Episode 8 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's no police courses for this.

..going hundreds of miles against the clock,

battling the elements and braving the weather.

MAN GROANS

From fields and forests

to cliffs and country roads,

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

..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 CRIES

..and wardens safeguarding our lakes.

Come out of the way!

We are there as the emergency services pull together

to pick up, patch up and protect the public.

This is Countryside 999.

Coming up -

in Cornwall, the air ambulance team rescue a rider

who's fallen under a horse...

That horse is a big old horse

and it's landed right in your pelvic area.

..the summer holidays come to a painful end in Penzance...

CHILD WAILS

-So, what do you feel like?

-Sad.

..and it's carnage on the country roads for County Durham cops.

SIREN WAILS

Every year, we Brits make over a billion day trips

to the countryside.

But it's not all cream teas and sedate strolls.

Some seek adrenaline and adventure...

and playing hard can sometimes hurt.

GROANING

Aarggh!

On call, as ever, to help are rural emergency services.

In Cornwall,

the air ambulance has been saving lives for the past 27 years.

Thank you.

No stranger to adrenaline and adventure

is long-serving air paramedic Mark Fuszard.

Since 2006, I've been full-time aircrew

and I've actually taken more people to hospital in the helicopter

than I have done by road.

When Mark's not saving lives, he's running ultra marathons

in the Arctic and the desert.

But nothing matches the buzz of being on call.

Quite often, you'll turn up for work at 7.30 in the morning

and by 7.50, 8.00, you're out on your first emergency call.

As soon as the phone goes and the sirens go off in the hangar,

the adrenaline does start to pump a little bit faster round your body.

Sometimes you won't even know until you get into the aircraft

cos if my colleague's taken the call,

he'll be taking the details down while I'm actually waiting

for the engines to start.

It's kind of exciting, really,

because you don't know what you're going to.

Manning the phones today is team-mate paramedic Mick McLachlan,

and an emergency call has just come in.

Is there a road name or anything?

Going to an equestrian centre where a young lady

has fallen off a horse going over some jumps.

The team scramble in just three minutes.

We go to quite a few equestrian accidents in and around Cornwall.

Lot of people, especially at weekends, are out riding the horses.

There are some very life-threatening, life-changing injuries

you can get from falling off a horse.

They're heading 40 miles northeast

to a horse trials event just outside Launceston.

The only details we've got at the moment is a lady in her 20s

has fallen off a horse going over jumps.

Possible leg fracture, possible pelvic fracture.

More than that, we don't know.

Horse trials, or eventing, are tough competitions

combining show-jumping, dressage and cross-country.

Thousands of riders take part every year.

Hundreds get injured.

-OK, so...

-That's an equestrian centre there, isn't it?

-Oh, yes.

A huge course. We've got like a steeplechase.

-Is it like a point-to-point thingy?

-Yeah, there's lots of...

lots of jumps in this long field here down in our three o'clock.

-Right, and whereabouts is...?

-Somebody's waving here in white.

I don't see any wires. The horses have all been cleared.

With no danger of spooking the horses,

it's a straightforward landing.

Mark is briefed by event medics already at the scene.

A rotational fall, where the horse lands on the rider,

is the most dangerous in eventing.

Horses can weigh up to 850 kilos.

And in 2014,

two experienced eventers died from rotational falls.

Kate is conscious and talking.

Her horse is unhurt, but she could have serious injuries.

How are you feeling? If you keep your neck nice and still for me.

-What's your name?

-Kate.

My name's Mark. I'm one of the paramedics from the helicopter.

What I'm going to do is just going to drop you back onto your back, OK?

To look after your neck.

Unfortunately, because of the tumble you've had

and you have a distraction injury,

we have to look after your neck as well, OK?

Getting Kate flat is now vital to immobilise her

and to allow Mark to properly assess her.

What we need to do... Will that fence move?

-No.

-It might.

Guys, will that fence move?

'It'll be pinned down. Yeah, get Andy.'

Is it easy to move? I just want to lie this girl back.

-'We'll have to take a whole load of pins out.'

-OK.

Can you remember what happened?

You haven't knocked yourself out or anything like that?

Where is the main part of your pain at the moment?

-Pelvis area and my knee.

-And you say it's an eight out of ten?

-Yeah.

OK. How are you getting on with the Entonox? Is that working at all?

Makes me just feel a bit spaced out.

Right, OK? We're just going to lie you flat a little bit.

Just going to go slightly to your back.

-Lean into me here.

-OK.

Every inch of movement is agony.

Keep going back. That's it. All the way back.

We need to take your top off and have a good look at your chest

to make sure you haven't damaged your chest at all.

'Do you want me to get a blanket out?'

Yeah, that'd be good.

There are a lot of injuries that you may not see initially

and you kind of have to go through what we call the mechanism of injury.

You look at what might have happened

if that horse has landed on a particular part of that body.

So, you're looking at injuries to the chest and the lungs

that you may not be able to see from the outside

but that might be going on from the inside.

Deep breath.

And relax.

Kate could have internal injuries

but with no scanners or X-rays, Mark can't know for sure.

Does that feel different?

Getting a clearer picture of the fall would help.

Somebody said to me they've got pictures of the actual fall.

Oh, brilliant. We'll have a look, if they can show us that.

Yeah. Excuse me?

Did you say you had the pictures?

Can you just show my colleague here?

-Kate, your horse, somebody said 17 hands.

-Yeah.

-I'm a bit thick with horses. That's a big one, isn't it?

-It's big.

Yeah, I thought it was.

And you were travelling?

OK.

So, he's fallen forward as well?

-And landed on top of me.

-Ooh, OK.

I've got pictures of it.

If I could have a quick look, that would be fantastic.

Do you want to do it yourself? Zoom. There's a sequence of them.

Right, OK. So, basically, the horse has come down

right in-between your legs on its back.

Yeah, that's what it looks like, yeah.

We managed to see the photographs and she'd got them in stages

and it was fantastic for us to see

because we've got more of an impression of the mechanism

of what had actually happened.

And the lady had come across the top of the horse,

landed on the ground on her back

and then the horse had pretty much done a rotation and was inverted

and then landed in-between the lady's legs and onto her abdomen.

Soon as you saw the pictures, you're thinking, there's going to be

some possible abdominal injuries, high risk of some pelvic injuries.

You know, you can be really quite poorly from a pelvic fracture

very quickly.

The photos confirm it's a serious fall.

The team need to get Kate off the ground and into the helicopter.

A quiet drive in the County Durham countryside

can be an escape from city life.

But scenic isn't always safe.

Around every bend, there are hidden dangers.

60% of road fatalities happen in the countryside,

where roads at 11 times more lethal than motorways.

Working to keep 2,400 miles of road safe

are the traffic cops from County Durham's Road Policing Unit.

PC Damian Stevens is a long-serving traffic cop

based at Spennymoor, near Bishop Auckland.

I've done road policing for ten years now. I love it.

It's every boy's dream. It's a great job.

We do a lot of good. A lot of people don't like us.

That kind of goes with the territory.

We've seen a lot of awful things.

Many, many fatal accidents, many serious injury accidents.

That's the low part of the job.

But there's a lot of high parts and there's a lot of excitement

and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love my job.

The mix of rural roads and busy arterial routes can be challenging.

We've got the A1M, which travels north to south through the county.

The A66 travels east to west.

And they're both, you know, 70mph roads

which have had their fair share of serious accidents over the years.

Preventing accidents is a priority.

Today, Damian is on patrol looking for speeders.

We're travelling west on the A66.

We're heading towards the Cumbrian border.

Just...

I've seen a vehicle of interest which has overtaken me.

I'm travelling at 80-plus and it's overtaken me.

We're just monitoring this guy's driving...

..to see how bad it's going to get.

Damian's in an unmarked car equipped with the latest technology

to catch dodgy drivers.

We've got all the speed-detection, video-recording facilities running.

The guy in the Discovery in front obviously has no idea of that.

He's patrolling the A66, the cross-country route

linking the A1M in the east to the M6 and the West.

This is a dangerous road.

There's been a lot of accidents on this cross-Pennine route

over the years, some serious accidents.

With 18 deaths in ten years, the A66 is a notorious stretch of road.

Just going to start recording now.

So, I'm happy that we are following at a uniform distance now.

We'll follow him for half a mile. We're at 90mph, 93.

He's overtaking heavy goods vehicles.

There's a lot of other vehicles on the road,

as you can see, and I think...

..enough's enough now.

You can see the distance he is from the Clio in front at 80mph.

He's just bullied him out of the way.

So...

SIREN WAILS

-Good afternoon, sir.

-Good afternoon.

-How are you doing?

Are you in a rush?

Damian leads the driver back to his patrol car.

When you overtook us, it was obvious that you were

travelling in excess of the speed limit. Um...

So, I began to follow you with the audio rolling and the speeds,

you got up into the 90s, but in general it was in the high 80s.

Pretty much the entire journey. We're talking maybe seven or eight miles.

At one point, there was a little Renault Clio in front of you

and you just plain bulled him out of the way.

It is an endorsable offence,

which would carry three penalty points and £100 fine.

The video is the best tool we've got

because it is hard to contest what the video says.

That video is linked to a calibrated speedometer

that's obviously calibrated by an outside engineering company.

We know it is accurate.

The beauty of it is, we sit people in the car and we speak to them.

And we speak to them at an understanding level,

but we need to point what the issue is,

play them the video, they make their own minds up.

This driver will get three penalty points and a £100 fine.

Well, it just happens, unfortunately.

You do your best to watch out for these guys,

but every so often, it catches us out.

Just drive a bit slower in the future, yeah.

The road conditions are good, I felt it was nice and quiet,

so, yeah, just going places, going places a bit too fast, I'm afraid.

You grin and bear it, yeah. Just get on with it.

The gentleman was very accepting of what I had to say to him.

You know, we try and give people a chance and we try and be lenient,

but there comes a time when you just have to

enforce the laws that are there. And that was a prolonged period

for several miles on what is a really dangerous road.

So, a couple of hours left of the shift.

We're just going to see what presents itself now.

Back on the A66,

it's not long before Damian clocks another speeding car.

Following an Audi, a red Audi.

Currently keeping a uniform distance behind him. We're up in the 100s.

We're doing 107mph.

At 37mph over the speed limit, this driver is chancing his luck.

But that luck is about to run out.

From dangerous driving to risky riding.

Back in Cornwall, the air ambulance and land paramedics

are helping fallen horse rider Kate.

That horse is a big old horse. It's landed right in your pelvic area.

-We're treating everything for the worst-case scenario.

-OK.

Photos confirmed it was a serious fall

and the horse landed on top of her.

Kate needs pain relief, but the colder she becomes,

the trickier it is to administer.

Just trying to warm your hand up,

see if I can get one of these veins to come to the surface.

Initially, we tried to get some intravenous access

but unfortunately, she'd been quite cold.

And she did tell me while we were at the scene

that they'd struggled to get IV access on her before

when she'd had some operation,

so there was quite a challenge to get a line in

to give her some IV morphine.

Kate, this is oral morphine, OK?

Which we can give you prior to us giving you some...

You want that!

OK.

Swallow that. Fantastic. Well done.

Tastes good, does it?

While Mark deals with the pain,

friend Becky deals with Kate's horse.

Kate, I'll be honest, because you've got a pelvic injury,

we're going to have to take all your clothes off.

I know it sounds a little bit excessive

but we've got to put a pelvic bind around your waist

to make sure your hips stay in place.

But we'll maintain your modesty throughout.

But to get this belt on, that's what we have to do.

They must get Kate off the ground as quickly and as gently as possible.

Ready, set, slide.

That's perfect.

There we go. Well, Graham's going to be ready to roll.

We'll go on the iron rolls. We want to leave the clothes behind.

Three hands over, three hands under.

So, be ready, set on the iron roll.

We're just going up to about 20 degrees, hold there.

Ready, set, roll.

That's lovely. We'll pause there.

Mark explains the pelvic bind.

Do you know like a weight belt in a gym? It's a bit like that,

only it goes a little bit lower on your hips.

Basically, cos your pelvis is a bit like this, like a book, yeah?

We're just going to keep that book together and that's all that does.

Ready, set, lift.

Because of the mechanism of the injury,

and we've seen the photographs of exactly what happened

which is really useful,

so the chances of a pelvic injury are quite high.

So, that's where we need to be.

We need to take her to the Derriford Major Trauma Centre

and look after her pelvis, look after her neck

and then monitor everything else as well.

So...yeah. Plymouth is where we need to be.

Summer holidays in the country.

A giant playground to explore and discover.

But even the bravest adventurers can have accidents.

Getting its fair share of holiday bumps and scrapes

is the Urgent Care Centre in Penzance.

Here, a summer break means going home in plaster

with an X-ray for a holiday pic.

So, you've got a fracture that goes down through here, can you see that?

On shift today is Emergency Nurse Practitioner Julie Oliver.

So, we're coming up to the end of the summer holidays

and it is a really nice day today,

so it'll be interesting to see what we get through our doors today.

We've seen... Already this year, we've seen

lots of fractures and breaks.

And first up is three-year-old River, who has a very sore foot.

My name is Julie, one of the nurse practitioners. How can I help you?

-My husband took River to the park yesterday afternoon.

-Right.

And after he'd been at the park,

he was complaining of some pain in his left foot.

And then he went to bed and everything and he was fine,

and he woke up crying this morning.

-OK.

-Saying that it was hurting quite a lot.

River, can you see my little pictures up here?

Can you tell me which you feel like?

That's a happy face and that's a very sad face.

So, what do you feel like?

-Sad.

-You feel sad, do you?

Pop your leg straight, my darling.

Now, you tell me if it hurts when I'm pressing.

How does that feel?

That's a bit bothering you, isn't it? And that is sore, isn't it?

-His foot's a little bit swollen. We will get it X-rayed.

-OK.

Just sending River off now, down for an X-ray,

and hopefully there won't be anything broken.

River's X-rays might shed some light on his sore foot.

-Right, so, these are the bones in your leg.

-Wow.

-OK?

And they look absolutely fine.

Hang on, let's have a look. A little bit closer.

Better inspect it properly, hadn't we?

Ooh.

Actually, what's that there?

-Just have a seat there a minute.

-OK.

Oh, Sham? Sorry, do you mind just having a quick look

-at this X-ray for me, please?

-Yeah.

This little lad, unsure of mechanism of injury, but was at the park.

Pain, lateral malleolus.

He can weight bear, but a little bit reluctantly.

But I'm just looking at that there. What do you think?

Treat it as a fracture?

River will be given a temporary plaster cast

until he visits the fracture clinic.

But it's unfortunate timing.

-Pageboy on Saturday at Grandad's wedding.

-Oh, he's going to be?

-Yes.

Oh, dear! Oh, gosh.

Now, pop that hand in there.

And that hand in there.

Wow. Mum is right behind you and I'm right in front of you.

So, what I want you to do is I want you to bring the crutches towards me,

little steps, and then hop.

-Hop!

-Hop!

-Hop forwards.

-JULIE LAUGHS

-That's great!

-And then next one and that one.

Do another hop to where your crutches are. Hop.

-JULIE LAUGHS

-Yay!

There we go. Right, so, those are for Mummy.

We've given him the crutches, which you saw, just brilliant with them.

So, I'll just go through the plaster advice with Mum

and they can go home.

River might be patched up and free to go, but Julie's not.

Her day of bumps and breaks is far from over.

And next on the list, four-year-old Annie,

who has fallen off some monkey bars.

Is this all OK where I'm pressing? Is it all right?

Is that OK?

That's a bit sore, isn't it?

How's that there? ANNIE WHIMPERS

OK, it's all right. SHE CRIES

We won't push it any more, OK?

-I think she's probably broken that.

-Oh.

So, what we're going to do, we're going to get your picture taken.

Will that be OK? Not of your face.

So, little Annie has had a fall off of the monkey bars.

Most likely to be what we call a fall on an outstretched hand,

where they put their hand down.

It's quite common, usually small children or younger children

get what we call a green stick fracture.

We'll just X-ray that, most likely go onto a backslab.

A backslab is a half plaster that doesn't fully cover the arm.

It's used on injuries with a lot of swelling.

Right. Let's have a look.

There, you've got a little break in your wrist there.

And in actual fact, I think she's probably done both.

-Oh, my goodness.

-So, you did do a good job, didn't you?

Did it properly, didn't you, Annie?

-So, we need to make it better, don't we?

-Yep.

Right, do you want to sit up on the big chair for me?

All right.

Julie fits the cast.

How does that feel?

-Not fine.

-Not fine?

-But does it feel better?

-No.

-Mm?

-Not much better.

Next step, a sling. But little Annie is still not keen.

I think it's important to get the child on your side.

Just the communication can be quite difficult.

But ideally, it's just not to upset them too much.

If they don't want something -

if they don't want to have medicine, that's fine.

If they don't want to have the sling on, that's fine.

So no monkey bars for Annie for the next few weeks.

And no rest for Julie.

Another play park casualty is three-year-old Emily,

who's hurt her elbow.

SHE SCREAMS LOUDLY

Let's have a look.

-That's a nasty fra...looks like a fracture.

-Does it?

A fracture...probably a supracondylar fracture.

So we need to get it X-rayed first, all right?

Left elbow.

Come on, then. EMILY CRIES

I'll pick you up, don't worry. Come on.

-The lady will do it for you.

-EMILY CRIES

Just slowly, just gently, that's it. There you go, good girl.

-Brilliant.

-Good girl.

You're going to hear a funny noise now.

That's it.

X-ray over, Dad takes Emily back to see Julie.

OK, come and take a seat.

Right, OK.

Right, let's have a look at your X-ray.

Right, so it is what we call a supracondylar fracture at the elbow.

It doesn't look displaced

but you can just see on the X-ray, it's broken just through there

and through there.

-So that is going to need to go in a cast.

-OK.

A supracondylar fracture means Emily has broken the bone in her upper arm

just above the elbow - a common injury in young children.

We've given her some pain relief.

Pain relief seems to have helped quite a bit.

So we're now going to put her into a backslab.

Go round and round.

Now, this is going to feel nice and warm.

-OK. Tuck it in here.

-Eurgh.

-Bleurgh.

Be as quick as we can. And nice and cosy.

And pop that one in there.

All right? Wow, that's a big plaster for a little girl, isn't it?

-I want to take it off.

-Hey.

OK.

Oh, dear.

Another satisfied customer. JULIE LAUGHS

We find that we often get runs of three.

So, like today, we've had those three children in.

And then already, I think, this morning, or today,

we've had three fractured wrists of children.

So maybe they're getting tired at the end of the summer holidays,

they need to go back to school.

Too much having good fun, I think.

From patching up minor accidents to preventing major ones.

Back on the A66 dual carriageway in County Durham,

PC Damian Stevens is on the lookout for dodgy drivers.

Earlier he stopped a speeding Land Rover.

-Good afternoon, sir.

-Good afternoon.

-How are you doing?

Are you in a rush?

He's now tailing a red Audi that's clocking up speeds of over 100mph.

Currently keeping a uniform distance behind him.

We're up in the 100s. We're doing 107.

The road is about to turn into a single lane.

That stretch of road where the two lanes merge into one

is known as cross lanes for an obvious reason -

there's a junction there on both sides.

This is a minor junction. It's used by farmers.

It's a very rural, agricultural area.

There's a lot of slow-moving vehicles using that road.

And a tractor or a slow-moving car pulling out of that junction

would not have known that that Audi was travelling at 106.

So 108 was about the highest speed, so we'll have a word with him and...

..get him back to the car.

Afternoon, how are you doing? Any ideas why...?

I don't have any ideas.

You don't have any ideas? Right, well, I shall show you the video.

Just have a seat in there, we'll move the seat forward.

We'll have a look.

It's a calibrated speedometer that's linked to the video. OK, so...

DAMIAN SIGHS I mean, that's...

It's not great reading, that's 108.

So you peaked at about 108 but in general, it was between 104

and, you know, 108.

And you can see we're coming down where two lanes come into one.

Loads of signs, loads of paint on the road

telling you that there's a hazard coming up.

And you go at 106. Yeah, so...

And then, obviously, you slowed.

Cos at that point, I thought we'd better put the blue lights

and sirens on and get you slowed down.

With such high speeds, it's not looking good for the driver.

Right, I can't say what it's going to be.

It's in the hundreds, so the guide, generally,

is that the court may consider a disqualification.

"May consider a disqualification" is the term that we use.

It's a high speed, mate, and...

..you can't get away from that.

Cheers, thank you.

I don't think a warning's appropriate,

I don't think a telling-off or a caution's appropriate

and I don't think a speed awareness campaign's appropriate.

I think that's a definite decision to travel at crazy speed

and I think that there has to be some penalty for that -

financial and points and maybe even a disqualification.

I think the fact has just hit him, really,

that that's going to have a hell of an effect on his life.

He needs his car for work.

But he can't get away from the fact that 108mph...

and I know it's harsh and I know the lad's heartbroken, in tears,

but, you know, he would kill someone or he'd kill himself

if he even had a minor accident at that speed.

Accident prevention is always better than having to pick up the pieces,

but collisions are an inevitable part of being a country traffic cop.

Damian's been called to an accident close by.

We've had a report of a three-vehicle road traffic accident.

We have no update yet on the severity of the accident.

So it's about a five-minute drive from here.

There's other units attending, I think we're the closest.

One of our colleagues off the motorcycle unit is behind us

to give some support.

The A690 is a busy road, it's an arterial road through the county,

and so there could be traffic issues

as well as, obviously, any casualties so...

Unfortunately, despite all the flashing head lamps,

flashing blue lights, sirens, people still pull out on you, but...

..disaster averted.

Police and ambulance are already on scene

and the traffic's backed up in both directions.

A colleague gives Damian an update.

Anyone injured?

There's no sign of speeding cars.

This collision involves three vehicles approaching

temporary traffic lights.

Have you worked out the choreography of this?

The vehicle at the front of the queue was turning right into a farm,

quite legitimately, and this caused the line of traffic

to slow down and stop.

And the van which was at the back of the line mustn't have seen

that the vehicles were slowing and has hit it with some force.

That's caused the vehicle it hit to go into another vehicle

and a kind of concertina effect.

In the ambulance is the pregnant driver of the front car, Stephanie.

The traffic just came to a stop up ahead

and everyone slammed the brakes on.

And I, obviously, wasn't very close to the guy in front of us.

Like, I managed to stop in time

and then I just felt somebody hit us from the back.

The guy in the truck in front, when we stopped,

said that somebody was indicating, trying to turn round in the road,

so everybody in front of me stopped and I've stopped

and they've kind of gone in the back.

Could have done without it to be honest, but...

At least we're all right.

A little bit shook up, a little bit of pain,

but hopefully everything's OK.

In the middle car behind Stephanie was 69-year-old Kay.

I'm shaking. I've drove for over 30 years, I never had an accident.

-What happened was, there was a car turning right...

-Into the farm.

..and then there was a wagon in front of the car.

-And the wagon's just slammed his anchors on.

-This girl stopped...

-Yeah.

-And then I realised she stopped and I put my brakes on,

I swerved round her and you ran in the back.

And I've gone into the back.

-So you've clipped the passenger side.

-Yeah.

The people involved, the severity of injuries,

that's the priority, really.

You never know what you're coming to.

If you're coming to something which, on the face of it,

looks relatively minor. We're just glad to see

the ambulance crew look quite unstressed by it all.

It looks like walking wounded at worst, really.

One of them is pregnant, she's 24 weeks pregnant this week.

So she's got a little bit of pain in her chest,

she doesn't think it's related to the accident.

Damian must rule out alcohol as a factor in the crash.

-Have you had an alcoholic drink today?

-Never, no, I don't drink.

No problem, I have to ask.

-OK, have you ever done one of these before?

-No, I haven't. What do I do?

Just, if you form a nice seal around there with your mouth

and then just blow until I say stop.

Keep blowing. That's it. You've done it, sample taken.

It is a lawful requirement if you're involved in a road traffic accident

that you provide a specimen of breath.

They've all complied with that, they've all given a zero sample,

so that's one box ticked.

The white van that hit Kay's car from behind has come off the worst.

If you crash into the back of someone

cos they've braked sharply or heavily,

the onus is on you as the following vehicle to maintain a gap

in which you can stop.

So there is no defence to going into the back of somebody,

because you should've been able to maintain that distance.

Stephanie's given the all clear.

There's no injury to herself or her unborn baby.

It's done all sorts. It's been to Eminem at Wembley,

it's done a zip wire when I didn't know.

What else have we done?

Oh, it's been to Glastonbury, went to Belgian Formula One last week

and now it's been in a car accident.

With cars and casualties dealt with,

Damian can now get back out on patrol.

So I've been told by the paramedics

that there's no cause for concern anywhere.

All three drivers are unhurt and unharmed.

Two of the vehicles are still driveable,

they're going to continue on their journey.

We've got one vehicle being recovered so we're waiting on a local garage.

And I'm ready now just to continue on my shift.

Back in Cornwall, the air ambulance team are flying

injured horse rider Kate to the major trauma centre at Plymouth.

Photos of the fall seen by paramedic Mark Fuszard

explain the team's caution.

The momentum has carried the horse over,

but the horse has done a somersault and landed...

She's landed on the floor with her legs slightly open.

The horse has gone inverted and landed on its back

right on her pelvis.

You can't imagine that happening.

That size horse landing on you like that and not sustain an injury.

It's just a nine-minute journey to Derriford Hospital,

where the trauma team take Kate for investigation.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-I'm Jan.

She's taken the full force of this horse right on her pelvis.

Heart rate of 120 initially, is now 88.

Primary survey, X-rays in. Come onto this side, please.

-Need me to explain anything else?

-No, you're gone. Thank you.

-Thanks very much.

-Thanks.

It's job done for the air paramedics.

And over to the hospital to assess and treat Kate's injuries.

Three weeks later, Kate's back at home and on the mend.

I got rushed in to the resus,

all the doctors and nurses were brilliant.

They came rushing round and I had X-rays on my pelvis,

X-rays on my knees, scans, blood tests, cannulas put in.

They were brilliant.

Kate badly bruised her pelvis and damaged her knee.

But miraculously, there were no broken bones.

I feel very grateful that my accident

didn't cause more damage to me than originally thought.

Obviously, I was off for a couple of weeks on crutches,

due to the damage to my knee, and a bit of bed rest.

I'm still taking a lot of painkillers and just...

I'm trying to get back to normal.

Physically, I feel OK, but it's the mental damage that it's done

that's going to take a while to get over.

The memories of the accident are still very vivid.

The trials were only her second eventing competition

with her horse, Flash.

Went off to do the show jumping, where he was brilliant.

He only had one down and then we went round the cross-country,

which during the break, it was a bit wet.

And then the whole way round he went clear, got to fence 16,

which he flew over but jumped too big.

I remember him jumping the first part of the double - massive -

and then sitting, thinking,

"I'm not sure that he's going to make the second part."

And then I remember coming to in a bit of a state and agony

and wondering where my horse was.

That horse is a big old horse,

-and he's landed right in your pelvic area.

-Yeah.

-We're treating everything for the worst-case scenarios.

-OK.

'While the paramedics were working on me,

'I was just constantly thinking about my friend Becky, who was brilliant,'

where Flash was and what was going to happen to him,

how we were going to get the horses home and everything other

than the pain I was in, really.

Just worrying about everything else.

'But I just couldn't help thinking about where Flash was

'and if he was OK.'

Initially, I got told that it was a rotational fall,

so what was going on in my head was...dreadful.

The images I had going on was horrible.

And then when I saw the pictures,

the ones of him landing on me were pretty horrific.

But falling under a half-tonne horse hasn't put Kate off.

-Her bond with Flash is as strong as ever.

-Come on, then.

I bought him at eight months old

and we've never been apart, really.

'He's a big boy but we've done everything together.'

Good boy.

I just love him.

'After the accident, I got back on Flash'

after two weeks,

but I did it all very slowly with help from my friends,

and they've helped me boost my confidence again.

Not only is she back in the saddle, she's back competing again.

Me and Flash did go to our first show jumping competition

a couple of nights ago, and his confidence is fine.

So from him being so brave, I think it'll help.

We'll work together as a team and we'll get there again.

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

After a visit to the fracture clinic,

it turns out River hadn't broken his ankle after all.

At least he didn't have to hop down the aisle at Grandad's wedding.

The driver of the red Audi

is due to appear in court on speeding charges.

And after over 2,000 rescue missions,

air paramedic Mark Fuszard, who treated rider Kate,

was awarded National Air Paramedic Of The Year 2014.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.