Episode 7 Countryside 999

challenging environments in the world.

In Scotland, the mountains, lochs and coastline, encourage tourists

and locals to get out into the wilds.

The emergency services north of the border have to deal with

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.

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.

race to rescue an injured lumberjack.

Police investigate a farmhouse ripped apart by metal thieves.

You see where they've cut the copper pipes from the cupboard there.

And in A, a sheep farmer has had a nasty quad-bike accident.

Despite the UK's ever-growing population

agriculture, forest and woodland still cover 86% of the nation.

Many of our rural hubs are spread over vast distances,

adding to the challenge faced by the emergency services

On Scotland's south-west coast, HMS Gannet in Prestwick

is home to the Royal Navy Search and Rescue Unit.

So there's Bute, there's the mainland.

Basically, he's got a tree on his leg,

Observer Phil Gamble is on today's team.

Rescue protocol gives the crew just 15 minutes to scramble

to remote woodland on the Cowal Peninsula in the West Highlands.

The injured forestry worker is with his colleague,

at least a mile away from the nearest road,

so a helicopter rescue is the only option.

There's an ambulance on the way but we'll be there,

Accessibility is going to be directly rough, so we're going to go

and take a look and see if we can get in.

Phil's been given a mobile number for the casualty's colleague.

Now he can get vital information on their location

Hello, hi, this is Philip Gamble on the Search and Rescue helicopter

coming to you, can you hear me OK?

DIALLING TONE Nah, he's hung up.

They've lost the mobile phone signal,

so they still have no idea how deep in the forest the casualty is.

Or how difficult it will be to reach him.

Within 30 minutes, they've reached the forest.

The team spot a man moving on the edge of the tree line.

But as they draw closer, it's clear landing is not an option.

Tree stumps and boggy ground make it too risky to land the 10-tonne,

Even if we have to go to a 15-foot hover,

then that's probably the best way to do it.

would delay rescuing the injured lumberjack.

They don't know where he is in the forest, so there may be no option

but to hover and winch someone down to search for him on foot.

the staff of Dumfries Royal Infirmary look after 148,000 people,

many of whom work in rural industries.

and Dr Niall Campbell is working the night shift in A

He's been a consultant here for over two years,

so has seen his fair share of countryside incidents.

The trauma that we see is somewhat different to a city centre.

We see road traffic accidents, mountain biking accidents,

and today a young sheep farmer's suffered a bad one in a field.

32-year-old David needs a quad bike to get around his farm.

Whilst checking on his sheep at dusk,

an object flew out of nowhere, giving him a nasty injury.

He's since been given morphine to help ease the pain

It took David's wife almost an hour to drive them 20 miles

from their farm near Lockerbie in rush hour.

Although David's pain is mainly in his head,

he doesn't have a more serious injury in his neck.

Let me know if there's anywhere that's particularly sore.

concussion, a minor brain injury, is common.

Niall must check for symptoms like nausea,

Just watch my finger, and come all the way across.

Tell me if you see double. You might...

I can see two of your arm. And up we come.

We need to have a look at those wounds and get them sorted out.

Can I just feel inside the mouth as well?

David's sent to have X-rays of the bones in his face

Quad bike accidents are not uncommon,

certainly I've seen a few since starting here.

He has been wearing a protective helmet

and it does seem to be isolated to the face,

he's not got any neck or back pain, so I think we'll focus in on that.

The X-rays have come back with no sign of fractures.

The quad bike's visor protected David from more serious damage.

He's now been cleaned up and his wounds sutured together.

So I think you've been... stitched up. How are you feeling?

Dizzy and funny, if you know what I mean? Yeah.

I wouldn't be... I'm not surprised, that, you know...

The most common... The most common simple symptoms after any

kind of head injury are mild headache and dizziness.

You're nice and alert, I'm not noticing anything too untoward,

but the fact you're still feeling a bit rotten,

still have some headache, I'd prefer that we watched you

overnight to make sure that settles down.

the eye's doing OK in the morning as well. Aye.

Back in remote woodland in the west of Scotland,

the Royal Navy Search and Rescue Team are trying to reach

a lumberjack who's trapped under a tree.

but don't know how far into the forest the casualty is.

The terrain's too uneven and boggy to land the 10-tonne helicopter,

Lower the winch. Just mind those logs.

Coming down with ten feet to the ground.

Five feet to the ground. On the ground.

Disconnected. Raise the winch, raise the winch.

Once you get into the 10, 15-foot hover,

you can see that there's nowhere you can land on, just tree stumps, you've

got fallen logs, it's undulating ground, it's not worth risking

the aircraft when it takes two minutes extra just to winch down.

Oh, right, I thought it was someone stuck under a tree.

When we got there, there was two guys, there was a guy

out in the open area and a guy in the tree line.

I thought he was just indicating the casualty was inside the tree line.

It turns out the casualty was actually that guy.

Which was quite a shock and I told him to get down as soon as possible.

Unbelievably, 24-year-old Brent has managed to get out

and drag himself 30 feet to the edge of the forest.

Considering a hefty 80-foot tree has crushed his leg,

Winchman Lee's trained to ambulance technician level,

so will do what he can to treat him, until they get to hospital.

If you don't want to cut him here, I'm going to have to take him...

The first thing he needs to do is cut open Brent's trousers,

but thinking how much they cost, Brent's not keen.

..Get these boots off... Just leave them, mate, I'll get a splint on you.

Kneecap's slightly off to the left, you can see.

Pain score, what is that? That's a seven or eight, that.

He's badly injured, so the transfer to the helicopter could be painful.

Sure you don't want any pain relief? No, I'm fine just now.

We offered him analgesia but he said he was fine.

But yeah, he was a pretty tough guy, big lumberjack,

Brent's been a lumberjack all his working life.

Astonishingly, he's showing no signs of pain in what Lee believes

to be a broken tibia, in his lower leg.

So the tree sprang out when you was cutting it...

Sprang against me and trapped me against...

Cutting this one with a chainsaw, it sprung this way.

Bent him at the ankle, whacked him at the knee and knocked him flat.

Brent needs hospital treatment. But there's a problem.

They need to get him clear of the trees so they can winch him

Basically, there's loads of little tiny balls in here, and then

you suck the air out, creates a vacuum obviously, then immobilizes.

Thankfully, Brent's workmates are on hand

to help perform a lumberjack lift.

Get that arm over your shoulder, and you cross arms at the bottom.

But being moved closer to the helicopter without pain relief

I'm going to slip, going to slip, going to slip. You'll be all right.

to crimes committed in isolated countryside,

the emergency services have many extra challenges in our rural areas.

The Landward Police Unit in Dumfries covers countryside communities

in an area larger than Merseyside.

Two of the team's nine officers - PCs Ross Dickson and Stewart Rae -

to an incident at the heart of rural crime.

We're currently going to a potential house break-in.

The house is vacant just now and there's a theft of copper piping.

A woman keeping an eye on an empty farmhouse that's up for sale,

called police after discovering it had been burgled overnight.

nobody's going to really notice or see anyone coming up here.

To get hold of the copper piping, the thieves have literally

You can see they've been here for quite some time.

Pulled up floorboards, radiators as well.

They've even taken the toilet off and everything.

They've been in here as well and they've taken...

See where they've cut the copper pipes from the cupboard there.

copper has doubled in value over the last few years

Just getting our scenes of crime officer out to

come and take photographs of everything that's here.

Footprints - there's a database where we can send off these prints

and they can come back with the exact make of shoe.

what Ross and Stewart really need are witnesses.

So that suggests that it's obviously happened overnight.

This is obviously a used farmyard, I would suggest that a farmer

would have been here mid-evening last night,

so we can try and narrow the timescales down a wee bit more.

Ross is in luck when a local farmer turns up.

When was the last time you were here, last night? Yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon. One, half one-ish?

Half one. Right, OK. Had anyone coming up lately?

Well, there was people up here yesterday, but this house...

For sale. Aye. And they were having a look round.

Not sure who exactly. There was two cars.

Stewart wants to check if yesterday's viewing by two men and

a woman was genuine, but it's Sunday and the estate agents aren't open.

It could be completely innocent, but either way,

identifying the threesome could help their investigation.

The amount of piping... The amount of copper they've taken will be worth

possibly ?1,000 worth of copper, but the actual value

for redoing the house with the piping is much more than that.

With limited evidence and no solid leads,

catching these thieves is going to be very difficult.

We had scenes of crime out to check for fingerprints,

but unfortunately, there's no fingerprints anywhere.

It's in the middle of nowhere, rural area,

They're wearing gloves, they're not leaving anything behind for us

to go on, it gets very, very difficult.

However, we still investigate it as thoroughly as we can.

Protecting rural populations is a challenge

Huge distances and scattered communities

mean staff are stretched across a wide range of incidents.

In Dumfries, A medics deal with 100 patients a day.

21-year-old Andrew has travelled 12 miles from Lockerbie

with a nasty shoulder injury, caused in a rather unusual way.

who's lived in Dumfries for six months, is taking the case.

Hello, Andrew, I've just come to have a quick look at your shoulder.

I've heard from my colleagues that you've dislocated it,

and it's something you've done before. Yeah.

OK. Could you tell me what's actually happened today?

So you were just reaching for something? Aye.

that Andrew's dislocated his shoulder.

Are you able to move your arm at all? No.

Yeah, well, I'm not going to examine you, I think what we'll do

first of all is to get you X-rayed and that'll tell us

whereabouts the shoulder is lying relative to the joint, OK?

We'll get that organised then we'll come back and see you.

and you can see that the... The head of the humerus here isn't

actually sitting in the joint, it should actually be sat on...

On this cup here, but it's actually jumped forward and jumped out.

Our concern now is to get him analgised,

make sure that he doesn't have any pain, try and make sure that

he's relaxed and then we'll try and pop this bone back into its socket.

Having a dislocated joint can be agony,

so getting Andrew as relaxed as possible is key,

So, I'm going to give you some painkillers to start with, OK?

You're going to probably start feeling a bit woozy.

Just going to give you a little bit more of this.

It's an extremely painful procedure so Ged isn't taking any chances.

Andrew's given gas and air, the sedative Midazolam

and the powerful painkiller Morphine.

and make Andrew feel as relaxed as possible.

How are you feeling? Better. Better than before.

What I'm going to do is to lie you back, yeah,

Ged carefully manipulates Andrew's arm,

rotating it until he can feel the joint click back into place

How you doing? I feel better now, like.

I felt it clink in, so I'm quite, you know, I'm pretty optimistic that

it'll be in the right place, but we need to get it X-rayed again, OK?

There's one final X-ray to check everything's in place,

then Andrew will need monitoring as the drugs wear off.

Post reduction, we can actually see that the humerus is now back up,

sitting in the appropriate joint on the scapula.

Well, your shoulders look the same from here, which is good.

We've had a look at the X-ray and it looks fine, it looks as though

we've got the shoulder back into its joint, but what we'll

have to do now, I think, is to get you to see the orthopaedic doctors.

It'll be here, at the outpatients' clinic.

Andrew's weak shoulder may need surgery.

and ready to face the 12-mile bus journey back home.

On the west coast of Scotland, the Navy are on a rescue mission.

Lumberjack Brent has been seriously injured

at least a mile from the nearest track.

Helicopter rescue is his best option.

Are you sure you don't want any pain relief? No, I'm fine just now.

Lee's stabilised Brent's leg with a vacuum splint, ready to move him.

Now he arranges for the winch kit to be lowered.

The downdraught from the helicopter's 9m rotor blades

will make the transfer across very rough terrain even more difficult.

Get that arm over your shoulder and you get the other side,

One, two, three. Good. You happy? Aye.

Despite now describing his pain level

tough guy Brent has refused pain relief.

But he may soon regret that choice. Are you happy, you two?

I'm going to slip, going to slip. You're all right.

I can feel you slipping. Do like the old...underneath together.

The environment's horrendous. When you're on the ground,

it's undulating, you've got tree stumps everywhere, there's

a small stream which we had to extract him across,

Observer Phil must guide the helicopter in

Right only, 25 yards and continue down 20 feet slowly.

Every member of the crew uses focused effort

to pull off this dangerous manoeuvre.

They must steer clear of the tree tops,

flying just 130 feet above the ground.

Seven yards, five yards, forward right, now back two. Four yards.

Easy, easy, steady there, good position. Forward and left,

Just got one tree on the nose at about 20 yards.

It was a horrendous position to winch, not only getting the winch in,

but extracting the casualty, we'd gone through the tree line,

the aircraft to be away on an angle and then we can slowly take him out

to a safer area, before bringing him back up to the aircraft.

Brent is put in a cradle attached to a weighted line, or highline,

so he's as stable as possible, whilst the aircraft

is in a tilted position to keep them clear of the trees.

Highline's not failed. 40 foot to the aircraft.

Easy and steady there. Continue left only ten yards slowly.

OK, raise the winch, just level with the door, OK,

Right, lower the winch, lower the winch, stop the winch.

OK? BRENT MOUTHS

Now Brent's safe, the crew head for Glasgow.

A-firm, are happy with Glasgow Southern General, over.

Lee hooks Brent up to monitor his heart rate.

A bit of weather on the moor and Southern General,

we're going to come straight along the Clyde anyway.

It's taken the Royal Navy Search and Rescue Team just 25 minutes,

rather than two hours by road, to safely deliver Brent

to the waiting medical team at Glasgow's Southern General.

Brilliant example of how we train hard, fight easy and

we brought all the skills together there and so it was excellent.

and X-rayed to find out the extent of his injuries.

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

His wound is now healed and he's back out on his quad bike again.

visiting scrap dealers for any leads.

And lumberjack Brent spent five days in hospital.

The break had gone down through his knee into his tibia.

He now has bolts holding the weakened bones together.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside!

Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your 90 second update. There are more

spending cuts on the way. The Chancellor says twenty-five billion

pounds worth of savings need to be made