Episode 15 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 WAILS

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's no police courses for this.

Going hundreds of miles against the clock.

Battling the elements

and braving the weather.

HE GROANS

From fields and forests...

..to cliffs and country roads,

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

With police fighting crime.

I could seize the dogs, I could seize the van,

but I'm going to summon you all to court.

Paramedics saving lives...

BABY CRIES

..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...

In Dumfries and Galloway, a patient in acute pain

means a blue light call out for the paramedics.

In Yorkshire, the pressure's on when air paramedics rescue

an 83-year-old woman injured in a fall.

She had to crawl and sort of pass me the keys through the door.

I can't believe you've been down on the floor since yesterday.

And in the Lake District, holiday-makers call for help

when they run aground with disastrous results.

Smashed a prop and bent the prop shafts underneath.

They've been a bit too close to the shore.

Dumfries and Galloway,

with farmland and forest as far as the eye can see.

A vast county of beautiful rolling countryside

and only 60 people per square mile.

The sparse population is linked by 2,500 miles of rural roads.

For the ambulance paramedics based at Lockerbie,

long trips cross-country come with the job.

Paramedic Paul Votier started out in the building trade.

Before I became a paramedic, I was a roofer.

The whole building trade collapsed.

I was out of work, I had to go to the unemployment office,

and they informed me there and then that the London Ambulance Service

was recruiting, would I be interested? And I said,

"Yes, I'll give that a go." And here I am 25 years later.

I'll do his knee. Just keep still for two seconds for me, Robert.

One of the best things about this job is you don't know

what you're going to come across, who you're going to see or meet.

We'll get you to the edge of the bed first. You sit yourself up.

What effect you are going to have on someone's life.

You know, you can come in and not turn the wheel,

or there's other days you can go out and you're out all day,

or there's just the one job and you go...

..and you've made a big difference in someone's life.

This morning, Paul and his colleague Cormac O'Neill

are on an emergency call out.

We're on our way to a doctor's surgery.

We're going to a 59-year-old female,

and the doctor's diagnosing chest pains.

The GP has also requested a 999 response for this lady.

If a GP's called them, Paul knows it must be critical.

A heart attack can turn into a cardiac arrest.

We know that the GP has assessed the patient, and it's a patient they need

to get in pretty quickly if you know they're unhappy

with their condition, or a concern for their condition.

They're blue lighting from their base in Lockerbie,

17 miles to the doctor's surgery in Moffat.

Every six minutes, someone dies of a heart attack in the UK.

One in three people don't make it to hospital.

Paul and Cormac race there as fast as they can.

Whoa!

In 15 minutes, they reach the surgery in Moffat.

Hello.

GP Shona Gillies quickly explains that chest pain

is just one symptom of many for her critically-ill patient, Jane.

59-year-old insulin-dependent diabetic

who has very brittle diabetes.

She was due to come for a review, to see me today.

She appeared with her sister, staggering along.

I've not seen her as bad as this with it

but I think she needs to be going

-down there as fast as we can get her.

-Certainly.

Like three million people in the UK, Jane has diabetes.

She has a very severe form of type-one diabetes.

Her body is unable to produce insulin

to control her blood sugar levels.

How does your chest feel?

Is it still quite sore?

All right. Jane, do you recognise this pain at all?

Have you had this pain before? Yeah?

SHE GASPS

All right. Does this normally come on when your diabetes is playing up?

It's becoming clear that Jane may not have just one medical

emergency but two.

Not only does she have worrying chest pains

but her diabetes is out of control.

Her blood sugars were very, very high.

The blood glucose monitor wouldn't even read,

it was just screaming at us.

It was high. You know, it was too high.

Jane, we're going to shut these back doors and do another ECG.

We're going to put more sticky pads on you.

We was unsure whether the main problem was the cardiac pain,

she was having an heart attack,

or it was her high, high blood sugar levels

that were causing the main problems.

Going to step like that.

Now in the ambulance, Paul attaches electrodes

linked to an ECG machine in the hope of getting a heart trace.

Jane, your pain at the moment,

if I gave you the scale of zero being no pain,

ten being the most excruciating pain,

where would you put your pain at the moment

on that scale?

About eight now, is it?

Pain started to come back as well now.

The ECG machine will give a false reading if Jane moves,

but in terrible pain, she can't stay still.

It's come back pretty quick that pain, hasn't it?

Jane, we need to keep as still as you can for me.

The results from the heart monitor are inconclusive.

Yes.

It's too much shaking on the machine at the moment.

We'll get this pain fixed for you, OK?

Don't apologise.

This lady's pain, it was such an intense pain, it couldn't keep still

and she was getting quite breathless and upset and distressed with it.

So then we had to treat that pain.

The problem we had was this patient

was a very difficult patient to cannulate.

Jane is so ill her veins have collapsed.

A cannula is a small tube that goes into the vein

where then we can administer drugs.

It's a direct route into the patient's body

so we can give any pain-relieving drugs, any life-saving drugs.

And if we haven't got access to the patient's body,

well, we're bit stumped, really.

Right, Jane, I'm sorry, I'm going at your foot here.

OK? How's that pain?

Just coming, just coming.

Sharp scratch, Jane. Sharp scratch.

-Yeah, we're in.

-We're in.

Unable to get a needle into her arm,

GP Shona finds a vein in Jane's ankle.

Morphine, 10mg. 10?

-10mg, yeah.

-And just go down, yeah?

-Yeah.

The small cannula allows them to finally administer some morphine.

OK, thanks a lot now. Cheers. All right.

-Can we go, Paul, yeah?

-Yeah, just get us going, mate.

-Dead on, yeah.

Now it's a 20-mile journey to hospital in Dumfries.

As soon as that pain starts coming back, Jane, let me know,

we'll get you some more.

It's going to be a little bit bumpy as well.

SHE WHIMPERS All right, you just try and relax.

Battling constant pain,

for Jane the journey can't be over fast enough.

Jane, if that pain comes back, you shout, all right? You holler.

I'll give you some more.

Yorkshire is the largest county in the UK.

It spans some 5,500 square miles,

from dense urban areas in the west...

across wild countryside of outstanding beauty...

..to 45 miles of remote coastline in the east.

Providing rapid emergency medical treatment around the clock for this

vast region are the crews of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service.

With a population of five million, their two choppers are in demand.

But today their workload just got a lot heavier.

'BBC Radio Humberside.

'News at 1.'

-NEWSREADER:

-'The union representing ambulance staff in Yorkshire says

'they're being forced to strike.

'They'll walk out at 3.00 this afternoon for five hours.'

With land ambulance crews on strike throughout the county,

the pressure's on Yorkshire Air Ambulance

to attend the sick and injured this afternoon.

Our grid is Tango Alpha 201474.

At their base near Wakefield, air paramedic Andy Armitage

has just received confirmation of a female casualty on the east coast.

Thank you, mate. Right, see you later.

Andy and fellow paramedic Matt Syratt get mobilised quickly...

..with pilot Gary Brasher.

-OK, doors, please.

-No problem, mate.

'Good afternoon. Helimed 99 Alpha.'

'Helimed 99 Alpha, good afternoon.'

The casualty is in Hornsea, a 50-mile flight from their base,

cross-country to the coast.

A thigh bone injury can be serious and very painful.

Going by chopper means medical treatment is just minutes away.

13 miles to run.

THEY SPEAK OVER RADIO

Hornsea is a coastal seaside town.

Really, really remote.

Cut off and isolated, really, from everywhere else,

which made it just even more important that the aircraft attended

this job, because, otherwise,

this lady would have been there hours and hours.

With the ambulance station in Hornsea closed due to the strike,

a Rapid Response Paramedic has been sent to the scene.

He's found the casualty is an elderly woman on her own.

At speeds of up to 150mph,

it takes just 20 minutes to reach Hornsea.

They're hoping to spot the rapid response vehicle at the location.

But the nearest they can land to the patient's town-centre home

is half a mile away.

-Ernest 99 on the ground.

-It'll be fine.

We'd put down in a small field, you know,

just big enough for the aircraft to fit in.

Purely because we knew the importance of getting there

and helping this lady.

It still meant a walk, a climb over a wall, over a stile and barbed wire.

Don't fall now.

Yeah, Lee, it's getting back to the landing site that's going

to be the problem.

We've had to land quite a distance away.

-Hello?

-'Hello!'

Hello. I'll just come in.

This is Iris.

Hi, Iris. How are we doing?

Iris had a fall yesterday.

She's been on the floor since yesterday morning.

Shockingly, 83-year-old Iris fell over 24 hours ago.

With her nearby family away, she's been on a cold floor,

in pain, all night.

It was very, very cold.

I couldn't get my blankets off the bed or out of the cupboards,

you see.

She's been here since yesterday?

She had to crawl and sort of pass me the keys from the door.

She's been crawling around the kitchen...

-She's been over 24 hours on the floor?

-Yes, on the floor, yeah.

Can't believe it.

I've been crawling about on my stomach and my back, you see.

I know, it looks like...

I can't believe you've been down on the floor since yesterday.

-OVER RADIO:

-'99...'

-I've got it, Andy.

Turning up to a lady like this...

You know, I've got a grandparent at a similar age

and I would be horrified if I found out she'd been

there for over 24 hours, lying on the floor in pain, nobody to help her.

You know, I'd be... It is a quite upsetting scene, actually.

With her son away, Iris hadn't wanted to bother her neighbours.

She only dialled 999 when the pain became too much.

By then, the ambulance strike had started.

She's not probably spoke to anybody for quite a number of hours

and we're the first people she comes into contact with.

So, you know, we've got to treat this with some urgency,

especially with the nature of the injury and her signs and symptoms.

Andy monitors Iris' heart.

He needs to rule out a cardiac problem as the cause of her fall.

-Were it just a fall, or did you collapse, or...?

-No.

It was just a fall. But I want to just...

I want to put some leads on your chest just to make

sure your heart's OK, all right?

When did you last have something to eat and drink?

-Monday.

-Yesterday... Monday?!

Iris may have broken her thigh bone,

but the ordeal has also left her weak and possibly hypothermic.

67 elderly people died from hyperthermia last year

in England and Wales.

Iris needs hospital treatment urgently.

Before Paul gave you some medication, were it quite painful?

-(Yeah.)

-Yeah.

To get Iris to the chopper means carrying her for

half a mile in pain and negotiating a barbed-wire fence.

If they do make it to Hull Royal Infirmary,

it's several hundred metres from the helipad to A & E.

With the strike in full swing, there are no vehicles to transfer her.

Andy and Matt will have to improvise.

200 miles north, the paramedic team are on the move.

Cormac and Paul are racing

to Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.

Jane has diabetes.

Her blood sugar levels have rocketed.

But it's her severe chest pains that continue to worry Paul the most.

The pain could be a sign of a heart attack.

Jane still has another agonising 18 miles of the journey to go.

Paul gives her more pain relief.

Just given the last 5mg of morphine.

Start going away again in a minute, Jane, OK?

We've now giving Jane 20mg.

That's the maximum dose we can give in the back of an ambulance.

So, hopefully this five will keep the pain away until we get to Dumfries

where the doctors can give her some more.

I know.

Paul tries to reassure Jane.

Even that's not easy in the back of a speeding ambulance.

It's very difficult. It's all about balance at the moment.

Trying not to land on Jane.

I don't know...

He still can't get a reading from the ECG heart monitor.

There's a lot of interference as well, we call it artefacts.

You know, false readings that are coming out on the machine.

It happened on the doctor's surgery, it's happened on ours as well.

So, I mean, we can take a certain amount of information from that.

But the information we really wanted to know was

whether Jane was experiencing a heart attack or not,

but we can't really tell, so...

We're talking about you, darling, as if you're not here. I'm sorry.

Just coming into the hospital now.

I'll get you to sit on your lap once.

As soon as they arrive, Jane's taken straight to the resuscitation room.

Her blood sugar is above high at the moment, reading well above 30.

Also getting central chest pain into the neck

but it's the jaw that is giving her the most intense pain

rather than the chest.

Sitting about four at the minute, the pain.

Senior Doctor Rory Hodge takes over.

I'll just quickly examine you.

We're going to get another heart trace in, OK?

'Jane is quiet unwell.'

Her diabetes is quite out of control,

her blood sugar is very high,

she's in pain from this chest pain going into her neck.

We are quite concerned about whether it is coming from her heart

so at the moment there is two

medical emergencies going on that we are trying to manage.

And then we need to find a bigger vein to get

a drip into your arm so we can give you fluids.

We need to get some blood tests

but more importantly we need to have an intravenous cannula.

The ambulance guys have managed to get one in the foot

but we needed something a little bit bigger.

Using specialist equipment, Dr Hodge looks for a bigger vein.

Often with diabetes, the veins are difficult to find and also

when you are very unwell the veins shut down.

So we've got gadgets here that can help us.

The ultrasound machine allows me to quickly scan the arm

and find a suitable vessel to insert a cannula into.

With a vein found, the team can start tests and treatment.

Finally able to do blood tests, the medical team are a step closer

to diagnosing what is causing Jane's extreme symptoms.

The Lake District - dramatic and beautiful

and England's largest national park.

This stunning scenery attracts up

to 15 million visitors every year.

And with 16 lakes to choose from, many strike out on the water.

At 10.5 miles, Windermere is the longest and busiest

with as many as 2,000 people on its waters

every day over the summer months.

And keeping them safe, South Lakeland Council's six lake wardens.

And remember, no weeing in the lake!

HE LAUGHS

We'll see you a little bit later, don't worry. OK, take care.

Helping those in trouble....

As long as you're free and everybody's all right, no injuries.

They clock up around 1,000 hours on patrol every year.

On duty today is Travis Spraske.

'I moved up here from Norwich, which is where I'm from originally,

'in 1985, worked on or around the lake ever since.

'It's getting on for 30 years.'

I just took to it like a duck to water.

Excuse the pun.

HE LAUGHS

Warden 1 to base. Just to advise heading south at the moment.

'Our duties cover anything and everything that happens on the lake.'

We work a 12 hour day from 9am to 9pm and then we're also on call

out of hours with a pager from the coastguards.

How do? You all right?

'Because you never know what you're going to get from day-to-day,

'it makes the job interesting, it also can make it challenging.'

So any idea what's up with it or just...?

If something happens, if it's dealt with swiftly

and efficiently then it can't escalate into something more serious.

We're under tow now. Making our way

back to the Old England jetties in Bowness Bay.

Four adults and two children on board.

So a broken down boat drifting across the lake is dealt with quite

easily as opposed to it ending up being on the shore

and getting bashed up and down by the waves.

People start to panic, the boat could end up whole, for example.

Getting the job done and hopefully everybody goes home smiling.

Just watch those ropes for a second.

Thanks very much.

No problem at all. No worries.

A boat out of fuel can quickly become a hazard

but the situation escalates if it's damaged.

Back on patrol, Travis takes a call.

'It's on the west of the shore down to the pier

'via a little island so I'm guessing it's Lingholme.'

Yeah. Roger. We'll make our way south and have a look.

We've just had a report come in of a boat that's possibly hit some

rocks or has gone aground in an area south of here

so we're going to make our way down there and see what's happening.

From near his base in Bowness, Travis heads three miles south.

After just five minutes, he spots the stricken boat.

Yeah, Roger. I think this is the one. Just want to confirm.

How we doing? All right?

Thankfully, owner Paul and his family managed to row to a jetty.

Well, it happens sometimes.

Paul suspects the rocks have caused serious damage.

Oh, well done. OK.

Now they need help to get home.

OK, that's fine. We'll get you back.

Have you got a buoyancy aid or life jacket

that you guys could just pop on?

If not, I'll sort you one out.

What we're going to do is we'll just get a tow line set up

and I'll get one of the chaps to stay on board the boat.

He can keep checking it as we tow up the lake.

It's a bit rough today so we're going to tow it stern

rather than alongside.

And just want to make sure that it doesn't start taking on

any water as we're travelling.

Just an update for you, this ski boat,

I'm going to be towing it back.

Registration number 66542.

Three occupants.

Towing it back to ferry now.

Paul's wife Caroline hops on board with Travis

for the journey back to the marina.

OK, as I say, if you just sit tight.

Meanwhile, Paul and son Charlie put their feet up.

Thumbs up. They're happy, which is good.

The boat's badly damaged but in this case it's only

the owner's pride that's injured.

I think they're looking OK. No signs of panic.

I think they're just a little bit embarrassed, unfortunately.

It's an unfortunate thing.

Just got a little bit close to the shore.

It's not the best start to Caroline

and Paul's wedding anniversary holiday.

And I have it on good authority

that he didn't listen to his other half, so...

Men drivers!

All right, no problem at all.

Back on dry land, Paul's learned the hard way.

Just shows to prepare and be careful, doesn't it?

When you're in waters that you're not used to.

We just missed...

There was the circle of red buoys and I thought the rock would be

in the middle but we went to the left and it was there.

-It's underneath.

-Let's see what the damage is then.

-Prop's gone.

-Prop's knackered.

Yeah, you can see the damage at the front of the hull here

where he's hit the rock

so he's actually damaged the integrity of the hull...

So obviously it makes it too dangerous to use again on the lake.

There is a risk that that could worsen

and then possibly a big leak into the boat.

At least, at the end of the day, everybody is all right.

HE CHUCKLES

Kind of ignored the advice of his son and wife who both thought

he was a little bit close

but unfortunately these things happen.

Yes, it will be a walking holiday now, won't it?

Normal countryside pursuits.

Made slightly less miserable with an unexpected consolation prize.

There you go. Happy anniversary.

Happy anniversary.

In East Yorkshire, the emergency case for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance

team is ongoing.

In Hornsea, 83-year-old Iris has been lying on the floor of her home

with a suspected broken thigh bone for over 24 hours.

I've been crawling about my stomach and my back, you see.

I know, I can't believe you've been down on the floor since yesterday.

Her blood pressure was extremely low and she was hypothermic, as well.

She needs to get to hospital but the chopper is half a mile away.

Too far to carry frail Iris.

We landed in this field. We had to climb over stiles

and walls and barbed wire.

We just knew that by getting this lady out, there was

going be no point taking her back

the whole journey that we'd just done.

It wouldn't have been safe, it wouldn't have been comfortable.

Going by road is the only option

but air paramedics Andy and Matt have a problem.

Everybody's on strike and there's no ambulances.

Poor Iris has been sat here two days.

Granted, she didn't phone anybody and we've not found her

until today but we're going to have to accost

an ambulance to take her into Hull.

Hornsea's ambulance station is minutes away.

It might be closed but Matt checks if it has a spare vehicle

that Rapid Response Paramedic Paul could commandeer.

Iris, what we're going to do,

Paul's going to go get the big ambulance from Hornsea station

because he is just in a car, a Rapid Response Vehicle.

Our plan of action is, because when we flew over this area

we noticed there was an ambulance outside the station.

The rapid responder's going to go to that station,

he's going to be ten minutes and that is our plan, to go get the big

ambulance and drive her down nice and smoothly down to Hull.

They wait whilst Paul tries to get into the ambulance station.

What's we going to do is we'll get you on our stretcher

-and we'll put a nice big blanket on you.

-OK.

OK, and keep you warm that way.

Iris asks Matt to contact her family.

-Is it all right if Matt has a look for the number?

-Yes.

-Roy is it, you say?

-Yeah.

All right. No worries.

If it's not got a touch-screen, forgot how to use these.

I'm looking for her son's phone number.

He's called Roy.

I found two Roys in here but neither of them are her son.

I'm just trying to find it.

Paul has managed to commandeer the strikebound ambulance.

-Hello, mate. How you doing? Are you successful?

-We are.

-Very good.

For Iris, rescue is very close.

-Right, how are we going to get her out?

-But there's one more problem.

-Not sure the Combi will go through that gap.

-Let's try it.

Think you're right.

I think you're right, mate. It's not going to go, is it?

We need some jiggery-pokery.

It's going to have to be, isn't it?

Listen, Iris. We're going to have to move you very shortly.

Now, we wanted you, we wanted to get you out pretty flat

but because of the angle of the doorway,

it's going to be difficult.

-So what we're going to have to do is put you on a chair.

-Yeah.

It's going to be quite uncomfortable

and you might feel a little bit of pain

-but at the moment we're giving you everything we can.

-I know you are.

So we'll be as gentle and as quick as we can with you

and we'll get you comfortable on the bed on the ambulance.

Use this to sit her forward, can't we?

Very gently, they ease her onto a chair.

-Ooh, sweetheart.

-There we go, darling.

-Ah!

I know.

After 25 hours, Iris is finally on her way to hospital.

Okey-dokey!

Going up in the world.

By road, the 20-mile trip from Hornsea to hospital in Hull

will take more than half an hour

but at least Iris will now be driven to the doors of A & E.

All right? Is that better?

-Oh, yes.

-Just tuck your arms in.

And we can zip this bag right up so you're warm.

Sometimes it's not straightforward and you've got to think on your feet.

Now we're in an ambulance, I think we're best staying in one

now we've got one and just take her down to Hull A & E

and let the docs have a look at her down there, get some X-rays done.

Air paramedic Andy jumps ship

to look after Iris in the back of the vehicle

while Matt heads back to the chopper.

You take care.

You'll not see me again, all right. I'm going in the aircraft.

You have a nice journey down to Hull, OK?

With a possible fracture and hypothermia after her

overnight ordeal on the floor,

Iris needed someone to get her into hospital fast.

You get all the way out here to realise there's absolutely nobody.

Even if there were somebody available in Hull,

you're talking 35-40 minutes just to get here.

It all adds to the time that poor Iris has been lying on the floor.

We picked an ambulance up that was doing nothing

and just took it down and Iris is getting to hospital a lot

quicker than she would do normally.

In theory, we pinched an ambulance from Hornsea station.

HE LAUGHS

You know, if that ambulance wouldn't have been there,

we would have had a lot of difficulties, so, you know,

there's a lot of things that came together on that job quite nicely.

200 miles from Hornsea, in Dumfries and

Galloway Royal Infirmary, critically ill patient Jane waits

while the medical team run tests.

Push the blood in.

Dr Rory Hodge and the team need to find out

if Jane's having a heart attack

or if it's diabetes causing her agonising symptoms.

She's got this chest pain as well

so we need to make sure she's not having any heart attack.

Her blood sugar is very high, 25,

and she's acedotic, 68.

Her bicarbonate is very low so that fits with diabetic ketoacidosis.

The results from the blood gas analyser show Jane has

a life-threatening diabetic condition.

The blood tests we've taken, we've been able to process

and show that she is having what we call diabetic ketoacidosis,

so, a diabetic emergency where Jane just isn't able to metabolise

the sugar and her sugar level goes very high

and she becomes very unwell.

Left untreated, poisonous chemicals called ketones will start

to build up in Jane's body.

Without insulin, it can be fatal.

OK, so the blood test shows you are having DKA.

Your diabetes is out of control so we need to give you fluids very

quickly and give your body the insulin it needs.

We'll set that up in an infusion, OK.

We'll keep an eye on your heart with the heart tracings.

The pain sounds like it could be coming from the heart.

We'll get you some morphine now

to try and help that pain.

The second of two ECG tests is encouraging

but Jane's chest pain is still a concern.

A heart attack is difficult to rule out at this stage.

We've done a heart tracing which looks to be normal at the moment

but, unfortunately, that doesn't rule out heart attack.

We need to do further blood tests to achieve that.

But we're treating her at the moment as if she has had a heart attack

with appropriate medication, oxygen and pain relief.

We'll put some oxygen on just now

-You OK if we do that?

-Yeah.

We know roughly what's going on now.

We've started the emergency treatment.

Jane's receiving the life-saving medication she needs now. But her

treatment began with the paramedics who were first on scene,

administering pain relief and

running tests in difficult conditions.

We've got it easy here compared to the ambulance crew.

The ambulance crews do a great job but it is a lot easier for us

in the light of day,

not in the back of an ambulance to do observations and heart tracings.

She'll be taken up to high dependency medical ward where they'll

continue to manage her diabetes and be analysing the heart tracings

and looking at blood tests to see

whether she has had a heart attack or not.

Jane's diabetes finally stabilised after five days.

Thankfully, after another week on the ward her chest pain was

diagnosed not as heart failure

but as acute angina brought on by the diabetic attack.

Now, six weeks later...

Come on then.

..Jane's recovering at home.

Come on. Good girl.

'I have good weeks, I have bad weeks.'

I try and control my diabetes, it's hard

and when it gets away from the you, there's nothing stopping it.

It just, you feel ill with it.

Come on. Up.

Jane's severe form of diabetes means her blood sugar can spike rapidly.

Sophie.

That fateful morning it caused terrifying symptoms.

Just trying to get something into your arm

-so that we can give you something else for the pain.

-Nothing there.

It was a heavy feeling, I was starting to sweat and this

terrible pain come up from my neck,

from my jaws, right down here.

My throat.

And then I couldn't breathe. I just...

That was the scary part. I just couldn't breathe.

The emergency service of Dumfries and Galloway, you can't fault them.

It doesn't take them long to come out.

When Shona phoned for 999 they were

there before you could blink, really. They were really fast.

I've not seen her as bad as this with it.

Paul was really concerned in the ambulance.

He knew when the pain was

starting to come back.

We're not far, we'll be there soon.

And he talked...

He never stopped talking all the way

to Dumfries. Just calming me down.

We're just coming into the hospital now.

Developing diabetic ketoacidosis could have proved fatal.

If I didn't get help that morning,

I would probably go into a coma

and eventually die.

If I didn't get help that day.

I can't praise them enough. The paramedics and the hospital staff.

Brilliant. I can't fault them.

They were really exceptionally nice,

so they were.

I can't praise them enough.

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

In Yorkshire, hospital staff diagnosed Iris with

a dislocated hip.

She's since had a hip replacement and is recovering well.

In Dumfries and Galloway, Jane continues to control her

diabetes whilst recuperating at home.

And with their boat still undergoing repairs, Paul and

Caroline will have to wait until next summer

to celebrate their wedding anniversary on the water.

And who said it was quiet in the countryside?