Episode 8 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.

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...

Help!

..to covering huge distances on rural roads

with time against them.

The GPs upgraded the call to an emergency.

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...

A Royal Navy search and rescue team are on a mission

to find three stranded climbers in Glencoe.

Have you a visual of the aircraft at the moment?

On a country road, police catch a young tractor driver using his mobile phone...

-You were clearly on a mobile phone, right?

-I wisnae on my mobile.

Come on, get in the back of car and we'll talk about it in there.

And we join the staff of a rural hospital's accident and emergency unit.

-How deep did the fork penetrate your hand?

-I don't know, actually.

The main concern with the wound is the risk of tetanus.

On Scotland's southwest coast is HMS Gannet -

a Royal Navy search and rescue base.

This rapid response unit covers a large area of Scotland and Northern Ireland,

and also parts of the north of England.

A huge area of 98,000 square miles.

Senior observer or navigator, Richie Lightfoot, has 27 years' service.

Today he's leading the four-strong helicopter crew

on a training exercise in the mountains of Glencoe.

Britain's stunning mountain ranges are a playground

for the outward bound,

attracting hundreds of thousands of walkers and climbers each year.

But being on these mountains can be a treacherous business.

In the last nine months, HMS Gannett has rescued over 90 people

off mountains like these, in Glencoe.

On their way back to base, a call comes in from local police, a few miles south of Crianlarich.

'It's to do with an ongoing incident on Beinn a'Chroin

'with three climbers in the mist, lost at the summit.'

The three men began the 3,090ft walk

up the rocky Beinn a'Chroin in clear weather.

But at the top the cloud quickly closed in.

Without a compass or map, relying solely on their mobile phone for navigation,

the men have got completely lost.

Crew winchman Mike 'H' Henson could be going down after them.

Walking the hills is dangerous any time of year.

However, it's October now, the nights are drawing in, so

navigation isn't easy at the best of times, even with a map and compass.

However, these guys were walking with just a smartphone,

which is never a good idea.

Rescue Navy 177.

We've just been contacted by a police unit currently

involved in a mountain rescue incident, looking for three

climbers in the Beinn a'Chroin area

just to the east of Oban.

We're currently in the area and they've asked for our assistance.

The visibility is extremely poor.

With limited daylight left,

the situation could turn very serious, very quickly.

Looking at it, you've got this high peak and then one... This is just me.

You've got this peak here at one o'clock. It's between the two.

We shall tie in at two miles.

The cloud cover is making the search difficult

and their fuel is running low.

Police mobile rescue 17, we've been cleared to assist.

We have approximately one hour on the scene before we need to go

and refuel.

But we will proceed to the grid as you have passed.

So far, they don't know if any of the party are injured,

which could make the rescue more complicated.

Police have given Richie Lightfoot a mobile number.

He hopes it will lead straight to the climbers.

-'Hello?'

-Hello. This is Rescue Helicopter 177.

We are actually searching for a party of three climbers.

Are you one of those climbers, over?

Have you a visual of the aircraft at the moment?

You are in the cloud. OK.

Are you on the path at the moment?

Are there any injuries with those in your party, over?

OK, that's copied.

-They sound like they're OK.

-Yeah.

-Just completely lost, aren't they?

-Just completely lost.

-Yeah.

-But it's pretty steep around here, if they...

-Yeah, yeah.

He says he's got less than 50 metres visibility.

-He's right up on the top there.

-Right up at the top.

Daylight is dwindling and the temperature is plummeting.

The crew decide they must persevere to locate the missing

climbers before the chance of exposure escalates.

Back on the ground and 160 miles south of Glencoe,

is the town of Dumfries.

The local police here cover a huge area of rural villages, towns,

farmland and coastline.

From its winding country roads...

to an arterial route, bridging Scotland and northern England.

Road accidents are one of the area's biggest problems,

causing over 400 casualties last year.

PCs Ross Dickson and Stewart Rae have just started their day shift.

They're part of a landward team who specialise in policing rural areas.

Ross has lived in Dumfries all his life

and knows that on these country roads, you have to be vigilant.

Today, the officers have spotted a traffic offence.

It's an accident waiting to happen.

We've been holding a road check looking for any offences,

mobile phones, etc.

And as luck would have it, a tractor towing a trailer has driven by us.

And the young boy driving the tractor has been using his mobile phone.

So we're just going to follow the tractor and find a safe place

to stop and then we will get out and deal with it.

22 percent of road deaths are caused by 17- to 24-year-old drivers.

Tends to be young boys, you know, that are driving the tractors

that tend to be using their mobile phones.

Driving a tractor, it's a very large vehicle, towing a long trailer.

It's completely unacceptable.

It puts other road users at risk, so he will be suitably advised

regarding that as well, as well as being issued a fixed penalty ticket.

Weighing up to 24 tonnes,

tractors are a common hazard on rural roads.

The driver of this tractor could be facing a fine

and a few points on his licence.

-How you doin', pal, you all right?

-All right.

-Come round here and I'll speak to you.

-Do you know why we want to talk to you?

-No, sorry.

-Right, think about it. You are driving up the 701...

-Yeah.

-Right.

What were you holding in your hand, driving, looking at?

-Nothing.

-Mobile phone.

-No mobile.

No, you were clearly on your mobile phone, all right?

I wasn't on my mobile.

Come on, we'll get in the back of the car and talk about it in there.

During his four-year service, Constable Ross Dickson knows

all too well that people will say anything to try and get out of trouble.

This young tractor driver is no exception.

Me, Stewart - both seen you.

-Clearly, driving looking at a mobile phone.

-I had...

There is a phone thing there.

But I don't bring my phone to work.

-I get a works phone.

-You had a mobile phone in your hand.

It might... I was checking something out my wallet.

But I didnae... I honestly did not have my phone in my hand.

Over one million people have been caught using their mobile

whilst driving since it became illegal nine years ago.

If you were not looking at the road ahead,

you were looking down at a mobile phone.

It wasn't your wallet you were looking at.

-I had got a text, yeah. From my boss.

-Right, so you were using your mobile phone.

I just flicked it off and then put it back.

Aye, listen, you're still using a mobile phone, all right?

If you're reading a text while you're driving the tractor,

or driving anything.

You're driving that and you're towing that trailer, right?

-No' clever, all right? Got any points on your licence?

-Yeah.

-How many have you got?

-Three.

-You've got three? Right.

-Unfortunately, it's another three points.

-BLEEP!

-How long you had your licence?

-Just...

Oh, well, nearly a year now.

Getting six points in your first two years of driving can mean

a day in court and the loss of your licence.

Listen, you can't be using a mobile phone when you're driving.

Especially... You're driving something like that,

it's no' the most manoeuvrable vehicle in the world, OK?

-No.

-The slightest wee deviation off the road, and you've lost it.

As PC Dickson lays down the law, he's interrupted by a 999 call.

133, go ahead.

'There is a report of a lorry, a log lorry that's lost

'eh, one of the logs on the A75, just near to the roundabout.

'Apparently the log has struck another vehicle.

'Requesting police. We are just trying to get more information.

'We lost our caller.'

Roger. That's all received. Thank you.

Right, anyway, you're going to have to get on your way the now

-because we have got a 999 call to go to, all right?

-Yeah.

Clear left.

SIREN WAILS

The accident is seven miles away.

A log has fallen off a lorry and hit a car

so the officers need to get there fast.

160 miles north, the Royal Navy search and rescue

team are trying to find three lost climbers on a mountain in Glencoe.

Stuck in cloud with just a phone for navigation,

the climbers are lost, cold and tired.

The helicopter fuel is getting low and there is limited daylight left.

Senior observer Richie Lightfoot decides to land

the helicopter at the foot of Beinn a'Chroin.

They'll work together with local police

and try to pinpoint the exact location of the three men.

Using their smartphone, the climbers managed to give the police

coordinates of their rough location.

But the thick cloud meant they can't see or be seen by the helicopter.

What I think they've initially done is they've gone a wee bit to the east

and then they have got themselves, not quite crag fast,

but they've got themselves on the top of the crags.

To be crag fast means to be stuck, unable to move up or down.

Since these climbers can move, the police think they might be able to

get to a place where the helicopter can pick them up.

-Yeah.

-If they move back to the summit where they have given us,

-been in contact with us.

-Do you reckon they're just here?

I reckon... Yeah. Between the two there. In about there somewhere.

Right.

So what we'll do, we'll go back and have another search.

If you could...

See if you can't get either a more accurate position off them, where they actually are right now.

I reckon we've got about another half hour,

-40 minutes we can commit to before we need to be fuel.

-OK.

With the Mountain Rescue team on standby

and the police trying to narrow down the search area,

Richie hurries back to update the crew.

The weather is getting even worse,

so Richie phones the climbers again to check on their rough position.

Hello?

Hello, we're hovering over the path,

this is about as high as we can get due to the cloud base.

Are you visual us, and can you hear the aircraft, over?

If you could walk down the path towards the sound of the aircraft,

hopefully you will come down, eventually, below the cloud line

and this is where we will be.

With the threat of darkness and the weather closing in,

Richie decides their best option is to land

the 10-tonne Sea King helicopter close to where they think the men are.

OK, you are clear to the left.

There's a quite large rock just under my window in the door.

Go down slowly.

Three feet at the tail, two foot at the tail.

Coming down now.

The landing has been carried out safely.

Now the job is to find the three climbers from the ground.

The emergency services in rural areas like this

work together to prevent as many serious accidents as they can.

But when they do happen,

the injured are taken to Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary,

which covers a huge geographical area of 2,400 miles.

Compare that to Manchester,

where you're never more than five miles away from an A&E department.

Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary serves a scattered rural population

of 148,000 people,

many of whom are fishermen, forestry workers and farmers.

Helping to run this hectic department as smoothly as possible

is Nurse Practitioner of 13 years, Kevin Ferguson,

who's tending to a rather unusual farming incident.

-What happened?

-Just a slight farm accident.

I was clearing a forage wagon that had blocked up with silage

with a grape, and I was working with my left hand

-trying to clear the silage and slipped.

-OK.

A grape is a sharp pronged implement used to break up soil on the farm.

It may not look as dramatic as a stab wound

found in an urban hospital but, because it happened on a farm

where the risk of infection is high, it could become serious.

How deep did the fork penetrate your hand?

I don't know, actually.

-I don't think it's gone in that far, actually.

-OK.

Kenny's also had an x-ray done

to check for any broken bones on his right hand.

This is where the metal fork penetrated the hand,

so if there was any fracture there with the puncture wound it would

change the management, cos it would be classed as an open fracture.

But the X-ray looks great and there's no fractures seen.

So the main concern with the wound is obviously the fact

it's been in a farm and the risk of tetanus.

Tetanus, also known as lockjaw, is a serious infection

caused by bacteria found in soil and animal waste.

If not treated, the bacteria can create a poison

which affects muscles and nerves.

OK, so what we're going to have to do, sir,

is put some local anaesthetic round about the wound

and give it a good clean, OK?

Then we'll have to give you a couple of vaccinations,

one of them being an active tetanus vaccination, OK?

-A couple of jacks for you, if that's OK.

-Aye.

HE LAUGHS

First, Kenny gets an injection of anaesthetic.

-Bit stingy, is that OK?

-Aye, it is a wee bit. That's fine.

Kevin gives Kenny's hand a thorough clean

to make sure there's nothing dangerous left in the wound.

Although the wound looks small, it's really the depth

of how deep the forks went that's the worry,

because the bacteria go into the hand.

So, obviously, the most important thing is a good clean.

Once sanitised, the wound is dressed.

Farms can be hazardous places,

with over 1,000 recorded injuries to farm workers last year alone.

You hear a lot of folk getting caught in machinery

and one thing and another, but that's really just stupidity.

Well, mind you, I can't be any worse!

Two anti-tetanus jabs later, he's good to go.

-I'll let you get away home now.

-Good, good, good!

PCs Ross Dickson and Stewart Rae have been dealing with a young lad

using his mobile phone whilst driving a tractor.

They're now on a 999 call to another road incident

that's just come in.

We're off down to the A75.

There's a wood lorry that's been transporting logs...has shed...

One of the logs has fell off and struck another vehicle.

So we're making our way there just now.

We don't have any more details than that,

so we don't know if anyone's injured or not,

so we'll try and get there as quick as we can see what's happening.

Southern Scotland has woodland areas as big as the whole of Cornwall

and the sight of a log lorry on the road is commonplace.

A large vehicle spilling logs on to roads like this

could easily cause a pile-up.

133, do we know if the log is off the road, over?

-RADIO:

-Sorry, we're unaware of that.

Received.

-There's the log there.

-There's the log there.

We've just passed the log in the road that's caused

the damage to the vehicle, and it's off the actual road,

off the carriageway, so it's not causing any obstruction,

so that's certainly a bonus.

The vehicles involved are parked just ahead.

-Everyone OK?

-Well, everyone's still standing.

Still standing, OK.

Fortunately, the damage to the car is relatively minor,

concentrated around the front right wheel arch.

If the log had gone through the windscreen,

the outcome could have been much more serious.

Constable Stewart Rae gets the drivers' version of events.

For James in the car behind, it was quite an alarming ordeal.

It happened that quick, like,

the log was on the road virtually coming towards us.

And my front wheel ran over, doing damage to the vehicle.

I'm OK, like, but it's just a bit of a shock, this log coming off.

The log lorry driver thinks he knows the reason for the accident.

With all the rain on the trees, it's made the trees slippy.

When I pulled up to that roundabout, they slipped forward.

I saw it in my mirror.

Actually didn't know I'd hit that car,

but we'll sort it out in insurance.

But securing the load is the pressing concern

to stop this from happening again.

Some of his load's unsafe, so what he's doing, he's just trying to make

it safe, then he can strap it better before he can go on his journey.

The driver adjusts the logs with the crane attached to the lorry.

But Ross can't leave it at that.

After consulting with police HQ,

Ross decides there's only one option in this case -

to press charges.

Just due to the circumstances, the fact that the load shouldn't

have came off, it has to get reported to the court, OK, sir?

Basically, that's a charge of the vehicle being a dangerous load,

-which is Section 40 of the Road Traffic Act, 1988, OK?

-Yeah.

Do you have any reply to make to the charge?

No. No point, is there?

Thank you very much, sir, I'll let you get on your way now.

-I'll no doubt hear from you.

-HE LAUGHS

You might not hear from us, you'll hear from the court.

-All right.

-Thank you, sir.

-OK, see you now.

He's in charge of the vehicle being secure,

making sure the load's safe and secure.

He hasn't done that, cos one of the logs has fell off,

and you heard him say there, the logs were slippy and they were wet.

He should have made extra care that the logs were secure.

There's also the possibility

that his driving hasn't exactly been perfect.

Back in Glencoe...

The Navy Sea King helicopter has landed on Beinn a'Chroin.

Now winchman, trained medical technician

and experienced hill walker H

sets out on foot to try and find the three men.

'As we all know, in hills, where you can hear something coming,

'it can echo off things, so my initial worry was that they would

'end up going off track, basically,

'and get themselves into further danger.'

So my plan was to go into the distance

just to try and cut that gap down, the margin for error down,

and then sort of guide them visually back to the aircraft.

He's dropped out, I'll try and call him again.

Richie's on the phone trying to lead the climbers towards H,

but he doesn't know if they're going the right way.

The visibility is reducing the higher up H gets,

and in these conditions there's a real risk the two parties

might miss each other altogether.

Hello!?

In very low visibility,

H has climbed almost 600 feet in 15 minutes.

At last, he hears a whistle in the distance.

WHISTLE

Hello!

WHISTLE

I can hear you!

WHISTLE

I've got a visual now.

'Believe it or not,

'it was the old-fashioned whistle that came in handy...'

and actually saved the day, because as I was approaching them

I was shouting for them, they were blowing the whistle

and it gave me vectors to be able to eventually get visual with them.

How are you doing?

INAUDIBLE

No, no problem at all, no problem at all.

We've got about another 10, 15 minute walk back down the path

where they're waiting for us,

but we've only got about 10 or 15 minutes' worth of fuel here,

so we'll have to go as quickly and as safely as possible. OK?

You guys all fit? There's no injuries on anything, is there?

At last, they catch their first glimpse of the rescue helicopter.

After four hours of being lost and stranded in dense cloud,

it's a huge relief for the three men.

They won't have to spend a lonely night on the freezing mountain.

-These are your men.

-Thank you.

-No problem at all.

With around 300 call-outs every year, rescuing an average

of over 300 people, it's another positive result for the crew.

-No worries, take care, all right?

-Thank you.

-Take care.

Job done.

-Back for tea and biccies and medals.

-I think so.

-Beautiful.

'It doesn't get any better than that.

'We managed to get three people'

off the hill uninjured, before dinner, before dark,

so, yeah, great result.

What started off as a training exercise turned into a full-scale

rescue of three climbers lost at the top of a mountain in Glencoe.

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

The young tractor driver pleaded guilty to driving

whilst using a mobile phone.

He was fined and got three points, but kept his licence.

The log lorry driver pleaded guilty to the offence.

He was fined £100 and received three points on his licence.

And the three climbers rescued from the top of the mountain

in Glencoe by the Royal Navy are now safe and well after their ordeal.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.