

He's jinxed it, yeah.

And that will be the end of it...

The end of the match and the Q-word is quickly replaced by the B-word - busy!

Now, apparently, someone has hurt themselves up on the sixth floor.

On the sixth floor. We've got a bit of walking to do now.

We're going to compete with the crowd, 70,000, rushing out of the stadium.

We've got to get up to floor six. Apparently, it's quite serious.

Luckily, we do have access to some stairs that the public can't get to.

-So, we can make some ground.

-OK. So this keeps you fit then, Terry?

Oh, yes. I avoid the elevator and then I can have the extra chocolate biscuit with my tea.

VOICES OVER WALKIE-TALKIE

They are suspecting a fractured ankle and have asked for a response team and a carry chair.

We've got the oxygen with us if we need it.

Yes, we need the oxygen right now.

We need a chair and Entonox.

What they're saying is the person's in pain.

What they are going to take up is the Entonox,

which is an analgesic gas, to help relieve the pain,

and then get a chair and we'll try and get them out of there now.

We'll have a look and see how wedged in they are in the seating.

The young woman's in a great deal of pain.

She has a suspected broken ankle.

But the St John team is there to assess her injury

and get her to hospital as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Our day isn't over yet.

These 72,000 people now have to go out back into the city centre.

We'll have crews out now till two o'clock in the morning

at triage centres, and ambulances around the city to make sure these people get home safely.

-So you'll have treatment centres that go on well into the night?

-Yes.

I know it's a Sunday today but we'll run a treatment centre in the city centre till 2am.

Another unpaid day at the office for St John Ambulance

but a real eye-opener for me.

Well, it's been an incredible day spent with St John's.

I've learned so much. It's been so varied.

A quiet day on the casualty front. Business as usual for St John's.

But, for me, it's been an exceptional experience.

It'll be a long night with a few sore heads in the morning

but I'm leaving the celebrations early.

I'm heading towards the centre of the Earth.

Our Welsh caves attract people from all over the world

as well as our home-grown enthusiasts.

While caving is a popular activity, it can be fraught with danger

and that's when South & Mid Wales Cave Rescue are called into action, to save lives.

I've come to their base near Swansea

and I'm putting myself in the careful hands of team leader, Jules Carter.

-Hello, everyone.

-Hello, Connie, welcome.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you. This is some members of our cave rescue team.

You are my cave men, and women! Why do you do it?

Well, primarily, we're cavers and that's our passion.

That's what we're really into.

If somebody gets into trouble, it's only cavers that can assist cavers.

It really is a different world.

-And you're all volunteers, right?

-We're all volunteers, yes.

There are over 200 volunteers at the centre who are on call 24/7.

I met one of the longest servers, John Lister.

Nearly 25 years I've been in the rescue team.

On the basis that the only people who are going to get you out,

if anything happens, are cavers.

And there's a special system to alert the rescue service that a caver is in trouble.

A mobile phone isn't much use underground!

People going caving responsibly always leave a ticket on the board,

saying who they are in the party, where they're going, what time they're going,

what time they'll be out.

They'll give you an hour or so past your due time and then phone 999.

Tonight, I'm joining a rescue exercise with the team.

Our task is to get a casualty out of the cave system,

and it really will take a team this large to carry an injured caver back to the surface.

In a real emergency, as many as 150 volunteers will respond to a call.

-Oh, my Lord.

-Come on down, we can go a bit further.

See if we can get the scale of this, it's tiny.

As soon as you get to here, it gets bigger. Watch your footing.

Going down a cave for the first time,

I can appreciate the beauty and the danger.

You've got to watch your every step in the darkness.

So this is pretty treacherous terrain, there's a big drop there.

You can see how accidents could happen. It's very slippy, isn't it?

We find the casualty relatively quickly.

'The real problem for the team is getting them safely back to the surface.

'Rescue warden for the exercise and experienced caver Gary Evans

'confirms that accidents can happen even to the most careful of cavers.'

Climbing up a climb, at the end of a rescue, someone distracted me.

I turned and fell onto my back and I thought I'd hurt myself, fortunately, not too badly.

You learn to concentrate so you don't fall over. We all have a little tumble now and then.

But accidents can be very serious down here.

In this exercise, the casualty is suspected to have a neck injury.

Speed is important, but moving a person in this condition can't be rushed.

Getting it right can be a matter of life or death.

Two, three and lift.

Argh!

Stretching up, and... Right, OK.

There are 15 of us on this rescue mission

and the reason for so many is to share the weight of the stretcher

and move it as smoothly as we can.

-It's like a caterpillar effect, then.

-Yes, in effect.

OK, here we go.

The caterpillar starts its crawl and, believe me, it's a painfully slow process.

One, two, three...

For the sake of the casualty, there can be no sudden movements.

This has to be a true team effort.

It's not over.

You know, we walked into his cave relatively easily

but we've been inching our way out of here and it seems endless.

I'm exhausted. I don't know what the casualty must be feeling. It's been such a long time since we found him

and we've caterpillared him about 12 metres.

What's the longest rescue that you've been involved with?

Recent rescues, we've had a 27-hour.

-But back in the past there have been rescues over three days.

-Three days?

Mmm. Yeah.

-What happened to the casualty, did they survive?

-Yes, absolutely.

They just get looked after, they're kept warm, they get fed and watered.

-You can't rush it, you keep them safe and bring them out in one piece.

-I think we should rush it!

-Let's get a move on. I don't want to be here three days.

-Let's move on.

Whenever you are ready, with you.

After over two hours carefully moving our casualty,

we had brought him a relatively short distance towards the surface.

I can see why some of these rescues can take days.

Already, I'm more than happy to call it a day.

It gave me a sense of what it's like to be stuck down here

and the amazing work that these volunteers do to rescue people.

It's amazing to think they volunteer as well.

They put themselves in this risky situation to help somebody else

who's had an accident doing something they love.

It was a stunning experience in a strangely beautiful environment

but on this night, I was pleased to get back into the cold.

Oh, yes, yes!

SCREAMING

Welcome to the world of the Welsh wide web.

Welsh people are at the forefront of the YouTube phenomenon.

A number of the videos on this site have become some of the most popular global hits

and they cover a massive range.

A cult advert from a well-known Welsh pie manufacturer.

I can smell something strange.

Then it hits you.

Somehow you've driven outside of Wales!

SCARY MUSIC PLAYS

A man from Abergavenny who's had well over 20 million hits to his make-up site.

Hello, everyone, so favourites again of the month.

I'm applying this grey and I'm bringing it up slightly

into the crease, as you can see.

And, of course, the recent runaway success of the very profane

Welsh rugby fan watching the game.

Come on. Come on!

BLEEP

And then there's the Welsh beer fanatic.

Hello, again, and welcome to my 500th beer review.

500 beers on YouTube, it's taken over two years to achieve this.

So what is it that makes you a YouTube hit or a YouTube miss?

Sometimes, it seems, not a lot of dialogue.

Ah...

I'm here in Barry where, my spies tell me, lives a real live Welsh YouTube phenomenon.

-Hi.

-Hello.

-Simon?

-Hi.

-I'm Connie.

-Hi, Connie, come on in.

Simon Martin is going to let me in on the secret of his success.

What is it that has made your YouTube clips so popular?

I don't edit anything. If I make a mistake, it stays in.

It really does stay in. You've got to find something you love.

If you find something you love and vlog about it.

It's very, very dark.

One of the videos actually hit 7,000 views in a week.

-Wow!

-Yes. It's a really phenomenal success, that was.

Simon invited me to be a guest star for one of his beer tasters.

Hi, YouTube.

Get the nose in.

It didn't start too well.

-Mice.

-Mice?

Straw... Hamster.

Is that fair? You could smell hamster, couldn't you?

-You know, like a hamster wheel, or something.

-Yeah.

I think what happens is, because you've never tried beer before,

-you've got a young palate.

-Right.

Well recovered, Simon.

Something that was a hobby has turned into a business enterprise.

It's led to me actually brewing a beer with Britain's oldest brewer.

That was down in Kent. Now, off the back of that,

a well-known brewery in Cardiff are opening a craft brewery.

I'm going to be brewing a collaboration beer with them.

Really? So your YouTube hits have been so successful

-that you've got other things out of it, as well?

-Yeah.

And speaking to you, my passion for beer is growing and I've never tried it before.

-Brilliant.

-I'm sensing that, and YouTube will get that as well, won't they?

I think it's the enthusiasm you have for what you're doing that really will make your channel.

Whether it's your make-up tips, your beer reviews

or you just enjoy watching the Grand Slam,

there's an audience out there waiting to watch you.

Thanks for watching. Cheers!

MUSIC: "Ghostbusters" Theme Tune

Earlier, I joined the team from Research and Investigation into the Paranormal, RIP South Wales,

as they set up their monitoring equipment in, allegedly,

one of the most haunted and spookiest buildings in Wales, the Shire Hall in Monmouth.

Now, as the clock struck the witching hour,

we settled in for a night of ghostbusting.

We started our search in the centuries-old court room

which has seen hundreds of poor souls sent to the gallows.

Gareth Mates, head of RIP,

has set up his infrared cameras to capture any images of ghostly apparitions

and, to work effectively, I was in for a surprise.

-Can we have the lights down, please.

-OK.

-Thank you.

It's when the fun really begins.

We're going to try a call out session where we'll actually call out,

-ask if there's anything in the room and see if we can get a response.

-OK.

Courage, Connie.

The last time we were here, there was banging in this room. Can you do that again for us?

Come on, Judge.

Bang for us.

-No.

-No.

Oh, that's a relief.

'We try the jury room.

'There's a ghost!

'Oh, no, it's not. It's me.

'Phew!'

Oh, it's pitch black.

-OK, if you'd like to maybe touch one of us.

-No, no, don't say that.

La, la, la, la, la... I don't want you to touch me. No, don't bother.

So to our question, "Is there anybody there?"

Well, they're not knocking for us tonight.

So, back to the control centre to see if they're still in the dark about any paranormal activity.

-What have you been seeing on the screen?

-We've seen lots and lots of orbs.

Large ones floating from corner to corner.

Very bright, like embers.

They go right across like a wave, then dissipate out like an ember.

-An orb might be a spirit?

-Might be, we'll have to see.

This needs further investigation.

We return to the court room with the electromagnetic finder

to see if we can track down any spirits.

Amanda, yours is beeping a lot. Does that mean you've caught a ghost?

What's the temperature readings?

'And for the RIP team, another sign of ghostly activity would be

'a sudden drop in temperature in a specific spot in the room.'

-So it's gone from 19 to 12?

-Yeah.

I'm actually going to shiver in a minute, it's really, really cold.

Got a shiver down my spine. I don't like it.

It's all gone a bit chaotic in here. It's dropped seven degrees.

The clock just chimed, but it chimed the wrong time.

I'd like to go to bed now, please. Thank you.

The vigil was kept up all night,

the team monitoring any activity and, as the cock crowed,

I went to find Gareth to discover the results.

-What have you found?

-Out of the evening so far, we've got two photos that we've managed to take.

This first one was taken in the court just at the same time we had the temperature changes

-and EMF meter was going crazy. There seems to be a face or something.

-Ah!

There does seem to be a face.

Oh, is it the face of the judge staring down on us?

-It could be. The judge could be in session.

-Oh! Spooky.

The second photo, it could be nothing, there's kind of an odd shape

of some sort, something, in that area.

Mmm. It's very reflective paint.

Yes, it could be nothing but there's something there.

All in all, was it worth the paranormal visit to Shire Hall?

Yeah, we had a lot of things happening and hopefully a lot more in the future.

After my night at the Shire Hall, I have to conclude that

I found the evidence to be inconclusive on paranormal activity in the court room.

DOOR CREAKS

Case adjourned!

In next week's programme, I'm hounded out by a North Wales rescue dog.

Oh!

DOG BARKS

We meet the Welsh statue who springs to life.

And I'm meeting people who just love going back to Roman times to race...

..and to revel.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd