Episode 2 Countryside 999

Rural Britain has some of the most challenging

environments in the world.

In Scotland, the mountains, lochs and coastline

encourage tourists and locals to get out into the wilds.

But with that comes danger.

Keep your arms by your side!

The emergency services north of the border

have to deal with extreme challenges every day.

Nobody in their right mind

should have attempted to drive through this.

From severe weather and treacherous terrain...

-Is the pain getting worse, do you think?

-Yes.

..to covering huge distances on rural roads

with time against them.

They work around the clock,

battling against some of the most difficult situations.

We'll be right at the heart of the action -

side by side with air rescue saving lives,

on the road with paramedics caring for the hurt and injured

and following the police fighting crime,

as the emergency services work together to pick up, patch up

and protect the public in rural communities.

This is Countryside 999.

Coming up -

emergency services attend a serious road traffic collision

involving a car and a horse-drawn carriage

I looked at where I thought the horses would be

and there was just, at that point, a big bang.

A Search And Rescue helicopter battles bad weather

to save a man at sea.

And we go out on the slopes with the ski patrol.

A fifth of the UK population live in the countryside.

In London, there are 12,500 people per square mile,

but here, in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, there are only 60.

People are more thinly spread and so, too, are the emergency services.

Traffic cops David Holland and Hazel Smyth

both moved to the area for the wide open spaces.

But with over three million vehicles

travelling through this part of the UK every year, they're kept busy.

Whilst on shift, they get a 999 call,

and blue-light to the scene of a major road traffic collision.

We've been sent a call to a serious crash,

just on the other side of Dumfries

so it's about 30 miles away from where we are at the moment.

Hazel must navigate 30 miles of icy, country roads,

in an area with the second-highest rate of road accidents

in the whole of the UK.

On the way, PC David Holland gets a worrying update.

Basically, it was one person with a potentially serious head injury.

I believe there's a heli-med on its way.

There are five people involved, but they're not the only casualties.

There's actually been two horses involved in the accident,

so they're just calling out a vet for the horses at the moment.

Think they've been injured too.

The news goes from bad to worse.

That's it confirmed, obviously, by the ambulance staff

that it's a potential fatality, so...

..I'd imagine there's going to be some accident investigators called out

and the road'll be shut for quite some time.

When they arrive at the scene,

the extent of the collision becomes clear.

There's the helicopter.

But this accident is not between two cars.

It involves a car and a horse-drawn carriage

carrying a bride and her father to her wedding.

We've got a horse cart.

It's been hit by one car, one driver.

Four injured, one with a serious head injury.

When we first arrived,

there was obviously damage to the carriage, it was on its side.

Horses had been injured. Extensive damage to the motorist's vehicle.

Our first fear is,

how bad are these injuries?

Four ambulance crews are tending to the casualties.

The air ambulance is on standby

as the carriage driver has sustained life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the cart who sits up the front of it,

he's got knocked off, and he's been hurled metres away from it,

so at the moment, it's a potential fatal

but we don't know the full extent of the injuries just yet.

In rural Britain, Search And Rescue helicopters

play a vital role in serving isolated communities miles apart

and often in hard-to-reach places.

Prestwick Airport is home to HMS Gannet's Search And Rescue Team.

They cover an area of 98,000 square miles...

..from Northern Ireland to the Lake District

and up to the top of Scotland.

They train hard to negotiate all kinds of severe weather conditions.

Today, the four-strong crew, lead by observer Angela Lewis,

are responding to a life-and-death situation

to rescue a man in the sea.

A 999 call has reported a person in the Firth of Forth Estuary,

north of Edinburgh.

It's 45 minutes away and every second counts.

Cold water means a high risk of hypothermia,

so the nearest hospital in Edinburgh has been put on standby.

If the casualty is in the water,

winchman Andy Firth will be lowered down to rescue them.

In preparation, Andy puts on his immersion suit.

Meantime, the weather is closing in.

And low cloud is bad news for helicopters.

It's raining.

The cloud base is at 180 feet, so visibility's poor,

making terrible conditions to carry out a rescue.

They must fly under the cloud at around 50 feet,

following the River Forth to guide them.

As they get closer,

the ominous sight electricity pylons appears in front of them.

The low cloud means they can't fly over the pylons.

But these cables carry 275,000 volts.

If the rotor blades touch them, it's certain death for the crew.

With a casualty in open water and the clock ticking,

it's decision time for the crew.

Avoiding the cables would mean a 15-minute detour.

It was one of the poorest conditions weather-wise that day,

and everyone's ante is upped

when it's a person in the water.

The difference of seconds

could be life or death to somebody in the water.

With someone's life at risk, the decision is made to go under.

The pylons are looming ahead, but will they make it?

130 miles southwest,

the police are still on the scene of a serious road accident.

A car has crashed into a horse-drawn carriage

carrying a bride and her father to her wedding.

Their horse-drawn carriage has been heading towards a nearby hotel

for a wedding reception and it's been in collision with a car.

Four people from the carriage are injured,

one of them seriously injured,

and we're just carrying out investigations just now

to see exactly what's happened.

Four ambulance crews are tending to the casualties.

The air ambulance is on standby as the carriage driver, Simon,

is critically injured.

He was flung metres in the air and landed on the road.

Given the severity of his injuries,

the paramedics decide it's safer to make the five-mile trip to hospital

by ambulance, rather than moving Simon into the helicopter.

The police will provide an escort to get them there faster,

in case his condition deteriorates.

Simon's wife Zoe was driving the bridesmaids by car to the wedding.

He wanted me to stay and sort the horses, but then I went...

She witnessed the accident first-hand.

I turned round and there was a...

I looked at where I thought the horses would be

and there was just, at that point,

a big bang, and I start to run up the road

and the carriage and the car are still coming down the road

towards me, as I'm running up.

By this time, the carriage has now made a full flip back over itself.

Simon was actually coming through the air,

and had landed on the road,

so I'm shouting for Simon as I'm running up the road.

Simon's horrific injuries meant he was in and out of consciousness.

Despite that, he was still concerned about the horses.

Simon kept shouting at me, "Have I got the horses off,

"have I got the horses off?"

Because if they got loose or if something happened,

they're big animals, they're heavy animals, and they could go on

to cause either another accident or cause more damage to what was there.

I had to make sure that they were under control

when all you want to do is to get down on your hands and knees

and make sure your husband is breathing.

The car driver has escaped uninjured,

but all the occupants of the carriage -

the bride, her father,

Simon the carriage driver and his daughter, Hannah,

who was sitting up front with her dad, have been taken to hospital.

Before any vehicles can be removed,

the accident investigation team must examine the scene

to find out exactly what happened.

-Just the one in there?

-Just the one person in the car,

four in the carriage. The boy's been tubed and he's OK.

The officers check the damage to the car and the carriage

for signs of what caused the collision.

You see in the front of the car,

you see a mark down the offside of the radiator.

The full length of the radiator.

There's a mark from the top right to the bottom.

It's obviously caused a crease in the bumper as well.

It's my opinion at this time that the mark on the radiator

has actually been caused by this wheel here.

At this moment in time, I think the vehicle was travelling

fully on its own side of the road, and it would appear to have

just driven directly into the rear of the carriage.

I'm advised at the time of the crash,

albeit it's just over an hour since the crash now,

at the time of the crash there was a really low, bright sun,

which I think at this time may have contributed to the cause of the crash.

One third of Scotland's landscape is made up of mountains like these.

They attract millions of visitors each year, from all over the world.

But these mountains can be treacherous playgrounds.

They give the emergency services massive challenges

when rescues need to be carried out.

As environments go, it doesn't get much tougher than this.

The Cairn Gorm Mountain Ski Centre is Britain's busiest ski resort.

Every year, around a quarter of a million people visit this mountain.

And keeping them all safe are the Cairn Gorm ski patrollers...

..specially-trained first aid responders

and skilled skiers, on call to rescue people from the slopes.

In freezing temperatures, the ski patrol team's priority

is to get their casualties safely off the mountain.

We'll see you back soon.

On shift today is 25-year-old Justine Stewart.

She started here as a volunteer

and has been a full-time ski patroller for two years.

The conditions are very changeable here,

so we could come up and it could be very still,

and then maybe within a couple of hours

we could have 60-70 mile per hour winds.

So it's very changeable, you've got be very adaptable.

It's a busy Saturday, with over 1,000 skiers

and snowboarders on the mountain.

Justine's checking the slopes...

Guys, can you get off the track?

..when an emergency call comes in about a snowboarder

who's been run over by a skier and been badly cut.

21-year-old Eric is bleeding heavily from a cut

which could have severed a main artery in his wrist.

Incredibly, a passing skier, who's a nurse, stopped to help.

She's tourniqueted his wrist with bandages

to try and stop the blood flow.

If he has cut an artery,

this first aid could mean the difference between life and death.

We need to see the extent of this bleeding, OK?

It'll be very quick, but cos the tourniquet's off, we need to see.

Nancy carefully removes the bandage and discovers a deep laceration.

Another ski patroller arrives with a sledge

and extra bandages to stop the bleeding.

Dave, have you got an ambulance dressing on you?

-Yeah, just in the top there.

-Cool.

What we're going to do is take you down to the bottom,

-and get you into the warm.

-OK. Perfect.

How are you feeling about an ambulance?

Eric's putting on a brave face, but the team need to get him

off the hill and down to the base station as quickly as possible.

We're going to get him into the warm and make a better assessment.

After a bumpy ride, the pain is getting worse.

OK, Eric?

Paramedics are en route.

Meanwhile, Nancy and Justine need to keep Eric as stable as possible.

Are you feeling OK? You're not feeling faint or anything, are you?

The bleeding won't stop, so more pressure's put on his wrist.

Eric, there's nothing that we can do here cos it's quite deep.

We can't stitch you up just now,

but we can just stop the bleeding, which will be good for you.

In the city, an ambulance might take minutes to be on the scene,

but here in the Cairngorms, it can take up to an hour.

The amount of blood loss there,

and the speed at which the blood was coming out,

we were getting a bit concerned.

As they play the waiting game for the ambulance,

Eric's also getting worried.

Can we be perfectly honest here?

Am I...? Is this going to be OK?

Are you jiggling about because of the pain

or are you jiggling about cos you're cold?

No, I'm jiggling about because of the pain.

You're doing really well.

Might not feel like it, but you are.

Eric is stable, but both Nancy and Justine

know that he can't afford to lose much more blood.

So that's a really good sign that you can still move your fingers.

Still clench Nancy's finger. That's really good. We like that.

Keep it that way.

The ambulance paramedics arrive and take over from ski patrol.

-Can you feel your finger tips wiggling?

-Yeah.

Move your fingers and all that?

It's totally fine, we'll have a look and see what we're going to do.

Try and make yourself look hard on TV, eh?

Eric's best mate Ryan sees for himself

just how sharp the ski that cut Eric was.

Straight through the glove, like.

We're supposed to be going out to a 21st tonight,

but I don't think it'll be happening.

The paramedics take Eric by ambulance

to the local medical centre ten miles away

to get the bleeding stopped

and the full extent of his injuries assessed.

Back in the east of Scotland,

the Royal Navy's Search And Rescue Team

are responding to an emergency call in the Firth of Forth.

A 999 call reported seeing a person in the sea.

With someone at risk from drowning,

the crew are trying to get there as quickly as they can.

But electricity pylons are across their most direct route.

Thick cloud is above them.

They've no option but to fly under the 275,000-volt cables.

Arriving at those wires,

realising there was no way we could go over the top,

we elected to conduct quite a dangerous evolution

that we do train for,

but I've never had to put it in practice that way before,

and there are not many other call-outs

that we would have pushed on, beyond somebody who could be drowning.

As the cables dip in the middle,

they must fly close to the pylons to get under.

OK, you are well below.

You've got about 15 foot to the wires now.

About 10-15 foot below.

Centre of the cab's coming under the wires now.

Height's good, forward only.

Relieved all's gone to plan,

they head straight to the man in the water.

But, minutes after going under the cables, they get some shocking news.

With police and a lifeboat also involved,

they must continue the search until the call is confirmed as a hoax.

After searching for 20 minutes,

a call comes in to confirm their suspicions.

This hoax mission has been very costly.

But, more importantly, it's put the crew in real danger.

Call is being treated as a hoax, and we're going to route

to Edinburgh now for refuel before returning home.

Rescue 177, Aberdeen coastguard, over.

177, go ahead.

It's been a dangerous exercise that's wasted crucial resources.

While the police try to track down the hoax caller,

there's nothing to do but return back to base.

It's now nearly six weeks after the accident involving a car

and a horse-drawn carriage, taking a bride and her father to her wedding.

Worst hurt in the collision was Simon, the carriage driver.

He was thrown metres from the carriage,

hitting his head on the road.

When he was taken to hospital, the extent of his injuries

put him in a life-or-death situation.

At that first point, when you realise that a car has hit them,

and my first flash image was of Simon, in the air,

and the back end of the carriage, up in the air,

and the horses are going backwards.

That is the mental image that I've got, and it's that

oh-my-God moment, that you think when your heart stops.

He'd injured his right elbow, back, four ribs,

collarbone and shoulder blade.

His head and face were battered and bruised, needing 15 stitches.

He was in hospital for 12 days

and has now made a miraculous recovery.

But the memories are still very raw.

All I could feel was this, this cold and I was shivering,

and I remember shivering very badly,

to the point that it was scary,

shivering so badly.

And during the travel to the hospital

was when I became unconscious and then I stopped breathing.

And at some point then, I was resuscitated.

So I'm not sure, you know, people talk about shock

and going into shock and certainly for me

that was quite a scary moment.

While Simon was recovering in hospital,

he picked up a newspaper and was shocked by what he saw.

To see in the paper that here was the carriage,

and there was a car and I'm thinking, "My God, that was us.

"That was me. Did I take part in that, did I do that?"

and I had nobody around me

to actually say, you know,

"It wasn't your fault."

And I kept going back to the page, and I kept looking at that picture

thinking, "My God, we got out of that."

Simon's two horses, Hobo and Hebe, were also injured,

but they, too, have made a good recovery.

This is Hebe.

Who's a seven-year-old Irish draught cross mare.

And she's a real veteran now of over 600 weddings.

When the carriage tumbled down the road,

she was the one that got thrown up in the air the highest,

and the furthest, and landed with quite a bang.

And this is Hobo.

Hobo got thrown to the side

and he supported the weight of the carriage

with the bride and her father inside.

Zoe and Simon's daughter, Hannah, was also thrown from the carriage.

She was kept in hospital over the weekend.

I remember being quite cold.

And then the two paramedics came and seen me,

put me in the ambulance.

And Zoe came and spoke to me in the ambulance,

and then I was taken to hospital. That's all I remember.

It was amazing how the police officers took control

and it's a great feeling to know that somebody else was there

to help me, and then when the ambulances arrived, and actually,

you know, you almost take a back seat and people, you could see them.

You know, they're doing the best

and the paramedics that were helping Simon initially just kept saying,

"He's going to be fine.

"Just you do what you need to do, he's going to be fine."

The father of the bride was also kept in hospital

but, with his blessing, his daughter went ahead and got married that day.

You know, to see that the bride got married a few hours later,

then the realisation that, you know,

I got her...

19-20ths of the way.

So, somebody else took her the last little bit.

So, no, I didn't feel so bad then. But I got her most of the way,

so I was proud that I got her most of the way.

It's been all go for the emergency services in Scotland's rural areas.

The Royal Navy Search And Rescue Team

endangered their lives for the sake of a hoax call.

Eric's snow sports injury needed surgery to repair three tendons

and a severed vein.

Thanks to his glove, the ski narrowly missed his artery

and probably saved his life.

Despite their ordeal, Simon and his horses are recovering well.

It's hoped they'll be back on the road soon.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd