Episode 1 Countryside 999

From the Highlands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall.

The Great British countryside

is spectacular.

But we work and play in it at our peril.

SIREN

And when things go wrong...

the emergency services race to the rescue.

This chap is having a heart attack. And we need to get him in quickly.

SIREN

There's police courses for this.

Going hundreds of miles against the clock.

Battling the elements... and braving the weather.

HE CRIES IN PAIN

From fields and forests...

to cliffs and country roads...

we'll be right at the heart of the action...

-SIREN

-..with police fighting crime.

Could seize your dogs, could seize your van.

But I'm going to summons you all to court.

Paramedics saving lives.

BABY WAILS

And wardens safeguarding our lakes.

Come out of the way.

We're there as the emergency services pull together

to pick up, patch up and protect the public.

This is Countryside 999.

Coming up...a deer strike in the Durham Dales spells danger.

The Cornwall Air Ambulance crew fight to save a man

who's fallen 25 feet.

-John.

-Yeah.

-Squeeze my hands for me.

And in the swim, or on the rocks...

Just everybody, please sit down.

..dicing with danger on the waters of Windermere.

Come out of the way.

Cornwall, on the south-western corner of mainland Britain.

With its spectacular Atlantic coastline, it's moorland

wilderness and winding country lanes, this landscape is

paradise for the three million tourists who come here every year.

But for the emergency services, getting around is a nightmare.

So, when crossing Cornwall is a matter of life and death,

there's only one solution.

Cornwall Air Ambulance has flown over 24,000 missions

since starting in 1987.

Today's first callout is taken by paramedic Mick McLachlan.

We've got a chap who apparently fell 25 foot last night and has been

on the floor ever since, and a crew have got there and called for us.

We don't know much more than that at the moment.

Based at Newquay, the Air Ambulance

responds to around three emergencies every day,

getting to most within 12 minutes.

With Mick are lead paramedic Steve Garvey and pilot Craig Webster.

But, as they take off, there's still little

information about the casualty.

It's a short hop from Newquay to the village of Chasewater,

outside Truro.

But they still have to find the exact location.

Road paramedics are already with the casualty.

A 63-year-old man.

Over the radio, they're warned his condition is critical.

The Air Ambulance team need to get this chopper on the ground fast.

Pilot Craig has 15 years' experience.

But he still needs the watchful eyes of the medics to get

the helicopter close to the casualty.

'We got to the scene within ten minutes of activation.'

Surveyed the scene overhead, could clearly see a building site.

Made a suitable approach to land in a nearby field, and we were

met by one of the paramedics at the scene,

who'd been treating the patient.

Steve hits the ground running, to meet road paramedic Ian Allen.

It transpired from the handover from the paramedics at the scene

that the patient had actually been on the floor overnight and

hadn't been seen from his family for over 12 hours prior to the incident.

This raised concerns with us about his core body temperature

and the patient being hypothermic, which could cause blood

clotting problems, with the bleeding that was going on.

The paramedics are concerned that the casualty

has already lost over a litre of blood.

'When we first arrived at the scene our training takes over,'

and that enables us to focus on the task in hand,

ensuring that the patient gets the most appropriate care possible,

and all other thoughts are put to one side until the end of the job.

But the patient was found that morning by his wife and son,

and this can make it a very emotive environment

with the family members around.

As four paramedics work to save John's life, all wife Shirley

and son Sebastian can do is wait.

The Lake District, in Cumbria.

Some of the finest countryside in Britain.

The Lake District National Park covers 885 square miles

of high fells, long valleys...

and deep lakes.

Windermere is the largest natural lake in England.

It's also one of the busiest.

Jostling for space are kayakers, canoeists

and over 10,000 registered boats.

In the summer its shorelines are packed with visitors.

But, where there's water, there's danger.

Over 200 people die in UK inland waters every year.

Keeping people safe on Windermere is a massive challenge.

'Anything can happen, basically, from nothing happening,

'right the way to people losing their lives on the lake.'

Dennis Noden is one of six South Lakeland District Council wardens

watching over Windermere 24/7.

All ships, all ships, this is Windermere Lake Wardens,

Windermere Lake Wardens.

'I've been a Lake Warden for about 12 or 13 years now.'

Most of the time it's a fantastic job to do.

You're meeting people all the time that are intent on being happy.

But we have a very serious job also.

Today, Dennis hits the water

in one of their two high-powered patrol boats.

We're heading into the south basin, which is probably once of the most

used bits of the lake, basically, because there's a ferry,

a car ferry that goes across the lake itself,

takes vehicles as well as passengers.

And we're near to areas where lots and lots of boats are moored,

so we need to be on the ball, really, making sure that even our passage

in our patrol boat, that we're not causing

any distress, extra wash to small vessels,

sailboats, canoes, kayaks...

Make sure that everybody is safe on the lake.

We are coming up to the weekend before bank holiday weekend,

August bank holiday, so we are expecting, weather permitting,

that there will be a number of vessels out on the lake,

holiday-makers, hire vessels as well as private.

Numbers of swimmers and people around the lake shore as well.

So we need to be vigilant at this time of the year.

Lots and lots of people about,

potential for people to get into trouble.

Dennis is looking for a party of 11 swimmers from Yorkshire

who plan to swim the entire length of Windermere.

Setting off from Fell Foot Park in the south,

they'll have swim to 10.5 miles to reach Ambleside, in the north.

Takes all sorts(!)

'Most of us are completely bonkers.'

-Right, swimmers, do you want to get in the water?

-Yes!

'We're a group from Yorkshire Outdoor Swimmers,

'and we're all here today because we love to swim in the open water.'

We've got swimmers that have done the Channel, English Channel.

We've got some that are in training for that.

That's what I'm doing, cos I'm swimming that next week.

The weather is the biggest factor,

so the water temperature today is about 17.6 degrees.

Hopefully that will warm up during the day, but Windermere,

because it's such a deep lake and such a large lake,

has got several cold spots on it.

Yeah, here we go. We'll see you at the other end.

Alastair, come on!

Mind the slippy!

'The risk for swimmers on the Windermere, basically,

'is the length, the depth of the water and the temperature.

'I mean, it can get really, really cold.

'And the problem is,'

it's only the first five feet of water,

even in the summer, that changes temperature.

So if you just go jumping in at any point, then, basically,

you're going into an area where it is really, really cold water.

And shock can set in then.

Whether in wet suits or just bathers,

they're facing over seven hours in Windermere's chilly waters.

It's lot more difficult than people realise, open water swimming.

These people are obviously doing it quite regularly.

Although maybe not on Windermere.

I think they'll find that, being a large, cold water lake, I think

they'll find it more difficult than they would do, even in the sea,

to be quite honest with you.

It's a long way to go, isn't it?

These swimmers are well-prepared, with high-vis swimming caps

and proper support boats.

But they're not the only swimmers out today.

All ships, all ships, this is Windermere Lake Wardens,

Windermere Lake Wardens, please be advised two individual

swimmers, accompanied by canoes,

just mid lake, off Storrs Temple.

Over.

There's a number of canoes supporting individual

swimmers at the moment, which we were not aware of.

I had a word with one of the safety vessels, advised them that,

if they were going to do this type of thing in the future,

it would be good for us to know about it.

There's probably a dozen or 15 dotted out over

probably a two or three mile distance at the moment.

Good morning. Everything OK?

Just a bit choppy today, isn't it?

They have got a support boat.

There's no rescue boat.

If something dire went wrong here with one of these swimmers,

though they would be able to cling onto the side of a canoe

for buoyancy, there's no way they'll get them

into a canoe and to the shore if they need any further help.

It makes it that little bit more dangerous for people.

Next on Dennis's patrol is Bowness...

..the Lake District's busiest holiday resort.

We're into Bowness Bay, which is the main area,

most traffic is in Bowness Bay. It's always a hazardous place to be.

We can see at the moment there's numbers of canoes,

canoeists and kayakers here.

If anything is going to happen this is where it usually does.

It's not long before Dennis spots a problem.

A kayaker with no idea he needs to move.

-SIREN

-And fast.

SIREN

He's right in the middle of the fairway where one of the steamers,

passenger steamers is coming through.

Come out of the way!

RADIO CHATTER

SIREN

SIREN

Luckily we've got a good captain and crew on that boat,

and they took evasive action for him.

But it's always nice to be here

so that that we can deal with any eventuality.

Yeah, a little bit too close.

No problems, everything is fine.

Traffic duties over, Dennis checks out the Yorkshire swimmers.

Was I going too fast?

THEY LAUGH

About two and a half hours in.

We're doing OK, doing really well.

I'm pretty cool.

We'd just love the sun to come up.

My crew is telling me I have to go, so I'm going to go.

These are doing very well. We're happy with these.

I'm warm and dry, they're freezing cold.

HE LAUGHS

SIREN WAILS

On a building site near Truro...

..paramedics are trying to save a man's life.

63-year-old John has fallen 25 feet onto a concrete floor.

He's been lying there all night.

Now in a critical condition, he needs to get to hospital fast.

The Air Ambulance is standing by,

but John can't be moved until his injuries are stabilised.

John, I'm just going to have a little listen to your breathing.

-Does it hurt for you to breathe at all?

-Yes.

-Yes?

Which side?

On that side, on that right-hand side?

Take a deep breath.

HE WHEEZES

John's lost a lot of blood through a head wound

and, after such a hard fall, could also have damaged his back.

-John?

-Yeah?

-Can you feel me touching your hands?

-Yes.

Squeeze my hands for me. Squeeze my hands, both hands. Good man.

-Right, squeeze together.

-They test John's grip.

If it's weak he may have a spinal injury,

but Steve's noticed another, more urgent problem.

Take another deep breath, John.

HE WHEEZES

Yeah, he's definitely struggling to breathe.

During our treatment process,

there were significant concerns for his breathing.

HE WHEEZES

But we were also concerned for internal bleeding with this patient.

And he also had some considerable bruising over his right,

lower abdomen,

which would have given concern for liver injuries

and further circulation problems.

We are going to keep an eye on that.

There's a potential problem there, isn't there?

-John?

-Yeah.

-Do you remember what happened to you last night, sir?

-No.

-No. You were in here working. Is that the last thing you remember?

-Yeah.

As John can't remember the accident, paramedic Mick tries

to piece it together with wife Shirley and son Sebastian.

And then, on his own on the site,

and he's come through the floor.

-He's often late back.

-He's often late back.

The building site is an old tin mine.

It's being converted into a factory

for the family's organic food business.

John regularly comes at night to check on progress.

I thought nothing of it last night because he's often late home.

He obviously didn't appear.

I woke up this morning and still not at home.

So...

we thought we'd better come down and see if he was here.

Er...

And he was.

'All I could see was a large area of blood on the floor.'

It was a big area and quite shocking, really, to see it.

And he was very cold as well.

My initial reaction was...

SHE EXHALES

..that he would probably die.

-How was he when you found him, was he talking...?

-Talking. Very cold.

Very cold. Very thirsty.

-On his back?

-On his back.

He'd obviously found a piece of installation to put under his head,

-so he was crawling about.

-He's moved from there.

-Yeah.

We'll let you know where we are going.

Just a few more bits and pieces to do.

The first paramedics arrived 45 minutes ago.

But John's injuries are so serious the team are only now ready

to move him to the waiting helicopter.

Mick's here as well. Can you step round for me, Mick?

If John's not moved carefully,

his condition could deteriorate.

Mick, if you come round this side.

A scoop stretcher slides underneath John to protect his spine.

OK...

Has any new pain developed?

-On my right.

-On your right-hand side?

Do you find, do you feel like you're struggling to breathe?

-Yeah.

-OK, we'll just keep...

John's condition is deteriorating.

His blood pressure's low and his heart rate's very fast

and he respirates fast, which leads us to be a little bit concerned

about shock and loss of blood.

Mick and Steve were planning to transfer him

to the specialist trauma unit in Plymouth,

but it's a 20-minute flight away. They can't take the risk.

John needs a hospital urgently.

The patient had significant respiratory and circulatory injuries,

which we were concerned about,

so we quickly formulated a new plan

to transport the patient to the local hospital.

The Air Ambulance will now fly John just a few minutes

to the Accident and Emergency in nearby Truro.

With no room in the helicopter for Shirley, she must follow by road.

Just very, very worried.

Yes. I mean, all sorts of thoughts go through your head,

"What if he dies? What... What if?"

SIREN WHOOPS

From attending accidents in isolated areas

to dealing with rural crime,

police face complex challenges in the countryside.

Teesdale, in County Durham,

is one of north England's most sparsely populated areas.

The small town of Barnard Castle

is home to Teesdale's main police station.

From here, rural police officers provide day and night cover

for one of England's biggest beats -

an area larger than Merseyside.

One of them is PC Harry Marsh.

Barnard Castle covers 300 square miles

and within that there's approximately 35 villages

and, of course, the main town, so anything that happens in any of

those villages or in the town would be allocated to me to deal with.

This environment is, to me,

one of the best parts about the job.

I remember the very first day that I was posted to Barnard Castle.

I took a police vehicle out and I drove around the whole area.

What a wonderful area and so scenic.

And it was in stark contrast, really, to the town that I'd just come from,

which was really a 1960s base town

that didn't have a great deal of character, and when you come here,

you can see that this place has character in abundance.

One of Harry's jobs is patrolling Teesdale's country roads -

as hazardous as any city street.

We have sheep, cows...

..you name it, if it's got four legs,

it seems to eventually end up on one of our roads,

and we end up having to herd them away on quite a regular basis,

particularly Swaledale sheep, that are the most common form of sheep

that are bred around here.

The most important thing is that, if we're dealing with sheep or cattle,

there's the potential for a serious accident.

As a country copper, Harry's learnt to expect the unexpected.

And today it's not a stray animal that's causing a hazard.

-RADIO:

-'It'd be a scooter, heading eastbound.'

That's received, so just to confirm, that's a male in a disability chair

that is on the... Did you say eastbound carriageway?

I'll be there in a couple of minutes. Over.

We're just en route now to a report of an elderly person

in a disabled wheelchair, a mobility scooter, possibly,

who is on the eastbound section of the A66,

so it's important that we get him off the road as quickly as possible.

Just south of Barnard Castle, the busy A66 cuts through rural Teesdale

linking the A1M in the east

to the M6 in the west -

no place for an 8mph mobility scooter.

SIREN WAILS

People could be travelling up to 70mph

and if he's crawling along at a very slow pace,

the possibility of an accident is incredibly high.

With 18 deaths in ten years,

the A66 is a notoriously dangerous stretch of road.

Harry needs to stop the slow-moving scooter

from causing a potential pile-up.

It could be along any stretch of this, um, section of the A66.

It's just a case of trying to find them, really,

and it can be a bit of a needle in a haystack.

There's no sign of them.

The elusive mobility scooter's looking like a no-show.

The simple fact is that it just don't seem to be here at the moment,

which is a good thing and that's a good result for us.

When you work in a rural location,

you really don't know what's going to happen.

The unexpected can crop up at any time

and you quite often find yourself on your own.

You'll have to develop the skills

to be able to deal with those situations.

It's a lovely late summer's evening in Teesdale

and Harry's back on patrol.

-RADIO:

-'Go ahead.'

Could you just clarify, was there an incident regarding a deer

that's been knocked over on the 67? over.

-'Yes.'

-Yeah, I'm just en route to it now.

We've got an incident at the moment with a motorist that's struck a deer

that's been going across the A67.

It sounds like the deer is still alive at the moment.

We're going to attend just to assess the injuries

and then we'll determine what's going to happen after that,

whether we need to call a vet and to put the animal down.

The injured deer could stray back onto the road

and cause a serious accident.

Harry needs to find it fast.

Yeah, I was heading towards Barnard Castle

and a deer has pulled out, has run out in front of me...

-Yeah.

-..just out of nowhere.

I managed to swerve as best I could

but I hit the back end of it, which has put it into the hedgerow here.

It was alive. There was no blood showing

but you could see it was badly injured on the back end.

It then crawled up onto the road and it's dragged itself across

and I flagged all the traffic down and stopped it because it was...

And it's gone down into the hedgerow at the moment.

OK, so the last you saw of it,

it was just rolling down the side of the embankment here.

And it was still able to run about.

It's not on its feet, no, it's dragging itself.

-It's dragging itself along?

-Yeah.

She went down into there, or he went down into there.

There's thick undergrowth here.

There's a clear line down in the grass in the side of the embankment

where the deer has gone down

and that leads out into another field on the other side.

I'll have a quick look in here and just see.

You can see a bit of blood there.

Deer strikes are dangerous. It's estimated that

over 40,000 deer are struck by vehicles in the UK every year.

This driver knows he's been very lucky.

It came straight out of the hedgerow.

I mean, it was a metre, metre-and-a-half in front of me.

There was very little I could do.

My young lad was in the back. He heard the bang.

Obviously, he felt me swerve.

Right, OK, we've got the deer

that I can just see at the boundary of the field there.

I'm not sure whether it's alive or not

so I'm just going to quietly approach it just to see what the situation is.

There's plenty of trees and things.

I could have swerved, could have gone down the embankment.

Lucky escape for me but not for the poor animal.

It's just a shame that this sort of thing has to happen.

There's certainly no... It's not moving at all.

So I'll just check it for any signs of life now, just to make sure.

It's dead, that.

It's a tragic end for the deer,

but thankfully, there are no other casualties

due to the quick wits of the car driver.

It's quite a busy road. Buses, tractors, lorries...

cars, motorbikes, the lot, was coming along,

so I flagged all the traffic down, both ways, until the poor animal

had managed to crawl across the road and out of the way,

otherwise the traffic, the next car could have ploughed into it.

Harry must now remove the deer that ran out into the road

and, sadly, ran out of luck.

We'll just make sure that the deer doesn't present a hazard

to the farmer as he's collecting this crop in

and comes across it unexpectedly.

There's a huge amount of variation in the type of incidents

that we deal with, and of course,

we, being in a rural setting, can be asked to deal with anything

that is usually outside of the experience of normal police officers.

It's certainly a unique feature of working

out in the countryside like this.

On Windermere, Lake Warden Dennis Noden is having a busy day.

After saving a kayaker...

Come out of the way!

..he's now on his way to help the 11 swimmers

who set off this morning to swim the length of the lake.

The fastest are three hours in

and facing their biggest hazard -

the Windermere car ferry.

The ferry's just docking on the west side of the lake.

It goes constantly from one side of the lake to the other,

and it's on cables, so obviously those cables are a navigation hazard,

not only boats but to swimmers.

SIREN WHOOPS BRIEFLY

Hello, mate. Just be aware that

there are two groups of swimmers coming up the lake.

There's a number of individual swimmers accompanied by canoes.

The individual canoes are strung out quite a long way.

Just be aware that they're going to be there.

All right, cheers, thank you. Ta-ra.

The ferry leaves every 20 minutes,

and with the swimmers about to cross its path,

Dennis lets everyone on the water know what's going on.

Just putting some red warning lights on, on the patrol boat,

to alert people around that we're here

and that there is a hazard in the water.

The ferry's just setting off from the west shore back to the east.

Yeah, Trev, just for your information,

first group of swimmers are just crossing the ferry lines now.

We're on station just to make sure

-everything passes without any problem.

-'Yeah, roger, received.'

The ferry line is one of the obstacles about open water swimming,

as you can imagine. That ferry just can't stop on the spot.

Everybody got across the ferry lines safely

and when all those people were safe, then the ferry went on its merry way.

No sooner are the swimmers safe, when Dennis gets an emergency call.

A hire boat's run aground on rocks. It's a blue-light job.

With six persons on board, they can't get in to pull the boat off

at the moment, so we're going to hopefully give them some assistance.

When you get a call out, you don't

know what's going to be waiting for you when you get there.

'It could be anything, but we make sure that we get there

'as quickly as possible to deal with it.'

Windermere has an 11mph speed limit, but this is an emergency.

Obviously, because we're travelling at...

..beyond the speed limit, we need to keep a sharp eye out

for swimmers, canoeists,

anybody that might be affected by our wash.

So to make them alert, we'll put some sirens on.

SIRENS WAIL

The jet-powered boat has a top speed of 40mph.

Dennis is on scene in minutes.

-RADIO:

-'Den, for your information, the other safety boat is on scene.'

We don't have a propeller sticking out the back because it's a jet boat,

so there is less risk of a strike on the rocks with a propeller,

so we can get into places, basically, where a propeller boat can't.

With no way of moving in these rocky shallows,

the six people on board are stranded and vulnerable.

No, stay there.

Just everybody please sit down.

We're just making sure everybody is safe on the boat, they appear to be,

sat down, so that when we start to tow the boat off the rocks

in the shallow water here, that nobody falls overboard.

So we've got a rope on the front now

and we'll tow the boat that's been on the shore,

along with the passengers, out to deeper waters

and take it back to their base, if necessary.

Is everybody OK?

Everybody's OK. All right.

So we can come with you?

That chap there, he's from the hire company.

He'll have a word with you, make sure everything is OK

and decide what you're going to do.

-Thank you.

-All right? Take care of yourselves.

OK?

He's all smiles, but Dennis has real concerns about safety on Windermere.

Bye-bye!

HE LAUGHS

'People that come on the lake'

sometimes have complete disregard for it.

They tend to think that it's like a pool, a small lake,

if anything happens they can get out and push it to the shore.

Some areas of this lake are really, really deep,

really cold and dangerous.

It's seven hours since the 11-long distance swimmers set off

and the group has now splintered in two.

How far in front, how far in front is the other group?

They've finished? Right.

Well, the other group have done very well, haven't they?

There's a group of people on the shoreline here

which could possibly be B, the group that have finished the swim,

so we'll go and have a quick word with them and congratulate them.

Everybody looks happy.

They should be proud of theirselves. I know I couldn't do it.

I can see clinking champagne glasses.

Well deserved.

There you go, mate, well done.

-Well done.

-Thank you so much for all your help today.

You've done it in fantastic time.

Considering the first half of the swim took three-and-a-half hours,

we were expecting it to be at least four-and-a-half for the second half

but you've done absolutely wonderful. Fantastic.

Fabulous place, great colleagues.

No wonder when people get this job, they don't want to leave.

It's a tremendous, tremendous job,

and the thought that you're doing a good job and making sure

that people are safe on the lake - yeah, it's fantastic.

300 miles south of Windermere...

..the emergency services in Cornwall are fighting to save a man's life.

63-year-old John is being flown to hospital after lying

injured on a building site overnight.

After falling 25 feet, he has a life-threatening head wound

and internal bleeding that need urgent attention.

It was his wife, Shirley, who found him.

Well, as they were preparing him,

it was gradually sinking in what had happened

and not quite believing it,

but hopefully seeing him alive wherever he was taken.

Landing at the hospital in Truro, John's rushed into A & E.

Paramedic Steve goes with him to brief the hospital emergency team.

The gentleman's called John. We have a 63-year-old male.

He was working at height on a ladder,

approximately five metres up, ladders on the floor,

there's a considerable amount of blood loss on the floor,

a litre plus on the hard concrete surface.

Ready, set, brace.

Currently at the moment, the chap is in the resus room,

where he is undergoing a primary survey with X-rays

to determine the extent of his injuries.

We definitely want to look at his chest wall injuries,

that's obviously a life-threatening problem at this stage.

-How much pain is he in at the moment?

-John?

Where have you got pain at the moment?

So we'll give him some morphine.

Going to go to a CT scan now, OK?

John's future is now in the hands of the hospital doctors.

-Somebody want to grab that?

-Yeah, I've got it.

Now, after life-saving surgery, John's back home.

It's just seven weeks since that fateful Friday night.

As far as I'm aware,

I'd got the factory, maybe around about 8:30 or something like that,

and took a few pictures of the top floor of the site

and that's honestly the last thing I remember.

-John?

-Yeah.

Can you feel me touching your hands?

Squeeze my hands for me. Squeeze my hand.

'I was in quite a bit of pain. It was like, I was dimly aware

of what they were doing, but they are so professional, these guys,

so I just can't... if I had a hat,

I would take it off to them. They are just brilliant.

'I don't remember much about the journey,

'but I remember the rotors of the air ambulance swooshing around.'

They found out what's wrong with me,

which was a broken rib, punctured lung, some damage to my left side,

couldn't use my left hand, and haematoma in the skull,

which they managed to remove.

I do remember the surgeon saying probably I was quite a lucky man,

really, because it's going to be all right.

"It will take you some months but you will be all right."

But one thing John won't be doing again is

clambering around his half-built factory alone and at night.

"What a complete plonker," I think, is what my son-in-law said

and I can't disagree with that. That's what I was.

It's been all go for Britain's rural emergency services.

In Cornwall, doctors have told John it will take a year to fully recover

but he's looking forward to the opening of the new factory.

On Windermere, 10 of the 11 swimmers

completed their ten-and-a-half-mile challenge.

And in Teesdale, there've been no further sightings

of a mobility scooter tearing it up on the A66.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.