Episode 13 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.

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.

There are no police courses for this.

..going hundreds of miles, against the clock,

battling the elements and braving the weather.

From fields and forests to cliffs and country roads,

we will be right at the heart of the action...

..with police fighting crime...

I could seize your dogs and your van,

but I want to summons you all to court.

..paramedics saving lives...

..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...

The Cornwall Air Ambulance rescue a horse rider

with no memory of a shocking fall.

Blimey, what happened, then? Does anybody know?

Drama in the dark in Dumfries and Galloway.

There is a call-out to a suspected heart attack.

And an audacious night-time crime in County Durham

leads to the search for some valuable sheep.

Currently, it's around £9,500-worth of sheep that have gone missing.

County Durham. Over 850 square miles of rolling landscape.

It's famed for its castles, cathedral and coalmines.

But less so for its farming.

Yet, over 60% of this county is agricultural land.

That's a lot of farms, farm equipment and livestock.

All increasing targets for a growing problem - rural crime.

We suspect that they belong to another local farmer,

and that they may well have been stolen.

It has cost me a fortune.

-I worked hard for this.

-I'm seizing your battery.

Officer Kevin Hall of the Durham Constabulary

knows this only too well.

Luckily, he has always wanted to be a copper.

You're arresting people that have done wrong

and maybe change their mind and their life path

away from crime into being a decent member of the public.

Today, a call has come in. A farmer has reported a massive sheep theft.

We're off to a farm which has had 136 Suffolk cross sheep

stolen overnight from, I believe, out in the fields.

So, we're just going to go out there now and meet the farmer

and find out exactly what's happened.

From the police station in Consett,

Kevin is making his way 11 miles east to the farm.

The price of lamb is rising.

Altogether, the national flock of the UK is worth about £1 billion.

And they are being stolen on a scale that's new to Kevin.

Definitely for this area, it's very unusual for that many sheep

to go off. 136 sheep to go in one night is a lot of sheep.

Last year, rustlers got away with around 90,000 livestock

animals across the UK.

That's not just one man and his dog.

It's going to be quite a professional team that have

come up. I would guess the majority of the stock that has gone

could have been this year's lambs, so you're looking at, potentially,

a substantial amount of money and loss to the farmer himself.

Kevin is on his way to meet Mark,

a farmer who has been rearing lambs for over 20 years.

Hoping to build a fuller picture of the crime,

Kevin is joined by community support officer Vicky.

-So, of the 136, 27 of them were orange dotted and tagged?

-Yes.

And the rest didn't have any mark on them.

Because they were about a week, ten days away from being...

-So, they're all this year's lambs?

-Yes, they're all this year's lambs.

The theft is a blow for Mark,

who's spent the last four months rearing the 136 Suffolk cross lambs.

Anyone who knows what lambing's like, it's hard work.

We put a lot of time and effort into them.

It's unsettling, really, to know

that someone's been into one of our fields and stolen the sheep

and we're worried that, where do we put the sheep to make them safe?

Financially, it'll add up to £10,000 plus,

so I was very surprised and upset about it.

Mark leads Kevin to the scene of the crime.

We're going to follow him. He's just jumping on his quad

and we'll follow him to the field where the sheep were stored.

Kevin will look for evidence that might lead him to the gang

and Mark's missing sheep.

Obviously, he's pretty annoyed about the whole matter.

He understands, obviously, being a farmer, that it's very difficult

to chase any stolen sheep and to identify them as stolen.

It's not an easy... They need to know what they're doing.

It's not an easy thing to do.

I think we'll just have a look around, if you don't mind,

and just have a snoop round.

Looking at the layout of the road and the field and the gates,

I think it's more than likely that they've

came into this gate area here.

Unfortunately, recent rain may have washed away any clues.

I mean, again, ideally if they've had a wagon into here...

It's frustrating for Kevin, as he has a pretty clear picture of what

went on.

Mmm... But if they've had a...

if they've had a couple of lads with dogs out

and just been bringing them in 20 at a time...

We'll have to make further inquiries further afield, to try

and chase these sheep and where they might have gone.

It's obviously a professional job.

But even if the lambs are still in the area, picking them out

from County Durham's thousands of other sheep isn't going to be easy.

As you can appreciate, it's a very difficult task, where ear tags

can be changed and there's that many varieties and shapes

and sizes of lambs. It's very difficult.

Dumfries and Galloway, a county welcoming visitors,

as they cross the border into Scotland.

Its rolling green countryside is criss-crossed with winding lanes

and scattered with shaggy cows.

And with only 60 people per square mile, there are few there

to spoil the view.

But it does make getting to an emergency tricky,

especially at night.

The ambulance service in Dumfries and Galloway answered

almost 17,000 accident and emergency calls last year.

Paramedic John West and his partner Michael Harmjanz

work the night shift four days every month.

I can't believe we've not had a cup of tea yet.

You can answer me back, Mike!

THEY LAUGH

That's a lot of nights spent together.

Sometimes, I see my shift partner Michael

more than what I see my wife,

which I don't know is a good thing or a bad thing.

It's pretty interesting, because it's amazing who's

going about at night and what kind of jobs you get.

Sometimes, people wouldn't believe

what goes on in the hours of darkness.

It's 8pm.

The night shift's just started and an emergency call has come in.

The location is close to the ambulance base in Dumfries.

It's in a street just a few miles away.

The crew know the area well.

Behind Tesco's.

And John also knows the patient.

This is an old music teacher of mine! 85 years old.

In Dumfries and Galloway,

the average response time to a 999 call is just over ten minutes.

That's 22A. 4...

I think it's this wee bungalow here, Michael.

Today, John and Michael arrive in under two minutes.

Moira is 82 years old and urgently needs help for her husband.

85-year-old Frank suffers from vascular dementia.

He's been in a highly confused state all night.

-What's the problem tonight?

-Just going berserk.

Over the past three hours, I've had a stand-off with him.

-Have you got a wee stool or something?

-A stool?

-Yeah.

There you go, pal. Any pains?

You've not any pain.

Right.

After Alzheimer's, vascular dementia is the most common form of dementia.

When we arrived, he was frustrated, dishevelled.

He was not very well, because he had a temperature, which,

on top of his illness, was making matters worse.

Frank has previously suffered from a stroke,

and his health has deteriorated.

-His walking's dreadful.

-Dreadful tonight.

Recently, John and another colleague took Frank to A & E,

after a nasty fall.

So, what happened last time Joyce and I were out?

About three weeks ago? During the day? Was that a fall?

John's concerned about serious swelling

he didn't see on his last visit.

Yeah, see, his hand's swollen.

-Is that new, or...?

-It's not usually swollen.

-Not usually swollen, is it?

-How long have you been married now?

-57 years. This is always swollen.

57 years, Frank?

-Yeah, she said she is.

-96/73.

At 96 over 73,

Frank's blood-pressure reading is low for his condition.

I think maybe Frank's maybe got a wee urine infection.

In dementia sufferers, urinary tract infections can cause severe

confusion. It would explain Frank's increased agitation.

Can you mind me frae school? What was it you used to teach?

He recognised me from school,

which was 1979 when I left, so that's, like, 30-odd years ago.

Everybody knows someone that's got

either Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or dementia,

and there's more and more people out in the community,

because people are living longer.

There are over 800,000 people living with dementia in the UK.

It's estimated two-thirds are cared for by a loved one at home.

So, you don't recognise this lady as your wife of 57 years?

'Best course of action for her to do at that time was to phone 999.'

Nobody should be afraid to phone treble nine.

-Do you want slippers?

-No, he won't need them.

With a possible urinary tract infection,

John has only one option.

Listen, we're taking you to the hospital.

It's a relief for Moira, because tonight she just couldn't cope.

She must be that desperate to do that,

to see someone that she loves going down as fast as that.

It's a cry for help.

And, of course, Michael and I go and we pick the pieces up.

Michael and John are taking Frank

to Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary for observations.

We'll put you on the bed, Frank.

So, we need both feet back a wee bit, Frank.

And we need to stand you up.

You were an English teacher come music teacher.

You weren't very good at the music.

The best place for Frank that night was in hospital.

In County Durham, thieves have stolen 136 lambs from Mark's farm.

They're worth around £10,000.

They need to know what they're doing. It's not an easy thing to do.

PC Kevin Hall has been doggedly on their tail.

So, you seen it on the day of the theft and, then, when after that?

He's been checking farms,

abattoirs and livestock markets throughout the North East

and following up all possible leads from his base in Consett.

I'll do some further inquiries and see

if I can trace that type of vehicle in our force area.

But, yeah, if you do get anything else, give us

a call back. That would be much appreciated.

20 days after the theft, Kevin's received an anonymous tip-off,

made via the national Crimestoppers phone line.

He's been told the sheep are on a nearby farm,

and he's raised a warrant to search it.

Hello there, it's Kevin Hall at Consett police station.

He's calling Mark to give him an update.

..so we've got a warrant from the magistrates to go and execute

to see if we can locate your...hopefully your sheep.

That's why we obviously have got the photograph of the lambs

and the tag, so we can try and make some sort of identity there and then.

With the new information, Kevin's optimistic,

but the odds are stacked against the police.

I only know of one other case where actually some lambs

have been recovered,

and it's a lengthy process, because we do have to go through

that DNA profiling of the ram that sired the sheep.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

I think it should be a good job in the morning.

The next day, Sergeant Vicky Coxon briefs Kevin

and the team before the warrant search.

They're joined by

an animal health inspector from Durham County Council.

Morning, everybody.

We're here today because we've been given

a magistrate's warrant to execute.

This is following some intelligence that we've received.

The team need to know what evidence they're on the lookout for.

We're not just looking for these sheep,

we're looking for anything that might be connected with those

sheep, so we are going to be looking for the likes of ear tags, any guns

and stuff that may be used to put new ear tags into these sheep.

With the team briefed...

Any questions?

..they hit the road.

So, we're just on the access lane to the farm and turning in.

Looks like quite a nice, decent setup.

So, initially, myself and the sergeant are going to go in

and knock on the door and try and speak with the occupants

before we all sort of just roll up there.

The farm looks empty.

Cannot see any there.

There's a vehicle moving on the land just through there.

-It's just down there.

-Maybe going round the back.

-Yeah.

I'll have a look around, then.

Then the farmer arrives.

We've got a search warrant, a magistrate's warrant,

-to search the property for some stolen sheep.

-Stolen sheep?

-Yes.

-You'll get a copy of the warrant.

-Do you want all the sheep in, like?

When we've turned up, it's actually been

a tenant farmer who operated the farm.

The tenant farmer is co-operative.

The team go through his paperwork and outbuildings.

See, there's some other tags with a different number on.

They find sheep tags,

but they don't belong to the sheep they're looking for.

In relation to the sheep that we're looking for, he knows the job.

When I said to him how many we're looking for,

he says, "They're the ones stolen from Durham, aren't they?"

He's willing to take us to go and have a look at the lambs he's got.

He's saying none of them are tagged. He doesn't have paperwork for them,

because they're ones that he's bred himself.

Do you want to come with me? You obviously have

-more knowledge of the sheep than I do!

-Yeah.

-Yes?

The farmer has heard about the theft

and is doing all he can to help.

While the farm search continues, he takes Kevin

and Sergeant Coxon to some nearby fields to inspect his sheep.

He's stating that, you know, that he hasn't got any stolen items

or stolen sheep on his farms.

I'll reverse back. Just pull that gate this way a bit, will you?

There's no sign of the missing 136 lambs.

All we can do is obviously act on the intelligence we've got.

-It is a big thing, there's a lot gone missing.

-Yeah.

And it's a lot of money.

Search complete, it transpires the anonymous tip-off was false.

In 12 months' time, if somebody was to take them,

they'd be worth 150 quid apiece.

-Do you know what I mean? It's a lot of money.

-Yeah.

The outcome was that it was a negative result. We didn't find

the sheep or any related material regarding the theft of them.

Get a good summer and Cornwall's temperatures can rise

to 30 degrees. Tourists flock to its beaches.

At the same time, tranquil and remote in the heart

of the county is Bodmin Moor, one of Britain's wildest uplands.

But when things go wrong here,

getting help to those in need takes one of these.

Mark Fuszard has been with the Cornwall Air Ambulance

for the last eight years.

Deep breath. And relax.

'You don't know what you'll deal with from minute

'to minute, let alone from day to day.

'You can turn up for work, not knowing what will happen that day.'

It's work that requires a love of the unpredictable.

You've no idea what you're going to go to until the phone rings,

and that can be quite stressful, but it's a stress that I kind of like.

It's mid-morning, and the team is scrambling.

All we've got at the moment is that it's a lady that's

fallen off a horse in St Breward, which is on the Bodmin Moor,

so potentially, she could be in a fairly remote location.

Today Mark's flying with pilot Doug Pye and paramedic Stu Croft.

From their air ambulance base in Newquay, they take a 16-mile

flight to the western edge of Bodmin Moor, near St Breward.

Devil's Jump is one of the moor's few natural landmarks.

It's a narrow gorge famous amongst climbers for its steep cliffs.

But today, it's a rider in need of help.

In the past five years, the Cornwall Air Ambulance has dealt with

almost 140 horse-related incidents.

Horse riders can catch you out.

You can really never tell, especially if you land on your head.

Then it's potentially life-threatening injuries.

Paramedic Stu Croft knows it could be tricky getting to the casualty.

They've been airborne for just eight and half minutes,

but they're aware every second counts.

Nine minutes from take-off and they spot the casualty.

A lot of horses around, a lot of people riding their horses,

so we don't want to spook those

and make the problem even worse than it actually is.

It was quite a steep hill.

We had to land at the top, where it was nice and flat.

The casualty's been taking part in a charity horse riding event.

A steward leads Mark 200 metres down the hill.

Right. So, she's a bit confused? OK.

Mark's carrying a full kitbag.

With this kind of incident, he can't take any chances.

Hello! Dina?

Hi, Dina, my name's Mark.

Have we got any pain anywhere at the moment?

Dina was attempting

to jump a gate, when her horse refused.

She fell, landing on her shoulder and face.

Fellow rider Bridget has been looking after her.

And Dina can you remember what happened at all?

Not at all. Yeah.

-Short-term memory is very poor.

-OK.

What happened - no recollection at all.

She couldn't recollect any of the events...of what had happened.

She couldn't remember actually falling to the floor.

She's obviously got a head injury

that we need to be quite concerned about.

Is that your helmet behind us there?

Were you wearing a helmet?

Dina's helmet would have absorbed a great deal of the shock to her head,

but she may have still suffered serious spinal and neck injuries.

Dina, I'm just going to take your watch off and take your pulse.

Is that all right?

It was 68

-a minute last time I took it, which was about five minutes ago.

-OK.

-Brilliant.

-Breaths were about 16 a minute.

-Fantastic.

-Are you a health-care worker?

-I'm a stroke therapist.

-Oh, OK.

And Dina's obviously landed on her face

cos we've got some blood around her nose. OK.

Land-based paramedics arrive.

Hi, mate, all right? You were quick.

-Come across in that one.

-We had a four-wheel drive.

-Fantastic.

Mike Bennett and his colleague managed to hitch a lift.

Thankfully, we had a couple of willing volunteers.

This gent with a four-wheel drive there

and the chap with the quad that was able to bring us across.

The chaps descend out of the skies,

but two of them sometimes need a bit of a hand.

The team get to work.

We needed to put a collar on her and we needed to immobilise her.

Because she's landed on her head, we've got to treat her as

if she's got a C spine injury.

Damage to the upper cervical part of the spine, from falls

like Dina's, can cause paralysis to the legs and upper body.

What we're going to do is, we might have to cut some of your clothes off

to have a good look at you,

just to make sure that we're not missing anything at all. Yes.

And we're going to have to cut your jodhpurs off, as well.

We need to look at her body and make sure that there isn't any injuries

that potentially could be life-threatening that we could miss

if we were to leave her fully-clothed.

Mark first checks for any loss of feeling.

When I touch your leg here, can you feel that?

Does it feel the same as when I touch your leg there?

The sensations are the same. What about your hands?

Any... Can you feel that?

And can you feel this?

So far, the signs are good.

There is potential that you might have damaged your right shoulder,

you might have a fracture there, OK?

But Dina then asks a very worrying question.

Dina's memory loss is a big concern.

She needs to be observed in hospital as soon as possible.

We're going to go on the R of roll.

Ready, set, roll.

All right. OK. Crikey.

But until they check her spine for damage, Dina's going nowhere.

Ow, ow.

On the dark roads of Dumfries and Galloway, John West

and Michael Harmjanz are still on night shift.

Listen, we're taking you to the hospital.

Just over three hours since taking John's old schoolteacher

to hospital, another call's come in. It's as urgent as they come.

Control came on four hours into the shift for a red call,

which is the highest priority.

It's an adrenaline rush.

They know an elderly lady is suffering severe chest pains,

but the exact location hasn't come through.

From their Dumfries base, she's 19 miles south-east,

somewhere near the town of Annan.

They'll be updated en route.

For now, Michael just needs to put his foot down.

We are meant to get to all red calls within eight minutes,

but the fact that it was 18, 19 miles away,

we were not going to make it.

They have to consider the options on the way.

In the middle of the night, an elderly lady

with central chest pains, you're thinking,

"Could be serious, pretty serious."

The symptoms indicate a heart attack,

but there's another common cause of night-time pain.

Heart attack or severe gall bladder trouble, it's an emergency.

We received it at 4.31, it's now 4.48 and we've travelled 19 miles.

By now, they should be very close.

ELECTRONIC VOICE: 'Cancelling main function.'

The location has finally come through -

it's a caravan park on the edge of town.

No, the lights, Michael, and then turn left and up North Street.

That is Battery Street, isn't it?

20 minutes from call-out, they arrive on scene.

Down here. Oh.

-Morning.

-Morning.

They're directed to the patient.

Turned out she wasn't in the caravan, she was in the ladies' loo.

-In here?

-In the toilet block.

-Oh, right.

To be in the ladies' loo at that time in the morning, er,

some people think is maybe a strange place,

but I've been to stranger places.

Sandra has been in severe pain for most of the day and night.

She was pretty uptight.

She was sitting in the corner of the toilet in an awful lot of pain.

So how long have you had the pain?

This afternoon? Have you taken anything for it?

No.

Women don't complain about pain.

They'll put up with it, put up with it, put up with it.

So, for her to then contact her husband and say, "Phone 999,"

it makes you think there's something going on.

So, the last time you had the pain, Sandra, did it just go away itself?

Put that in there and chew it.

It's lemon-flavoured, so they tell me.

John gives Sandra a 300mg aspirin.

If it is a heart problem,

it will reduce the possibility of any more blood clotting.

Nice and still for ten seconds, if you can.

Next, they check the electrical activity in Sandra's heart

with the ECG monitor.

-ECG looks OK.

-Mm-hm.

It's good news.

It may not be a heart attack, after all.

The fact that, when I touched her when I was doing her ECG,

she was grimacing and the pain was more severe, it was a better sign,

because it showed it was not her heart.

Says it's normal.

Then Sandra mentions gallstones.

Again?

You never mentioned them!

It turns out John's initial hunch was right.

I was just saying that on the way down.

We just mentioned it, didn't we?

-Yeah. This time in the...

-This time in the morning, we're on the ball.

See, the fact that it's sore when we touch,

and the fact that it goes through from here through to your back,

it sounds like gall bladder, gallstones.

But severe cases of gallstones can lead to complications.

They need to get Sandra to hospital.

We'll get you into the ambulance, eh?

Cos your feet aren't sore, we'll get you up on them.

It's estimated that one in ten adults in the UK has gallstones,

and women are up to three times more likely to be affected than men.

Your blood pressure's a wee bit high,

Sandra, cos you're not well.

173/84.

You'd get told off by the doctor for that, wouldn't you?

Her pulse is sitting at 100, so obviously because her pulse is up,

her blood pressure's up, her breathing's up a wee bit, too.

It's just the body's natural way of coping with it.

Most cases of gallstones causing severe pain, like Sandra's,

are easily treated with surgery.

In the hospital, she'll be assessed for just that.

After a busy 12-hour shift,

it's the end of the night for John and Michael.

And another patient delivered into safe hands.

400 miles south of Dumfries, on Cornwall's Bodmin Moor,

Dina has had a serious fall from her horse.

Did anybody see all this happen or was she on her own?

She's in pain and confused.

Blimey, what happened then? Does anybody know?

Event organiser Mickey witnessed the fall.

She came up to that fence there, galloping, and the horse stopped

dead and she went over the top of him, come down on the rails there.

Just one of these things, like, you know.

Air paramedics Mark Fuzsard, Stu Croft

and the land crew are checking for neck or spinal injuries.

OK, has everybody got a bit?

We're going g to go on the R of roll, ready, set, roll!

All right, OK. Crikey.

They're deciding if Dina needs flown to a specialist unit in Plymouth

or A & E at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

It's hurting there.

It's hurting me.

Ow! I don't know.

OK.

We're going to go on the L of lower. Everybody happy?

OK, ready, set, lower.

Ow!

Argh!

The pain means Dina still has a sense of feeling,

which is good news.

When I checked earlier,

your sensations in both legs were the same.

-Were OK, were they?

-So, at the time there wasn't any,

but has that changed at all now?

-I don't think so.

-Can you feel that, Dina?

-I can feel that, yeah.

And she's starting to recall details of the fall.

Oh, I remember, remembering the horse getting

stuck in the jump now.

-It's coming back to you.

-My memory's coming back.

-Oh, good stuff.

The team feel it's safe to fly Dina to A & E in Truro.

She obviously came down and bashed her head quite hard

and has pain in her shoulder, so difficult to assess initially,

but she's coming round a bit, so we're going to move her

to the helicopter, keep her warm and the pop on down to the hospital.

She has got some injury to her right shoulder,

which is going to need an X-ray.

Fairly remote area,

but then that's the nature of the hobby, really,

horse riders tend to sort of go off-road a little bit.

And what a beautiful area to do it in, really!

As Dina is transferred on to the chopper,

her husband James arrives.

Hello, sir! Are you Dina's husband, are you?

OK. At the moment, it's all precautionary stuff,

so it probably looks a lot worse than it is.

A little bit of concussion, we think.

She's got a possible injury to her right shoulder.

Other than that, she's pretty much got away with it fairly unscathed.

But within minutes, James has to let her go.

During the flight in, we monitored her blood pressure.

We also monitored her respiratory rate and her heart rate.

Things can change quite quickly,

especially with head-injured patients,

and we just wanted to monitor her, just to make sure that, you know,

everything stayed the same.

In just 20 minutes, Dina is at A & E in Truro.

It's been an hour and a half since she fell off her horse.

Hopefully, she'll be out again fairly soon, I'd like to think,

but until she's had her neck X-rayed

and she may even be scanned for the head injury,

we don't know, so hopefully, fingers crossed,

she'll be out riding a horse again fairly soon.

Astonishingly, after just a few hours in hospital,

Dina was allowed back home.

Her injuries weren't as serious as first feared.

Once they'd ruled out the fact that I hadn't seriously

injured my back or my neck, they could then start

to look at where the damage was and I'd got a couple of fractured ribs.

Husband James took Dina home that same afternoon...

Hi, Tally! How are you doing?

..where she was reunited with her horse.

So, this is Tally!

The day of the accident was the first time Dina and Tally had

been out riding since Dina's hip replacement two months earlier.

We hadn't jumped anything.

I'd missed a couple of jumps out.

I didn't really want to fall off because of my hip,

because my consultant had said, "It's OK to ride,

"but it's really not great to be falling off horses."

I remember hanging over her neck because she went to jump the jump,

half-jumped the jump, and then pulled back.

I don't remember hitting the ground

and from then on, my memory is quite hazy.

I wasn't very conscious. I came back in and out, I think, a little bit

on the ground.

I remembered being on something that I guessed must be a helicopter,

because I saw bright lights.

I've ridden horses all my life and, actually,

I've had some really bad falls,

but I've never had anything like this.

Beautiful girl.

Naughty girl, aren't you?

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

Dementia sufferer Frank recovered from his infection

and was back home a week later.

He now receives respite care,

making life a little easier for both himself and his wife Moira.

A couple of weeks after her fall,

Dina was out riding the moors with Tally.

They've even managed some jumps.

And PC Kevin Hall's investigation

into the 136 missing lambs continues.