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.

You're under arrest for failing to stop for police.

DOG BARKS Going hundreds of miles

against the clock,

battling the elements and braving the weather.

Lower the winch.

From fields and forests,

to cliffs and country roads,

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

With police fighting crime...

I've got suspicions that there might be cannabis being used.

..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,

the Air Ambulance Crew in Cornwall struggle to find a man who

might be in cardiac arrest...

..on the Isle of Man,

paramedics help a driver who's worryingly uncommunicative...

-Mr Lucas.

-Yeah?

-Can you tell me your home address, please?

Do you have family at home?

..and a Worcestershire officer gets more than he bargained for

on a night-time patrol.

This is the farm that we had the attempted burglary,

non-dwelling, the other day.

The Isle of Man.

Lying in the middle of the Irish Sea,

between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

30 miles long, and 13 miles wide,

the island is famous for its beautiful coastline...

..miles of winding country roads...

and it's peace and quiet,

until August, that is...

ENGINES ROAR LOUDLY

..when the Festival Of Motorcycling roars into town for two weeks.

Hundreds of spectators arrive around the clock,

swelling the island's population of 85,000 to almost a 100,000.

It's a major challenge for the island's ambulance service,

calling for experienced teams,

like Kevin Airey and Lisa Montgomery.

I've been working with my current crew mate

probably for about the last seven years.

When you're working with somebody for that amount of time,

cos you're working with that person for 12 hours, four days a week,

and I think it always helps if you get on with that person.

Every single job that you go to is different,

there's no job ever the same.

You know, and that's what I like. You know, you've got the variety.

It's day one of the festival.

A call comes in.

-OVER RADIO:

-'All services requested.'

Received.

With all three services requested, it looks serious.

SIRENS WAIL

Kevin and Lisa blue light from their base in Douglas

to a junction on the A2,

just outside the capital.

It should take 12 minutes to get there.

Someone might need to be cut out of the vehicle.

It's not a bad road

cos just I think as you're coming into a 30mph speed limit,

hopefully, it's low speed, impact,

but again, like I say, until we get there,

cos we've had no further update...

-..we don't know.

-It could be anything there.

Right, we're just arriving up here now.

It's taken eight minutes from the call to reach the accident.

It looks serious.

As we approached the scene, you could see a car on the left-hand

side that was in up on the pavement and in against the hedge,

and then there was a yellow van,

that was nosed into the hedge on the other side and on its roof.

Certainly on this occasion when you see one car

in the hedge on one side and you see, you know, a big transit van

on its roof in the hedge the other side, you expect some injuries.

Alpha 116 on scene. Over.

-Do you want to go to that one and I'll go to that one?

-Yep, OK.

While Lisa heads straight for the van driver,

Kevin's focus is the car.

Local resident Paula witnessed the accident.

Hiya. How we doing?

-This is Joe, age 66.

-Hi, Joe, I'm Kevin.

Works up in England.

He arrived on the island at six o'clock this morning on the ferry.

He's got pains in his chest, but he thinks it feels like he's

been banged rather than he's having any kind of problems.

He's been able to breathe. He's got a laceration to his head.

He's obviously had a bang. He's very confused.

He can't remember the accident.

He can't remember what's happened at all?

-Were you wearing your seatbelt, OK?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

So, you've gone into here...

66-year-old Joe and his wife, Jackie, arrived on the ferry

early this morning.

They come every year to watch the motorbike races.

It was Jackie's quick thinking that stopped the car.

And I thought... Oh, I don't know!

For that fact that he's spun around,

I think he's been quite lucky, you know?

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

You're OK, Joe?

While the police investigate the site, Kevin attends to Joe.

He was knocked out in the impact and is now disorientated.

Do you know what day it is?

No, that's fine, you've had...

The thing is, you've had a shake to the head, you see. Yeah?

I dealt with Joe.

Lisa went to deal with the van driver,

and thankfully, he was not injured at all,

so she checked him out, that was fine.

Amazingly, the van driver managed to climb out of the wreckage unscathed.

But with wife Jackie in shock and being comforted by a passer-by,

-and Joe still confused...

-I'm Lisa, Joe.

All right?

..the team needs to get this couple to hospital as soon as possible.

From rural roads to rural rogues...

..crime in the country brings unique challenges for our cops.

Theft tops the list of most common offences.

Last year, stolen livestock and equipment cost the UK economy

over £50 million.

One of the counties affected by rural crime is Worcestershire...

..the patch of Sergeant Rich Foxhall.

Worcestershire is a very rural area,

countryside with several towns.

And then you don't have to go far from any of our major patrol bases

and you're out in the countryside and big old distances to cover.

So, real contrasts.

After nine years, Rich still gets a kick from the job.

The thing that appeals to me about the job, about police work,

it's the variety.

You really don't know each day what you're coming into, generally.

It's helping people.

Trying to make a difference but just by being there,

by being positive, you can help people

because generally most people that contact or have an interaction

with the police, have got a need. They're in distress.

Today, a farmer needs Rich's help.

There's been an attempted theft.

About 4.30 this morning a farm dog has woken the occupants

of the farm and they've gone out to find that one of their vehicles

has been taken out of a shed and it looks like somebody was trying

to steal one of their farm vehicles.

The cops were called to the farm in the middle of the night,

but there was no sign of the thieves.

Sergeant Rich is now on the trail.

He's heading from Malvern Police Station

to the farm three and a half miles away.

We're only about five minutes' drive out,

but very quickly you get into the open and dark countryside.

With miles of quiet country lanes and widely dispersed properties,

the countryside is a magnet for thieves,

especially under the cover of darkness.

As we're coming through here, I'm just sort of

looking at the premises that we're going past

and confirming, I think, what we knew already

that there's no premises that are overlooking the road with

CCTV cameras that we could, try and get any vehicles coming or going.

Limited opportunities for any follow-up work.

But as country roads can all look similar,

finding the farm is no easy task.

Luckily, this is Rich's patch.

You all right? Which one's...

Past the white house, on the corner, rough track to the right.

Got to be the track down here.

You all right? Do some good work last night, did you?

He's met by farm dog Billy and the farm's owner, Steve.

Both had a broken sleep last night.

-Hi, buddy.

-Hi, mate. You all right?

-Yeah, how's it going?

-Not so bad.

The dog woke us up about...3.30 this morning.

Didn't take any notice for the first five or ten minutes

and then, he continued barking so we got up,

had a bit of a wander round out here and then I noticed the RTV

had been reversed out the shed.

And then, just informed the police then

in case there was still somebody around, really.

Let's have a look.

The very nearly stolen vehicle is in Steve's shed.

Tried to start it.

-The red thing.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Yeah.

An RTV, or rough terrain vehicle, is a hardy four-wheel drive.

Absolutely.

How much one of them set you back, then?

Yeah.

They've had to come, you know, quite a way in

-to come and try their luck, haven't they?

-Yeah, basically.

Yeah, it's obviously somebody who knows their way around because...

they've opened the gates ready...

-They were going to take it down that lane there.

-OK.

Then across that field and...

-So, they've prepared their route already.

-Prepared it, yeah.

Are these keyed, as in do you need an ignition key?

-Yeah, there is an ignition key in it.

-You've left the keys in it

-cos it's a farm vehicle you need it all the time.

-Obviously.

Yeah, quite. You got any motion activated lights?

-No.

-If somebody comes up the track

or comes round the corner of the barn here,

at least they get a floodlight in the face.

You know something's moving.

Yeah, I know we're off the beaten track a bit,

we've never had any trouble before.

All right, well, if we, if we get anything forensic wise,

-we'll see...we'll be in touch.

-Yeah, splendid.

-OK.

-It's frustrating, isn't it?

-Yeah.

A quarter of all farms in England and Wales

were affected by crime last year.

Steve's been lucky this time.

Well, my grandfather come here in 1935

and I think this is the first problem we've ever had.

We're going to have to have a review

and have a look at our security a bit.

Pretty brazen, really,

I mean, the fact that they've planned already to...where

they were going to take the vehicle, so they knew what the thing

they were looking, or the kind of thing that they were looking for.

It's really now, it's just prevention.

So, if it did happen again, if they decided to come back

for another try, at least there's something different,

some light to scare them,

and can also prove to the folks in the house if the lights come on.

that there is something moving out here.

200 miles north-west of Malvern,

the Isle of Man is hosting a major motorcycling festival.

15,000 tourists and spectators have descended on the island

for the event.

On one of the main roads there's been a serious accident.

Holiday-makers Joe and Jackie have collided with a van.

Joe was knocked unconscious and can't remember what happened.

Do you know what day it is?

Ambulance technician Lisa and paramedic Kevin are treating them.

What we have at the moment is in the ambulance here

we've got a driver, a 66-year-old male,

and his wife, 65-year-old female.

I believe they've been coming off the junction here

and they've been T-boned by a van coming up the other way.

Our patients' vehicle has spun round on the road,

ended up in the hedge there,

and the driver of the yellow van here,

you can see he's overturned into the hedge,

just down the road here.

Driver at the moment, he is concussed.

He's also got chest pain.

Kevin has been monitoring Joe in the ambulance

and now there are signs of his memory coming back.

Do you know where you are now?

Yeah? Go on, tell me.

Ambulance on the Isle of Man, yeah. That's good.

But...

You got away relatively uninjured, really, which is...which is good.

It's not worth thinking about.

I think it'll be a write-off, yeah.

I think...

I think both vehicles have been written off.

I think you're both...

Yourself, your wife and the other driver

have been extremely fortunate.

All right, Jen, we're coming from... We'll be about ten minutes.

All right. Thanks, Jenny. Bye.

Get you up to Nobles and get you assessed up there and checked out,

but I'd say you've had a lucky escape, really, which is...

what we like to see.

Incredibly, it looks like Joe and Jackie may have escaped

with minor injuries, but it's been a shocking experience.

I put the lady in the front with me

and she travelled in with me in the front

and I was chatting to her on the way, putting lots of reassurance

and she was saying that they never normally bring the car

and it's a write-off, and, you know, I just said to her,

"Well, cars are replaceable. People aren't, you know?

"The main thing is that you're both all right."

-12 or 13 years?

-Yeah.

Visiting the island for the bike racing. Yeah, that's good.

Your rod. She's your rod. Yeah.

Yeah.

They've come to the island for a little break,

and they've been here on regular holidays in the past,

and obviously on this occasion, things haven't gone to plan.

They've been involved in this accident

and suddenly they're miles away from home,

they've got no transport, the car was written off,

and, yeah, you do feel for them.

A hospital visit was the last thing Jackie expected today.

She worked as an NHS cleaner for 27 years.

I retired yesterday.

Holiday today.

And this is how it started.

A car accident, isn't it?

Good holiday.

With Joe and Jackie in safe hands, Kevin and Lisa are back on call.

In an hour, the A roads making up the racecourse

will be closed for the racing bikers to practise.

Lisa and Kevin receive another emergency call.

From Douglas, the team blue light to the hamlet of Braaid

where a man has been reported driving dangerously.

Patrol Alpha 116, arriving at scene, over.

-OVER RADIO:

-'116, thank you.'

Hiya, folks.

Police officer Sarah Corkish

is already at the scene with the driver,

who appears extremely confused.

What have we got?

OK.

Two members of the public had called us

with regards to erratic driving,

that this vehicle had been bouncing off the hedges.

They managed to box the vehicle in

and stop and speak to the driver who was clearly unwell,

and did really well to get the keys off the gentleman and call us.

-Hello, sir.

-Hello.

-How you doing?

'Police were on scene.'

Turns out that the police had actually found a number

on the gentleman, rang it and it turned out that

the fellow was a diabetic.

Because he's diabetic,

74-year-old Shane needs to take insulin every day.

It's a hormone that regulates the amount of sugar levels

or glucose in the blood.

We did a quick BM test on him,

just tested a little bit of his blood

and that came back as being 2.2, which is quite low.

Shane's reading should be between five and ten.

He's showing signs of hypoglycaemia -

an acute reaction in a diabetic

caused by a severe drop in the blood glucose level.

-Your sugars have dropped a little bit...

-Mm-hm.

..so what we'll do is give you some glucose for that, and...

-hopefully that'll bring them back up again to an acceptable level.

-OK.

-Is that OK?

-Yeah.

Shane is worryingly uncommunicative.

If hypoglycaemia is not treated immediately,

it can result in a coma, and even death.

Just wait here.

But with traffic building up

and the roads about to close for practising bikers,

Kevin and Lisa need to act fast.

Cornwall.

A spectacular peninsula at the very tip

of Britain's South West.

Famed for its warm climate,

300 miles of rugged coastline and sandy beaches,

it's home to over 500,000 people.

But in the summer months,

the population swells to five million

as holiday-makers arrive in their droves.

Much of this coastal landscape is remote and inaccessible,

so when accidents happen,

the emergency services need to be able to get there quickly -

not always possible by road.

The Cornwall Air Ambulance

is the busiest service in the South West.

One of its full-time paramedics is Mark Fuszard.

My job involves going to critically injured

and critically ill people by helicopter,

stabilising those patients on scene

and then getting them to hospital really quickly.

It also involves going to people that need us in remote areas.

The challenges are not only the medical side of it,

because obviously they can be quite challenging at times,

especially the patients that we tend to get tasked to,

but also the logistics.

Trying to get the patient to the aircraft

and trying to get the paramedics to the patient,

that can be a challenge in itself at times.

Mark is on call today. An emergency has come in.

Yep.

The address, she said it was on a beach.

It's another cardiac arrest on a beach in Zennor, St Ives.

With a man in cardiac arrest, the crew must move fast.

It's a little bit vague.

The details aren't really that clear,

so at the moment we're being lifted

because potentially it could be an arrest,

in which case we're going to be needing

to transport him to hospital.

MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY OVER RADIO

Fellow Paramedic Steve Garvey

and pilot Doug Pye complete the team.

'Helipad 01 alpha is ready. Lift and depart.'

The accident is reported

as being on a beach near St Ives

45 miles away,

but the details are sketchy -

a worry when time's critical.

-Mate, we are 12 minutes away.

-Cool.

We've got a patient that's fallen potentially seven metres,

and we're not sure what he's landed on at the moment,

but he's in cardiac arrest...

so obviously we need to get there fairly quickly...

and find out what's going on

and maybe stabilise the patient, hopefully.

Take him to the nearest hospital by the sounds of it,

so that's going to be Treliske.

The thing is, we don't really know what's going on. We could have...

He could've had a cardiac arrest and then fell,

or he could have fallen, which has produced the cardiac arrest,

but we don't really know what's going on at the moment.

We're guessing he's probably fallen

and then had the arrest at the bottom, which isn't good.

Blood trauma cardiac arrest

is less than 1% chance of recovery from that.

Though, the sooner we can get there, the sooner we can do what we do

and take him to hospital, the better.

The patient needs urgent help, but the crew must find him first.

It's a very small beach

and it is a very popular spot this time of year, yeah,

so it's going to be busy, there's going to be people around.

The tide's on his way in,

so that's going to be another challenge for us,

and hopefully we can land near the patient,

but we really don't know.

Emergency services are called to an average of 20 incidents

on Cornwall's perilous cliffs every year.

The crew need to get as close as possible to the accident,

but it's a challenging location to find.

It was really difficult to land next to this particular patient.

We orbited the scene a few times

to make sure that there wasn't anywhere close that we could land.

Suddenly, they spot people heading down the cliff face.

With time against them and the beach inaccessible,

they land in a field at the top of the cliff.

Mark must move fast while carrying 50 kilos of equipment.

We did have a fair bit of kit to take to a cardiac arrest.

We took our response bag, which weighs around 20 kilos,

the compression device, which weighs another ten kilos,

and other bits of kit that we needed to take,

including the monitor and the defibrillator.

Luckily, the coastguards were just passing as we were landing,

so we stopped the coastguards, got all our kit into the back

of their vehicle and managed to get fairly close to the scene.

This serious accident in a difficult location

means several local emergency services have been mobilised.

The coastguard will access the site by sea...

So, 908. 908 from 7105, over.

..while the naval search and rescue helicopter is also en route.

Land paramedics have already arrived by road.

Once we got there, there was two of our land crew colleagues

treating the patient for his injuries.

It's a relief.

65-year-old John is not in cardiac arrest as reported,

but he does have serious facial injuries

after falling down the cliff.

Not in cardiac arrest,

but has fallen and will need to go to hospital.

But due to the location and the cliff path

and the fact that it's going to take quite a while

to get him up to the top, and safely,

Rescue 193, our colleagues on the naval helicopter,

they're going to come down hopefully and they're going to winch him up.

John had just arrived to holiday in Cornwall with his family.

Son Tom was with him when he fell.

Well, he fell from...

He went round to the bottom of the cliffs there

and he fell about sort of 15 foot and bounced...

bounced down on the rocks, and we've obviously called...

Only arrived in Cornwall yesterday,

so we don't really know where we are and we got the air ambulance.

It's on its way now to pick him up.

So his lip's gone through, yeah,

and he was unconscious obviously at the time.

Now needing hospital treatment,

the fastest way to get John there is by helicopter.

From its base 20 miles away in Helston,

the much larger and more powerful

navy search and rescue helicopter has arrived.

Because this was a cardiac arrest

that we were all initially alerted to,

we had quite a few resources there.

We had the coastguards there, we had the lifeboat on their way.

And the coastguards had actually got

the search and rescue aircraft lifted as well,

so that was inbound also.

So, with ourselves, we acted as a team.

We worked really as a team,

and we did the best we could for the patient,

which in this case was to airlift them to hospital

via the search and rescue aircraft.

The misunderstanding about the cardiac arrest

came as a result of the remote location.

The communications were fairly poor on this job

and that was purely down to where the patient was.

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to get messages in and out

from things like low cliffs

and because of the geography of the area.

But in the end, the services worked out the best way to help John.

In just ten minutes, he'll be in the hands of A & E.

But for Mark,

getting back to his helicopter takes double that time.

We do get a lot of narrow lanes

and get in a lot of kind of difficult places

where getting out of them can be quite difficult.

We're all in a hurry to get here, obviously,

so we've got an ambulance and two vehicles

to get down to this patient,

and getting them out is going to be a challenge, I think.

SIREN BUZZES

From high-flying choppers to crime-fighting coppers.

It's early evening in rural Worcestershire

and Sergeant Rich Foxhall is preparing for a night on the beat.

It's about five to seven. It's a Saturday evening.

We came on today at five o'clock.

We're on till four in the morning.

We'll see what the night brings.

It's a big area, Malvern.

The Malvern area runs 120 square miles,

big geographical area.

Couple of large towns in it, but there's big old country between,

so we've got a huge variety of jobs.

Tonight, he's patrolling the country roads around Malvern.

So, at the moment, we aren't going to a specific job.

We are just patrolling.

Suddenly, he spots a line of vehicles on the roadside,

just as a call comes in reporting some trouble in the area.

There's just a group of folks parked up at the side, yeah,

so they're deploying us to now.

On scene, Rich meets a familiar face.

Hello again!

Farmer Steve had the near theft of his RTV two nights ago.

Just having a cup of coffee and these two chaps

on these quad bikes were out in the yard

and we just got in the car and they tore off, basically.

I don't know what... I don't know what they were up to.

They said they thought it was a road.

Just makes you feel a bit on edge

after the break in we had earlier on in the week.

You just... You just wonder what they're up to, really.

The lads were driving their quad bikes on Steve's land.

Steve and some friends took chase and boxed them in at the roadside.

This is the farm that we had the attempted burglary,

non-dwelling, the other day.

Same farm.

OK, we'll get your details and check everything through

and we'll see what the situation is, all right?

Rich checks out the lads

by sending their licence details to headquarters.

It's been another worrying night for Steve.

Of course you are.

Absolutely.

The lads' licences are clean.

Just go and get them on their way.

All right, guys.

-We can get off now, yeah?

-Yeah, you can.

-Vehicles are all in order.

-Yeah.

-Your licences are in order.

-Yeah.

I know you live round here,

so you probably should know better of where the farms are

and whatnot, so be careful.

OK. Take it easy, guys, Take it easy.

All their details check out. We know who they are.

We'll probably put an intelligence log in,

to say that those vehicles,

those people are driving round at night,

so if maybe we get some calls of unknown vehicles,

it's at least logged that we know that they are some of them

that are moving around.

-And that's all we can do.

-No, that's right.

-Is that all right?

-Yeah, that's fine.

Let's all get on with our nights.

-Go to bed.

-Yeah.

We're on for a few hours yet, but you guys take it easy.

Nice to see you again. All right.

It may be cocoa and slippers for Steve,

but for Rich, it's another four hours on countryside patrol.

On the Isle of Man,

it's just 45 minutes until the main roads close

for the bikers' practice run.

Paramedic Kevin and technician Lisa are treating diabetic Shane

who's suffering from hypoglycaemia.

They need to act fast.

He's in danger of slipping into a coma.

Have you had this stuff before?

-What's that?

-It's sugary gel.

What we're going to do is squirt that into your mouth.

You just open your mouth. And then just, if you can...

Close your mouth on it. That's it.

I'll just squeeze a little bit in there for you.

-It's not nice. It tastes awful.

-Swallow it. That's it.

Yeah? Little bit more.

The gel should quickly raise Shane's blood sugar levels.

That's it. Well done.

What we will need to do is get you in the ambulance

and just do some observations, Mr Lucas, if we can do.

Just do your blood pressure and do an ECG, check your heart's OK.

They'll know it's working if Shane starts responding.

But the signs are not good.

Where do you live, do you know where you live?

-Sorry, what?

-What your home address is? Can you remember?

Yep, yep.

OK. Tell me where it is.

-Mr Lucas.

-Yep.

-Can you tell me your home address, please?

Diabetics can come over in different ways.

They can be unconscious, they can be uncooperative.

It's just the nature of the condition.

I think we need to get you sorted out, don't we?

Get a full assessment done.

Shane's not alone.

Diabetes is an incurable condition

affecting nearly three and a half million people in the UK,

with a further estimated 600,000 who don't know they have it.

Worryingly, Shane doesn't appear to be responding to the sugary gel.

Just going to roll your socks down a minute.

Just need to pop some more dots on your...

Just mind your arm there.

Kevin and Lisa monitor Shane's heart activity

with an electrocardiogram, or ECG.

BM initially, 2.2, and that's gone up to 3.3.

It's a slight rise, but not enough.

Shane's blood sugar levels are still a long way from five,

where they should be.

He gets another dose of sugary gel.

-Are you feeling a little bit more...better?

-Yeah.

Good. Squirt it in your mouth again.

Eight minutes later, Kevin checks on Shane's progress.

-How do you feel now, Mr Lucas?

-OK.

You feel OK?

I think we just got it in time.

-It was dropping down. It got to 2.2, which is...

-That's very low.

..which is quite low, but not drastically low,

so it's been quite easy to recover your sugars.

It's a dramatic turnaround.

If you do catch these hypoglycaemic episodes,

before the blood sugars do get too low,

we can give them something and they do recover quite quickly.

Once they do go that bit lower,

it takes a bit longer to bring them around sometimes.

He's feeling much better,

but Shane still needs to be fully assessed at the hospital.

-Take your time.

-Mm-hm.

It's over to nurse Rachel Lochrey,

who receives an altogether much chirpier patient.

-Hello there. What's your name?

-Shane. Shane Vickers.

-Shane.

Swing your legs round, Shane. There you go.

There's your wallet.

Turns out the day hasn't been all bad.

It's been a very unusual day.

I'm an artist and I was asked to someone's house this morning

in Onchan who wanted to see some of my work

and gave me £1,000 for it.

-It has been a good day.

-It's been a good day.

It's been a busy day, which is nice, you know.

Nothing too traumatic.

You know, you meet lots of nice people, again, during your day.

Yeah, it's been good.

It's been all go for the emergency services across the British Isles.

Joe and Jackie went straight home to Worksop without their car,

missing the motorcycle races.

They're hoping to try again next year.

Steve took Rich's advice and put motion lights up at his farm.

There have been no further burglary attempts.

After being airlifted to hospital following his fall near St Ives,

John was treated for fractures to his eye socket,

his sinus bone, his cheek bone and for his torn lip.

He's now made a full recovery.

And who said it was quiet in the countryside?