Episode 1 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.

Steady. He's on the life raft.

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...

Hello!

..to covering huge distances on rural roads

with time against them...

The GP's upgraded the call to an emergency.

..they work around the clock

battling against some of the most difficult situations imaginable.

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, paramedics attend a major accident on the M74 motorway.

There's a car upside down.

Royal Navy Search and Rescue

speed to save the crew of a sinking fishing boat.

And a routine police speed check

leads to a much more suspicious scenario.

My gut instinct is that, er,

they may be in the country illegally.

There are a quarter of a million miles of public roads in Britain,

over 34,000 miles of which are in Scotland.

A network of roads linking remote rural communities.

But frequent bad weather and isolated roads

far from hospitals and emergency services

make Scotland's highways and byways some of the deadliest in Britain.

The emergency services in Dumfries and Galloway in south-west Scotland

are kept particularly busy.

Per head of population, they have one of the highest rates

of serious road accidents in Britain.

On call today are paramedics Derek Rankine and Susan Craig,

who have just taken a call to attend

a road traffic collision or RTC on the M74,

the major arterial road linking England and Scotland.

Yeah, it's an emergency call

to a road traffic accident on the motorway.

The only information we were given,

there's one casualty that may have back and neck injuries.

Derek has 16 years experience under his belt.

Susan is still a relative rookie, with one year on the job.

In order to get to the accident on the motorway,

Susan will have to blue light

through 20 miles of busy country roads.

If it's an emergency like this, we may be travelling at speeds

in excess of the speed limit on these A-roads.

So you do have to watch for water, there's a lot of standing water.

If you hit that at any speed,

obviously that can be pretty dangerous.

Ambulance crews are specially trained to drive at speed.

Today the weather is causing havoc.

Unbelievably, they hit another accident

which is causing a long tailback.

-There's blue lights there now.

-Yeah, I can go.

HORN BEEPS

Aye, leave your sirens on.

So we've hit traffic here as well

so whether it's a flooding or another accident,

it's causing a roadblock.

A lorry, I think.

POLICEMAN: They might have the cable out of the tanker,

but you'll be able to get through if he hasn't.

Is nobody injured? We're heading to the M74 or something, aye.

With the police in control, and no-one hurt,

the paramedics are given priority and waved through,

ahead of all the other drivers.

A lorry's obviously had an accident, so we may not get through.

I don't...

Aye, should be all right. Just don't run his feet over.

OK. You're fine, aye.

Now they must hit the gas

to reach the potentially serious spine and neck injury ahead.

Slowed us down a little bit, but nobody injured, thank goodness.

It's 21 minutes since receiving the emergency call

and at last, they hit the motorway.

Well, Susan's doing about 85 miles per hour just now.

The visibility's not as good

because you get a lot of spray on the motorway as well.

The accident really could be from any point here for the next,

I don't know, 12, 15 miles north.

Could be any point between here and there,

so what we'll probably notice is the police blue lights

will be flashing in the distance.

27 minutes after leaving base,

they get to the scene of the accident.

There's a car upside down.

First impressions don't look good.

One fifth of the British population live in the countryside.

And all of us cross the country on a vast network of rural roads.

With 34 million vehicles on our highways,

a major role for the traffic police

is to reduce chances of serious accidents happening,

many of which are due to people driving too fast.

The A74 is the main big route

from England to Scotland into Europe,

which is right in our backyard.

So the amount of people that are up and down that road,

you'd be surprised what you stop.

Just carrying out speed checks for speeding motorists on the motorway.

Ten years in the service,

PC John Parry moved to Scotland for the outdoor life.

Today he's speed checking the morning rush hour

with PC Scott Burnett on the same motorway as the crashed car.

We're looking at speeds of about 75, 76 miles an hour.

That's presently.

When the road gets quiet, you know,

you start to get people picking up their speeds.

It's not long before they find their first offender.

And I can...I can see there, the beeper there,

has just detected one at 92.

The officers turn on the blue lights and take off to catch the culprit,

who has been clocked doing 92 in a 70 limit.

Yeah, bear in mind,

we're taking off from a standing start,

so the vehicle's sitting at 92, that's what he's detected at.

In 2011, exceeding the speed limit

or travelling too fast for the conditions

caused a quarter of all road deaths.

This driver has a police car just behind him, and he's still speeding.

This is the vehicle in front of us now.

So we'll just try and stop him as safely as possible.

He's still sitting at 83 miles an hour,

using the calibrated speedometer of the car.

However, he's failed to see we're still behind him,

so he is starting to decrease in speed now.

Finally, the driver pulls over.

It turns out that not only has the driver been speeding,

his passengers haven't been wearing seatbelts,

which is against the law and carries a £60 fine.

How you doing?

Is there any reason you're not wearing your seatbelt?

You need to wear that, all right?

Same for yourself.

Seatbelts need to be on.

First things first,

John and Scott want to speak to the driver away from his passengers.

Three of them weren't wearing seatbelts.

And John discovers this isn't the driver's first traffic offence.

So do you have any points on your driving licence at all?

How many do you have? You've got six points, yeah? OK.

Speeding at 92 miles an hour could mean another three points

and a £60 fine.

What I must do is I must caution or charge you with the offence

that on today's day and date,

on the A74M, northbound, er, southbound carriageway,

near to junction 17, Lockerbie,

you did drive at 92 miles per hour,

when you're restricted to 70 miles per hour.

Do you understand that charge, first of all?

Now John deals with the passengers who weren't wearing their seatbelts.

Do you have any identification on you?

Something with your name on.

Do you have a credit card, something with your name on?

You've got nothing on you whatsoever?

You've no identification on you, at all?

Both officers are beginning to get suspicious

as the first passenger's claiming not to have any ID.

Where are you from? Indian citizen, yeah?

How long have you been in the country?

You've been here three years?

How did you get into the country?

How?

What started as a routine speeding stop

is turning into more of a mystery.

The passengers' stories aren't ringing true to PC John Parry,

and he starts to suspect that

there's more to this than meets the eye.

All over Britain, rural emergency services

have to deal with greater distances and more difficult roads

than their counterparts in the city.

After receiving a 999 call,

paramedics Derek and Susan have negotiated bad weather

and a crashed lorry blocking the road

to finally arrive at the scene

of a road traffic collision on the M74,

the main motorway linking Scotland and England.

There's a car upside down.

Can't see anybody in the car,

so hopefully, I think that must be him there.

We'll go and have a word.

The sight of an upturned car in the central reservation

is immediately worrying.

Initial thought when you see a car upside down on a motorway,

you do fear the worst,

that there's maybe somebody seriously injured,

or worse, in the car.

The fire service are already on the scene.

Miraculously, the occupants of the car have walked free.

But still, the paramedics must check their injuries.

Yeah, I'm OK, yeah.

My neck is really, really sore.

Blood pressure's slightly high, but it's to be expected, isn't it?

-These type of things.

-Not in the calmest of situations here!

Do you feel dizzy at the moment?

-No, not really.

-Vision OK?

Yeah, vision's OK, yeah.

Is it in the middle or is it more at the side?

It's in the middle but higher up, right in the back of my neck.

Right under my...

Oh, yeah, just, about in there.

Just in here?

Yeah, and in the middle and the back. Right high up.

Top of your head there, aye.

When temperatures drop below seven degrees,

car tyres have less traction on the road.

Combine this with heavy rain and surface water

and the outcome can be deadly.

The occupants of the upturned car are lucky to be alive.

Gill and her husband Keith were heading home for Christmas

when their car aquaplaned on surface water in the fast lane

and flipped onto its roof.

Basically coming up the motorway

and, the traffic, there's no...

no cars, traffic on the inside lane,

everything was sitting in the middle lane,

and I had to pull to the outside lane to pass

and hit a large area of standing water.

And the car spun, full 360,

and when it hit the barrier it then started rolling.

Just glad that everyone's safe and alive.

Gill has sustained an injury to her neck and it's not long

before the ambulance journey begins to take its toll.

All right, Gill? Do you want some gas and air, or...?

Just for the bumps in the journey? No?

-Yeah, I maybe will, actually. Oh!

-It's all right, all right.

Takes maybe a minute or two to get into your system.

It's clear to Derek

that despite giving Gill the pain-relieving gas Entonox,

her pain is getting worse.

He takes immediate action

and asks Susan to pull over in order to immobilise Gill

for the rest of her journey to hospital.

Just pull in at the...just pull in at the side here, Susan.

Just try and keep her head down a wee bit,

think the wiggling about's a wee bit painful.

Put this on.

'The pain in her neck seemed to be a little worse'

than she initially said.

So then, try to lay her,

try to lay her as flat as possible,

and obviously I put the blocks at the side and taped her head,

just to stop her head from moving around,

which seemed to have eased the pain a little bit.

Yeah. Sometimes people, when they're in accidents,

you get like an adrenaline rush,

just with the...the shock of being in an accident.

You know, once the adrenaline thing wears off, then...

the pain can then become a little bit stronger.

OK.

The deterioration in Gill's condition

is a worry for her husband and the paramedics.

They must get her to hospital fast.

Later, Gill's injuries are assessed in casualty.

We need to look at this in more depth,

so I'll organise a CT scan of her neck.

On the main motorway linking Scotland and England,

the routine speeding stop has more twists and turns.

You don't know where he's staying? He's saying he's staying with you.

Your boy in the back.

But first, the Royal Navy Search and Rescue team race against time

to save two fishermen adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.

In rural Britain,

emergency services like Search and Rescue helicopter crews,

travel hundreds of miles to reach our outlying communities.

HMS Gannet, on Scotland's south-west coast,

is home to the Royal Navy's Search and Rescue Unit.

It covers a huge area of Scotland and Northern Ireland

and parts of the North of England.

Today, the crew are getting briefed on a training exercise,

by their Commanding Officer, Andy Drodge.

Andy is a Gulf War veteran with 23 years' service

and has been stationed all over the world.

OK, today, lack of power

will be the thing to take note of

and we'll risk assess and if we are unsure just do a...

Andy will be the observer, or navigator,

on board the Sea King Helicopter.

..Yankee, Whiskey, Yankee, Alpha...

As HMS Gannet's Commanding Officer,

he carries overall responsibility for rescue and training missions.

Anything on the water...over the water, sorry, we will bag up

before we go now, it's getting quite cold out there.

Honing their skills is a vital part of the crew's daily routine.

Today it's an over-sea training exercise.

Dressing for the occasion is essential

and Winchman Taff Ashman isn't taking any chances.

If we have any issues, obviously, and crash into the water,

the idea is that we've got protection on, keep us dry,

until we can get picked up by the coastguard.

It's likely Taff will be getting wet.

Little bit of a winch exercise

but obviously cos we're in a low hover over the water

the sea temperature is getting a bit cold,

certainly too cold for overalls.

With up to 400 callouts a year, they must be ready for anything -

from rescuing injured climbers,

to helping women in labour on remote islands get to the nearest hospital.

Just as they take off, the exercise is abandoned.

They get an emergency call

to carry out an urgent rescue in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is Rescue 177, the sinking fishing vessel,

do you have numbers of persons on board? Over.

A fishing boat is in trouble off the west coast of Scotland,

around 40 minutes from base.

There are two people on board

and their boat, The Paulanda, has started to sink.

The Royal Navy helicopter has a pump on board

to help salvage the boat if necessary.

But their first priority is the crew.

When you get called to a boat that's taking on water or sinking,

obviously the thoughts,

we're going predominantly for the crew,

the salvage issue isn't really our job. It's life.

Up front, pilot Lloydy Shanahan

and co-pilot "Willow" Wielopolski

must fly 70 miles west, across Arran, Kintyre and Islay

to try and find the two fishermen stranded in the Atlantic Ocean.

The boat is taking on water, so time is of the essence.

With 50 miles still to go, the crew are given a worrying update.

Gallons of water are gushing into the boat,

so the fishermen are in grave danger.

The sea temperature is a chilling nine degrees centigrade.

If they end up in the sea,

the two men could get very cold, very quickly.

And the consequences could be fatal.

This may be rural Britain

but the police here still uncover plenty of criminal activity,

often following a hunch on a routine exercise.

PCs John Parry and Scott Burnett

caught a vehicle travelling at 92mph in a 70mph limit.

After stopping the speeding driver,

they found his two passengers weren't wearing seatbelts

and one of them has no ID.

Are you an illegal immigrant? Should you be in the country?

You should be. What's your home address?

The passengers have limited English,

making it harder for John and Scott to unravel this case.

Have you got any identification on you?

The other passenger also claims to have no ID

and the driver isn't backing up either of their stories

about who they are or where they're living.

You don't know where he's staying? He's saying he's staying with you.

Your boy in the back.

He's not staying with you?

Sends alarm bells ringing straight away,

thinking that this guy's told me that he lives with the driver.

The driver has no recollection of him living with him,

so obviously lies are getting told, from the very beginning.

As they're contradicting each other's stories,

John confronts the first passenger again.

What we're doing is, we're checking with Manchester Port now,

just... We're checking, we're checking with the port unit,

to see if you have came through.

OK, if you... if you've came on a plane,

there'll be a record of that.

There's something not right between these two gentlemen.

Experience does tell you,

because you've dealt with these sort of situations before,

that...you need to start digging a bit deeper.

So the best people to get in touch with are the immigration services.

Hello, wonder if you can help me, I don't know if it's the right number.

My name's Scott Burnett, I'm a constable...

Still perched on the hard shoulder,

Scott's contacting the UK Border Agency

and he's trying to confirm the visa status of the two passengers.

Of the three people that we've got here,

one does have a driving licence, he's checked out OK.

He does have a business.

However, the two other persons within the vehicle

have very, very broken English, no identification on them whatsoever,

cannot really answer basic questions.

So once these checks have been carried out

and they've been carried out satisfactorily,

and we're happy these people are who they say they are,

then we'll let them on their way.

My gut instinct is that they may be in the country illegally.

The call to the UK Border Agency

looks like it's backing up John's hunch.

I'm on the phone to immigration.

They can find no records of your work permit,

all they can find is a permit which was issued to you,

which allowed you to stay here for six months.

That's it. That expired 2011.

His visa ran out over a year ago,

which means he's at risk of deportation.

The driver has picked up a £60 fine

and three points on his licence for speeding.

But his passengers are in much more serious trouble.

Right, OK.

You've outstayed your visa, all right?

So you're being arrested

under Section 28A of the Immigration Act, 1971, OK?

The UK Border Agency asked the officers to arrest both

the passengers and take them back to Dumfries police station,

where they'll be questioned by a senior immigration officer.

They're handcuffed and taken into custody.

Back at the station, they'll be searched thoroughly,

before the officers hand the men over to immigration.

Being caught in a speeding car

could lead to this being their last day of liberty in the UK.

In 2010, there were over 120,000 collisions on Britain's roads.

Over 1,600 of them were fatal.

Paramedics Derek and Susan are bringing car crash victim Gill

to the local A&E at Dumfries Royal Infirmary.

Gill has a suspected neck and spine injury.

Despite miraculously walking free from her upturned car,

she's now showing worrying signs of deterioration.

I'll have to keep you immobilised, I'm afraid.

Having safely delivered Gill the 20 miles to hospital in bad weather,

Derek and Susan hand over Gill's care to the A&E team.

And, one, two, three, slide.

More than six hours into a busy shift

is consultant Peter Armstrong.

With four years in a busy rural A&E department,

he's all too familiar with the consequences of traffic accidents.

-You'd a seatbelt on?

-Yeah, I had a seatbelt on.

Excellent, you got out of the vehicle by yourself?

Fantastic! OK, perfect. Good, good.

Can you wiggle your toes?

-Excellent, you feel me touching round your toes?

-Yeah.

You feel me touching in between your toes there?

Any tingling down your arms and legs?

Just on my little fingers.

-Right, OK. Both sides, or just...?

-Both sides a wee bit, yeah.

-OK, and is that getting better, or is it the same?

-Still the same.

I think the fact that she's been up and mobile,

and walking around at the scene is very reassuring.

I think, though, if she's got tenderness into her neck bones

and her back bones, it would be sensible that we X-ray

and just... Especially given that she's got some tingling

down towards the bottom of her fingers.

Well, we'll we do a pelvis and a...and a cervical spine.

The only other thing is,

we may need to think about that clavicle as well,

so it might be worthwhile.

OK.

So we'll see if we can get some analgesia for them

and then we'll take it from... take it from there.

Gill is transferred for an X-ray, so Pete takes a quick break.

I've been on the shop floor for seven hours now so...

I just thought I would...

Haven't had any lunch, so I just thought I'd grab a coffee

and recharge the batteries for a few minutes.

It's been an interesting day.

We've had a wide, wide mixture of patients coming in

from relatively minor conditions

to other people with quite nasty broken bones.

We've seen a few other more unusual cases.

I've got a patient with some burns to...

to the buttocks having sat on a hot wood burning stove last night.

So that's a rather unusual presentation,

it's not something we see every day.

Gill's X-rays are back from Radiology.

Let's, well, let's just see the... cervical spine first.

It's tender down her neck

and she has some tingling in both hands,

which you sometimes get

with irritation of the nerves at the bottom of the neck.

She is also tender over her collarbone,

which may be a reflection of where the seatbelt came over.

It was her left collarbone.

If somebody has been travelling at 70mph, has rapidly decelerated,

the body will keep moving.

The car will slow, the seatbelts will kick in,

so you expect some tenderness and pain around the collarbone.

What happens is the head and neck keep moving,

so you can get a potential flexion-type injury at the neck.

Hence she will be sore in the neck and we're concerned about that.

It's an injury that Pete sees often.

Road traffic accidents are a regular feature of life in a rural A&E unit.

Being in a rural environment, we do see...

accidents as a result of people driving too fast,

or excessively fast for the road conditions.

So, you know, car accidents and road accidents

are very common in this part of the world.

Hello again. Had a look at those X-rays.

The X-ray of your collarbone looks absolutely fine, OK.

The X-ray of your pelvis

and that hip on the right side looks absolutely fine.

How's this tingling in the hand?

Now I'm warmer it's a lot better.

Has it completely settled now?

-Yeah.

-Fantastic! I'll just loosen off this collar

and I'm going to have a little feel down the back of your neck.

-Ooh! Yeah, that one there.

-OK. How about there?

-That's OK.

-And there at that side?

-That's OK.

It's really, really painful where you're pressing.

OK, and is that making the tingling down your arms worse?

-It's on that...that side.

-OK, I'm going to put this collar back on, I'm afraid.

I had hoped that we would be able to remove that collar

but she's very tender down at the junction

between the cervical vertebrae, which are the neck sort of building blocks,

and the thoracic vertebrae,

which are the building blocks that make up the spine and the upper back.

She does have a lot of tenderness in that area

and she's got some symptoms down her,

particularly her right arm,

so I think the safest thing to do

is that we make sure there's no signs of a break in there.

The tenderness in Gill's neck is a worry.

After the initial X-ray, Pete's still not happy.

Her symptoms need further investigation.

So, for now, Gill's ordeal is still not over.

60 miles to the north-west of the hospital,

the Royal Navy's Search and Rescue team

are en route to an emergency callout.

Two fishermen are aboard a sinking boat in the Atlantic Ocean,

20 miles west of the Hebridean island of Islay.

The incoming information is getting more and more serious.

The vessel is taking on water,

so it won't be long before it's completely under.

Commanding Officer Andy Drodge needs to reassess their rescue plans.

From the reports we're getting,

my initial reaction will be to get the two fishermen off the boat,

so I'll be putting Taff down, my winchman,

onto the boat, looking to get those two fishermen off straight away.

The crew get a very worrying update,

turning this into a life-threatening situation.

OK, they've abandoned?

The fishermen are adrift in the ocean

and hypothermia is Taff's biggest worry.

As a trained paramedic, he needs to think on his feet

about the potential physical condition of the casualties.

In the UK in 2011, more than 200 people died from hypothermia.

If the fishermen are in the water,

they will be flown directly to hospital after their rescue.

If they've actually got wet, being in the water,

then they're obviously going to be cold within the life raft itself.

I mean, being in November,

obviously winter's sort of approaching,

so the sea temperature is starting to drop.

Obviously the prospect of hypothermia is quite high.

After a 35 minute journey, they finally spot the two fishermen.

Rescue 177 now on scene at vessel in distress

and visual the life raft.

The lonely life raft is adrift, 20 miles away from land.

Rescue 177 have visual the survivor in the life raft,

position as flagged earlier.

The helicopter is their best hope of getting to safety quickly.

It's down to winchman Taff

to get them back up to the Sea King as quickly as possible,

but he doesn't know what state the two fishermen are in.

Back in Dumfries and Galloway,

PCs John Parry and Scott Burnett

pulled over a driver speeding at 92mph

and found the passengers weren't wearing seat belts.

How you doing? Is there any reason you're not wearing your seatbelt?

But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Further investigation uncovered

that both passengers have overstayed their visas.

Now the officers have brought them back to the station

so they can be questioned further.

So it's Section 28A of the Immigration Act, 1971.

The Chief Immigration Officer's on his way,

so the two men will be kept apart in cells until he arrives.

But first they must be searched.

It turns out they're both carrying hefty sums of cash.

-Do you know how much money you have?

-Yes.

-How much?

-600.

The police suspect they've been working illegally in the UK

for cash in hand.

What started out as a minor traffic offence

has lead to a chain of suspicion.

Just take your jacket off for me.

There's a lot of people who think just road traffic...

it's all about the seatbelts, speeding, etc.

But going out there and doing your job

and dealing with minor things do lead into bigger things.

And it does give you... it does give you job satisfaction.

Both men are now in custody,

whilst the UK Border Agency carry out further investigations...

..which could lead to their deportation

and a ten year ban to re-enter the UK.

Two hours since Gill's crash,

she is now being assessed at Dumfries Royal Infirmary.

It's the main hospital for this part of the UK,

with a catchment area of 2,400 square miles.

It covers a vast network of dangerous, rural roads.

Dealing with car crashes is a huge part of their job.

Gill is being closely monitored in their A&E department.

Gill's injury is continuing to give her more pain

and Pete is worried that there may be a hidden fracture,

not evident in the X-ray.

Whilst it looks OK on that, she does have tenderness

that's also causing irritation in some of the nerves

that would be around that region.

So we need to look at this in a bit more depth,

so I'll organise that we do a CT scan of her neck

and it involves a patient sort of going through a special machine

that looks like a big doughnut,

but the information it gives us is much greater

and that's what I'm looking for in this situation.

Yep, good? Excellent. Excellent.

You're fine. You're fine, Gill.

One, two, three, slide.

The CT scan is taking cross-sectional images of Gill's body,

which will produce a more detailed picture of her bone and soft tissue.

You would have heard it blip, blip, blip there,

and that was it, the scan taking each image,

so it only takes literally a few seconds.

Now the radiologist will go through those images and have a look at them.

If the initial X-rays missed something,

the radiologist should be able to pick up any signs of damage

from the CT images.

Well done.

How's that then? Have you seen them?

Yeah, so far so good, but we're just waiting on a couple of...

processing a couple of last images. OK?

Armed with the full results of the CT scan,

Pete gives Gill some very welcome news.

How are we doing there? OK. Right.

That scan looks A-OK, OK? No signs of anything... any break in there,

so I think what we'll do now is just take this, take this off, OK?

No further tingling down those arms? Settled? Brilliant.

I'll just release this for a moment.

Don't do too much too soon. OK?

-How does that feel now?

-That's OK.

OK, whenever you're moving your neck about, any tingling down the arms?

No.

Excellent, good, good.

It's a huge relief.

The processed CT scans show there is no indication of any serious injury.

So it looks like we've got a good outcome with Mrs Heard.

I mean, things could have obviously been much worse.

We've been able to take her collar off now.

The CT has shown that she's got some wear and tear

but no signs of a break in there.

So, happy to be able to take the collar off

and she's much more comfortable moving around,

so that she'll hopefully get home shortly.

It's been a lucky escape for Gill.

Just six hours since her car dramatically overturned on the motorway,

she's able to go home and recuperate.

Out in the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles west of Islay,

a different drama is unfolding.

Two fishermen have abandoned their sinking boat in wintry seas

and the Royal Navy Search and Rescue team from HMS Gannet

have rushed to their assistance.

Winchman Taff Ashman is about to work his way down to the life raft.

INAUDIBLE DISCUSSION ON RADIO

But the downdraft from the helicopter is making this difficult.

Commanding Officer Andy Drodge

guides the pilot as Taff winches down.

About four yards. Half-past twelve, five yards.

Five yards.

Four yards, three...

Easy, easy, steady, he's on the life raft.

Taff must explain what the two men need to do

to keep them safe on the winch.

But the helicopter is so noisy,

he has to shout to make himself understood.

Taff needs to winch both men up at the same time in a double strop,

while he waits down below.

Raising the winch.

Keep at the side.

At the door, you take winch control.

Lower the winch, lower the winch, stop the winch.

The fishermen are safely on board.

Now its Taff's turn. But, without any weight to hold it steady,

the winch is harder to control in the downdraft.

Five yards, four.

Easy, easy.

Three yards.

Finally, Taff gets a hold of the winch

and is pulled back on board the Sea King.

How you doing, fellas? Whereabouts are you from?

-From Islay.

-Islay. Any injuries?

No.

Both casualties appear uninjured and are being assessed at this time.

Stand by for intentions.

We're currently routing east back towards Islay, over.

Thankfully, local fishermen Paul and Ben are in good shape.

Despite their ordeal at sea, they're showing no signs of hypothermia.

Sadly, their £90,000 boat has sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Paul had owned the boat for seven years.

Well, there's been occasions when the boat's taken on water and that

but we've always managed to figure out what it was and sort it out.

But there was just too much water in the forward hold

to see where it was coming from.

Just...couldn't get in there.

It would have been...it would have been head-high water, you know?

Just gutted.

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

The detective instincts of PC John Parry

mean that two men who outstayed their visas are in a detention centre.

They're being investigated by the UK Border Agency

and could face deportation.

After their accident, Keith and Gill are OK.

Gill's had some bruising and neck pain.

She took a few days off work, but is now recovering slowly.

They've all been back on the road since.

Six weeks after his ordeal in the Atlantic Ocean,

fisherman Paul received some money from his insurance company.

He's now back at sea fishing on his new boat, called Obsession.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd