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.

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

..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 - three mountain bikers are seriously injured.

Try not to move your neck, all right?

And their rescuers are fast running out of fuel.

Probably get the worst one, yeah, and then maybe do a refuel.

Paramedics on the Isle of Man try to slow a racing heart.

STEADY BEEP

Your heart's playing games at the moment.

And Tenbury's only police officer tackles a major car crash.

The West Midlands.

Home to some of England's most majestic scenery.

From the Malvern Hills to the Peak District.

But well off the beaten track

and surrounding the market town of Tenbury Wells...

..is the Team Valley, a remote group

of over 50 hamlets and villages.

Tenbury really is in the middle of nowhere, in the back of the sticks.

We are so far away from the major towns, which is Worcester

and Herefordshire -

probably about the same distance to each...each one.

There's no other major towns out here.

Here's no dual carriageways, there's no major A roads as like.

We do have the A49, which is over at Leominster,

but it's all B roads, country lanes.

Some of the lanes you can barely get a car down.

And the man in charge...

I'm PC 1189,

Nick Prosser, attached to Tenbury Police Station.

PC Nick Prosser, known to the locals as the Sheriff of Tenbury.

You're under arrest, on suspicion of possession of cannabis.

Challenges out here are massive for the police.

Totally different to what the city is.

I'm not going to say our challenges are greater. Individually, for me,

I feel they're greater because if I need help

and press my little red button, it's 40 minutes,

50 minutes before anybody gets to me.

A country boy himself,

Nick knows rural policing presents some unique challenges.

Neighbourhood disputes, rows over cattle grids,

sheep escaping on the road, "I've lost my dog."

We've even had jobs - "Get the police here quick!

"I've just had an ostrich run past my kitchen window!"

But one of the biggest challenges is keeping the roads safe.

Injuries is always the first thing that you think of,

how far away it is and where the nearest patrol is coming from.

What type of road it is.

What the weather conditions are, am I going to need another officer

there because there might be a build-up of traffic.

SIREN WAILS

It's 11:30pm.

Due to go off shift, Nick's called to an accident

where the driver's vehicle has overturned.

Car on its roof and female occupant bleeding from the head.

We need to get there as quickly as we can.

Obviously with a head injury it's very serious.

The accident scene is 14 miles from Tenbury on a back lane,

between the villages of Stanton Lacy and Ludlow.

But getting there means battling the elements.

It's dark, wet, it's raining... other road users.

Try and get there to establish the level of injury.

Obviously with a head injury, you're going to be very concerned,

I want to get there as quickly as I can

and it was very wet that night and the roads were slippy,

so I've got to make sure that I'm driving carefully

because if I don't get there in one piece, I become part of the problem.

Nick arrives on scene...

1189 time on.

..just a few minutes behind a fast response team.

I think we're probably going to be all right, I think.

She's conscious and breathing.

Paramedics are just assessing her at the moment.

One side of the carriageway is blocked.

Once we've got a police car round to the other side,

I think we can probably manage it between us.

We were faced with a car on its roof.

It was blocking one side of the carriageway.

There was a lot of glass everywhere.

The female was actually sat in another vehicle.

24-year-old Stevie was driving home from work

when she lost control.

She had glass, fragments of glass stuck in the top of her head

which was causing her great amounts of discomfort.

Nick, do you want me to try and get my vehicle?

And she started being sick,

and with a head injury if somebody's being sick, it...

alarm bells are going. You think about fractured skull,

fractured bones, things like that

that you can't see with the naked eye.

While the paramedic treats Stevie's injuries,

Nick tries to establish what caused her car to overturn.

Was there anybody else in the vehicle?

OK. What's your first name, chick?

Sorry? Stevie?

Can you remember what happened at all, Stevie?

She's saying it was wet, she come round the corner,

lost control, tried to re-correct it

and just lost control of the vehicle.

The roads are slippy.

Difficult driving conditions.

She's lost...lost control and hit the verge over here and

vehicle's landed on its roof.

Stevie seems coherent,

but a head injury is still a strong possibility.

Fortunately, family members have arrived on the scene,

and an ambulance is just a few minutes away.

Don't believe anybody else is involved,

so now it's just a case of making sure she's OK, and then getting

the road clear as quickly as we can,

and making sure that no other road users are affected

or get involved in this.

Obviously cos it's, it's wet and the roads are slippy at the moment,

we need to get the vehicle removed and get the road clear

and back open as soon as we can.

And that means taking a hands-on approach.

There is a lot, yeah. Luckily, nobody was coming the other way.

If the casualty's conscious, breathing,

I can then start moving on to the next thing, which is getting

the road safe, making sure emergency vehicles, fire engines,

paramedics can get in or out safely,

and that nobody else is going to come round the corner

and plough into us and take us all out.

Moments later, the ambulance arrives.

-How you doing, all right?

-Yeah, not so bad.

The crew's priority is to assess Stevie's head injury.

But first Nick must breathalyse her.

We just need to make sure that she hasn't been drinking.

Room for one wet police officer?

Unfortunately, we do have drink drivers out here

just because of the remoteness of the area.

There's a large amount of pubs, a lot of them out in the sticks,

and we do make, on average, probably about an arrest a week.

-We have to do a breath test.

-Yeah, sure.

Have you had any alcohol in the last...

I've had a bottle of cider when I left work.

How many hours ago was that?

OK. Wrap your mouth around that, create a seal,

take a deep breath like you're blowing up a balloon,

blow into it for a couple of seconds.

Keep going, that's it, smashing.

Looking for a zero. That's what we'd like, ideally.

As long as it's under 35.

The Isle of Man...

36 miles off England's west coast.

During summer it sees a host of events...

..and an influx of visitors.

'The pit lane will be open so you can test your speed limiters.'

So 24 hours a day...

What's the pain like at the moment?

..at three ambulance stations...

Just keep that breathing nice and easy for me.

..42 paramedics and technicians ensure teams are always on call.

For Jason Banks and Kerry McShane, it's business as usual.

Generally, if I can, if I know I'm working with Kerry,

I'll either...go sick or swap the shift,

but, yeah, yeah, today,

I didn't realise until the last minute.

No way of changing it round.

He takes the mickey a little bit.

Particularly out of my accent and...

out of everybody generally that's around him.

But that's good because that helps alleviate, you know,

tension as well.

Kerry will get tortured all day long.

I try to utilise humour wherever I can.

I'm sure my colleagues would disagree with that,

but it puts the patient at more ease.

SIREN WAILS

A call's come in.

Just been called to an emergency down at a GP practice.

Patient has presented with... sounds like cardiac chest pain,

so there's potential this patient's having a heart attack.

The GP practice is next door to their base in Port Erin,

but it will take another 30 minutes

to get the patient to Noble's Hospital.

A heart attack is when

you get an occlusion in one of the coronary arteries,

and that effectively starves blood to the heart muscle.

And it can lead to a cardiac arrest,

and you need to unblock that artery, which we've got the drugs

and the capability of doing that in the ambulance.

And a cardiac arrest is where...

the heart is physically stopped pumping blood round the body.

Either way, there isn't a moment to lose.

So have you any heart problems at all?

-A heart murmur.

-Right, OK.

I think that's what they told me.

84-year-old Valerie passed out at home,

before coming to her GP complaining of chest pain and dizziness.

Take a nice deep breath in and out.

OK, just sit forward for me a sec.

Managed to wash all right, then I felt...

..as I said before, I got a little bit dizzy and had to lie in bed.

A normal resting heart rate

is between 60 and 100 beats per minute.

Valerie's is pushing 120.

-Are you feeling dizzy at the moment, Valerie?

-Yes.

But then it drops dramatically.

STEADY BEEP

Jason, there's long periods of...

Take a big breath for me.

-Do you feel faint now?

-No.

Your heart rate is playing games at the moment.

To be honest, any...anybody that looks at the flatline

would usually associate the patient as being dead.

So I immediately looked back up to Valerie,

who was still sitting talking quite happily.

Were you feeling palpitations in your chest?

Not quite palpitations but sort of fluttering all the time.

She was having what was called ventricular standstills,

where there was periods of no activity in the heart.

And she was feeling faint, and she looked acutely unwell.

It's a relatively rare condition, but if untreated it can be fatal.

-Sorry, what did you say, you feel...?

-Feel slightly light-headed.

Jason asks Dr Blackwell for a second opinion.

When I checked her pulse, it was irregular and slow, I thought.

Just going to try some atropine, just try,

see if that'll stop her from going down as low.

Chest pain was about three o'clock this morning,

lasted about half an hour so we need to get her up to A & E.

Both agree the best course of action

is to give Valerie atropine, a drug that increases the heart rate.

But it's a short-term solution at best.

The ventricular standstills were going on and it was concerning,

and in situations like that,

a pacemaker generally will always be fitted.

-How are you feeling now?

-I feel all right.

-Bit frightened, probably.

-Slightly.

Yeah, OK, well, you're in good hands here.

We'll get you up to Noble's.

There's periods where your heart's beating quite slow,

and that's when you're saying that you're feeling dizzy.

I mean, at the minute it, it's beating at...

Normal.

Well, it hasn't been normal since we've been with you.

Oh, really?

No. It started really, really fast.

Yes.

And it's gone the other way now.

OK, we're going to pop you in the ambulance

-and take you up to Noble's.

-That's it.

So if I get you to sit on there.

Faced with a 30-minute journey,

Jason needs to monitor Valerie's heart rate every step of the way.

Do you feel any brighter now?

I'm certainly not fainting every two minutes, anyway.

Good, good. No, we don't want any of that malarkey.

There were periods she was up at the 150, 160 mark.

I used a manoeuvre called the Valsalva manoeuvre

where she was blowing on to a syringe.

OK, that's fine.

And that stimulates one of your nerves to suppress the heart rate.

And the other way to calm a patient?

Simple conversation.

Birthday next month, isn't it?

-Yes. 18th of October.

-Next month.

I'm sure you will.

On arrival...

Come on, let's get this into...

Jason and Kerry transfer Valerie to Accident & Emergency.

Do you want my hand?

Thank you.

Mad situation, I don't know what's going on here.

She woke up this morning with chest pain.

Got up, she fainted, felt generally unwell.

While Valerie's placed under close observation,

it's not long before Jason and Kerry are on their next call.

Yes, yes, all received.

From a heartbeat to a rural beat.

In south Shropshire, PC Nick Prosser

is still attending a dramatic car accident.

The vehicle has completely overturned,

bringing this remote country lane to a close.

Driver Stevie could have a serious head injury,

but now must undergo a breath test.

Blow into it for a couple of seconds.

Keep going.

That's it, smashing.

We're looking for a zero. That's what we'd like, ideally.

As long as it's under 35.

OK, zero.

She blew zero. She was absolutely fine.

She did say that she'd had a small bottle of cider after...after work,

but it didn't register on the procedure just because it was so many hours on.

And that's great, that's what we want to see.

Now paramedic Trish Johnson can examine Stevie's injuries.

I'll grit my teeth...

Irrigate, yeah... Stevie, I'm going to irrigate that,

You definitely have a bit of glass in there.

-OK.

-OK? Get you up to Shrewsbury.

Because she's vomited,

we have to be quite cautious

and make sure that she's not developing a head injury.

So although we might banter on the way up,

we'll be keeping a really sharp eye on her obs,

making sure that nothing develops.

Take her up. Have her checked out.

Get this piece of glass out, bit of glue.

STEVIE GROANS

All right, sweetheart.

One of the signs and symptoms

of potential developing head injuries is vomiting.

So anyone who's been in a... in a...

crash like that we'd monitor fairly carefully anyway, because

they get safety-belt compression injuries and all sorts of things.

For Stevie, it's been a fortunate escape.

Every day in Britain, three people are killed on country roads.

Another 25 are seriously injured.

But Stevie's not out of the woods yet.

Bend your knees. Push your legs up.

I don't want to. My hip hurts.

The pain's becoming more acute

and she's still suffering bouts of nausea.

Yeah.

Big adrenaline rush, isn't it? Leaves you very shaky afterwards.

It's quite normal because your body's used up all its adrenaline

and afterwards, you have this really weird feeling after you've

had a big adrenal rush, you know, makes you feel pretty ropey.

You're upright, pink and talking

and in our office, that's a really good, thing, OK?

-OK.

-Upright, pink and talking people are good for us.

OK.

I'll get you some pain relief.

OK, thank you.

All I remember literally is thinking,

"I need to counter-steer,"

and then hitting my head and then just the noise.

It's just the noise of the glass,

grinding and the metal grinding,

and I remember the roof getting closer but not realising

I was upside down, I just remember the roof was getting closer to me.

And then, yeah, I sort of stopped, my car started screaming at me,

so I turned the engine off.

Turned the lights off to stop it screaming

and tried to work out the best exit from the car.

Couldn't work out if I could fit through the window, or had to open the door. Yeah.

Decided the door was the best option

cos I'm a bit big to go through a window at the best of times.

As Stevie's taken to the hospital...

..the Sheriff of Tenbury, AKA Nick Prosser,

needs to get the road reopened.

While we're waiting for the recovery truck to come, we're going to

open the one lane and send whatever traffic up that end through.

We've cleaned as much of the glass off the road as we can.

Just get the road open and get the traffic flowing again,

and get everybody on their way.

Hopefully it won't be too long, and then once that's...

the car's gone, we can get out of here and move on to the next one.

Before long, recovery arrives on scene.

Get the vehicle out the way and then I'll have to get the broom out

and put the back into it.

Have to make sure there's no fluids leaked

from the vehicle onto the road.

Oil, fuel, things like that.

And if there is, perhaps have to get Highways to come and...

put some magic sand on it and... just so the road isn't slippy.

But we won't be able to asses that, really, until the car's been moved.

We'll just get the last fragments of glass

and the grass off the road and we'll be away.

Ready to go.

Luckily, she wasn't hurt and, luckily,

there wasn't a car coming the other way

because then we would have had a much more serious incident.

To come out with a bit of glass in your head is...

you're walking away all right, I think that's not too bad.

Very lucky indeed. I'd play the Lottery if I was her.

Across the British Isles...

..from the majestic mountain ranges of Scotland

to Northern Ireland...

..the Isle of Man, and down to the Lake District...

Royal Navy Search and Rescue Squadron HMS Gannet

is called to around 300 emergencies a year...

..saving lives in some of our most remote locations.

Our patch at Gannet, it covers 92,000 square miles

and that's predominantly mountainous terrain and mountains, you know.

They separate the men from the boys when it comes to flying helicopters.

That's what attracts a lot of our guys to come up to Gannet

because it is probably the most challenging place in the UK to fly.

Lieutenant Commander Jon Green is the unit's second-in-command.

Keep going left, please.

He's flown more than 250 rescue missions.

There's a huge amount of satisfaction

that you've rescued that casualty. You know that

you've saved that guys life and that, that's unique.

Today, Jon's en route to the most southern edge of his patch

to conduct a training exercise

with a local Mountain Rescue Team, or MRT.

Joining him are fellow pilot, Jamie Ross...

..winch operator observer, Chris Flynn,

and winchman paramedic Mike Henson, known as H.

There you go. Happy.

From their base in Prestwick,

they're flying 100 miles, to a remote spot

near Broughton-in-Furness.

On the ground,

Mountain Rescue Team leader Mike Margison has rallied the troops.

We've got 40 team members,

and, you know, we're trying to keep the majority of them trained

so that they can work with the aircraft, cos you know,

they never know which team members you're going to have on a call-out.

Duddon And Furness is one of 12 volunteer squads

in the Lake District,

an area which attracts over 16 million visitors a year.

The training that day involved a scenario where we

put a casualty in quite a difficult place on one of the hills and we

made it so that we weren't able to winch,

so we then manoeuvred Mountain Rescue personnel up to an area

where they could go and attend a casualty.

But barely an hour into the exercise, real life intervenes.

THREE BLASTS ON A WHISTLE

We'd just dropped the first members on the top of the mountain

when they called us and they said they could hear someone

crying for help and blowing a whistle.

THREE BLASTS ON A WHISTLE

We took a couple of moments

just to make sure this wasn't part of our exercise.

About three series of three whistle blasts beyond the crag there,

so we think there's somebody needs help.

While Mountain Rescue search the ground,

the team from HMS Gannet sweep the area from above.

It was quite dense with trees, so it made it particularly

challenging to try and find where the cries for help were coming from.

Unable to establish a visual from the air,

it's the Mountain Rescue lads who find the walker -

an elderly man suffering from exhaustion.

Though as the training continues....

..it's not long before there's another emergency.

Three injured mountain bikers on the Isle of Man.

We were the closest asset at the time, so it was up to us

to go and see how we could help.

From their location in the Lake District,

the team need to race 56 miles to a remote clearing

close to the Greeba River, on the Isle of Man.

The cyclists are in a serious condition.

One has a suspected broken collar bone,

another possible spinal damage.

But the team face a more immediate problem.

After doing quite...quite some time flying, we were low on fuel.

Ultimately the Search and Rescue and aircraft commander will...

will have the final call.

We had two options, we either went straight to the scene itself or

we get fuel at the airport,

probably adding on a good 20-30 minutes before we got on scene.

Given the serious nature of the injuries,

even a few minutes could make all the difference.

Back on the Isle of Man,

paramedics Jason Banks and Kerry McShane

are responding to another call.

A 13-year-old boy has been seriously injured

during a school rugby match.

Yes, yes, all received.

From their current location in Douglas,

they're travelling 15 miles to Ramsey Grammar School.

Hello, mate. So where are you hurting?

Your ankle.

Tell you what, son, I'm going to grab hold of your ankle,

bring it round here and I'm going to have a look at it.

OK? Have you got pain over these bones here?

Which one, the left or the right? This one here.

Children have a one in ten chance of being injured playing rugby.

James is reluctant to take any pain relief.

This gas here, you breathe it in through this little mouthpiece,

you put that in your mouth.

It might make you feel a little bit woozy,

but it might help with the pain.

-There's no need to be brave now, mate.

-And if you don't like it,

once you stop taking it, it wears off quite quickly.

It's free, it's good.

His mum told us that he kind of hid his emotions a little bit,

and...and that he'd told her

and confessed to her that he was actually in a lot of pain.

Having persuaded James, Kerry gives him Entonox,

more commonly known as laughing gas.

Big breath in. Good, that's perfect.

And you can breathe out.

Big sucks.

That's it, now you're getting it.

Deeper if you can.

It does start to take effect and make you feel woozy fairly quickly.

But pain relief, it might take a few minutes to really help.

OK?

With James's pain under control, Jason can now work on his ankle.

Because he couldn't stand, and it was causing him discomfort,

the safer thing to do is to immobilise the ankle.

We used what's called a vacuum splint,

so I popped the vacuum splint around him

and then what you do is you suck all the air out of it, and it

forms a very temporary cast around his ankle and stabilises it.

But with a long ambulance ride ahead over bumpy country roads,

Kerry wants James to take stronger pain relief.

What we've got to bear in mind is that

if we're going down to Noble's, we're probably 20,

25 minutes, OK? So that's a long time sucking on this gas, OK?

You might get a bit tired of that, so you might...

You're better with something else

because also it can be a little bit bumpy.

But it's up to you what you want to do, OK? We're not going to

force you to take anything you don't want to, OK?

I guess I'll have it.

You're going to try it? OK.

I'll ask Jason when he comes back.

Don't you worry, we'll sort it out.

Jason returns with the stretcher.

Jason, he's changed his mind - give him the oromorph.

OK, yeah.

It tastes very sweet, OK.

I'll give you that and just... I need you to get that down.

That's it, all in.

That was quick, weren't it? Good lad.

Yep, I can do that.

I'll take that, thank you.

-Do I still do this?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Do that as well, absolutely, yeah.

Right, son, you're a big fella, you've got two options -

you can get yersen up here, or I can chuck you over my shoulder

and lift you on. What do you want?

-I think I can get up with a bit of help.

-Good lad.

It's a big deal to a child to have two strangers come up to them and be

taken away in an ambulance in front of all of his friends, you know,

and try to not cry and be seen to being, you know,

showing any weakness.

Good man.

We try just to help them just to admit that they need a little

bit of help and just to let us do that.

James is soon on his way to hospital.

There Jason hands him over to nurse, Lisa Smith.

Today he has been involved in a rugby tackle

and he's gone over on his right ankle.

-Can you feel me touching here?

-Yeah.

And there? Fabulous.

Kerry meanwhile gets an update on 84-year-old Valerie,

whose heart rate was fluctuating wildly.

You feeling dizzy with that now, are you?

After being placed under close observation, she passed out

two more times and was then transferred to Critical Care.

Jason thought that Valerie would need a pacemaker fitted,

and, ultimately, that is what was planned for Valerie

when she got transferred to CCU, so he was right.

Go on, get over there.

I don't say it very often if I can help it, yes,

because Jason's head does not need to be any bigger than it already is.

Then again, it may be too late.

You know the difference between you and me, Kerry?

What's that?

I make this look good.

More than 50 miles away, over the Irish Sea,

the crew from HMS Gannet is also heading to the Isle of Man.

As the closest rescue helicopter, they've been called to transport

three critically injured mountain bikers,

one with a possible broken neck.

Even a trip in an ambulance over that type of ground can be

detrimental, so we can get them there as fast as possible

and minimise the risk of any further injury or complications to them.

But there's another problem.

Rescue 177.

The dwindling fuel supply.

Our intention, because we were so low on fuel, was to drop me off

so I could attend to the casualties and then

the aircraft would go and get fuel and then come back and pick me up.

The three casualties were taking part

in the End To End Mountain Bike Challenge.

The biggest event of its kind in Europe,

it attracts close to 2,000 riders.

And covers a punishing course of 47 miles.

They're just before the halfway mark,

roughly five miles from the hospital in Douglas.

Rescue 177 request, have the casualties been packaged?

Have the casualties been packaged? Rescue 177.

One to the right. Half to the right.

Racing to the scene,

Paramedic Mike Henson is briefed by emergency services on the ground.

Not an easy land, is it?

Right, OK.

With fuel running low, Mike doesn't have a moment to lose.

Are any of them needing to go right now? Because...

-Fellow up there.

-Well, I'll tell you, we've got five minutes.

-OK.

Sometimes ground personnel's five minutes is, you know, sort of 10,

15 minutes and we didn't have that flex.

In a matter of seconds, Mike must make his assessment.

On the stretcher is 37-year-old Sean,

who has a suspected broken collarbone.

-Everybody right?

-Yep.

But the bigger concern is 40-year-old Thomas,

who was thrown from his bike headfirst

and is drifting in and out of consciousness.

If the neck's injured,

if the spinal cord gets injured there,

then somebody could be quadriplegic.

Also the nerves that control

our breathing come from quite high up in the neck, so if that area

gets damaged, then the person will never breathe on their own again.

It's important that, if you can, anyone with any serious neck

injuries that you keep them as still as possible.

In five minutes flat,

Mike has both Sean and Thomas safely aboard the chopper.

It would have been nice to take time with the casualties,

especially with the injuries that they had,

but coming into our decision making

was this fuel, so we had to hurry them along.

With the third man still refusing to board and time ticking,

the team sets course for Noble's Hospital in Douglas.

But fuel is still a major concern.

To save time, Mike briefs hospital staff mid-flight.

What we've got is we've got one casualty,

35C spine injuries.

Possible pneumothorax, right side.

However, he's got good air entry at the moment.

And also we've got, he's got a collarbone gone.

Five minutes later, pilot Jon

and his crew touch down at a landing pad across from the hospital.

Paramedic Mike disembarks with the casualties,

while the rest of his crew head for fuel.

Both Thomas and Sean are taken directly to the waiting consultant.

Two weeks later, Thomas is back home in Ramsey

and making a good recovery.

Still got a stiff neck, still can't...still not got full movement,

but, you know, the doctor did tell me it'll be a little while

before you're back to normal, so I can't complain.

I didn't break my neck so I can't complain, can I?

But the memories of the crash will stay forever.

When I actually crashed, when I went over, I was slightly side on,

so I went over,

over my neck on an angle, if you like, so

had I been...had I been completely full-on, I think that would

have been a different story,

so I was pretty lucky, really, you know.

I just remember going over on my neck and feeling

the pain in my neck. There was another rider stopped, see if

I was OK and apparently he'd heard the crunch of my neck as well.

Fortunately, help was quickly on hand.

It was my first time in the... in a helicopter, yeah, so

I was a bit gutted cos I could only see the roof as well.

Try not to move your neck, all right?

The other rider, he knocked himself unconscious

and broken his collarbone, so he was in a pretty...

pretty sore way as well, like, and he was actually being physically

sick on the side of the, on the side of the track as well and...

and he was having a conversation with the doctors

and two minutes later couldn't... couldn't remember speaking to them.

But the experience hasn't put Thomas off.

I'll be back next year, definitely, yeah, yeah.

It's great, it's a brilliant race. I love it, yeah.

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

In South Shropshire, Stevie suffered post concussion syndrome,

but is now back behind the wheel.

On the Isle of Man, James's bruised tendon had him

off his feet for four weeks.

He's now back playing sport at school.

While Valerie's pacemaker is on hold.

Doctors found the problem lies with her blood pressure medication,

meaning Jason wasn't so right after all.

As for the other injured men

from the End To End Mountain Bike Challenge, both are on the mend,

and Sean, who suffered a broken collarbone,

plans on entering the race next year.

And you thought it was quiet in the countryside.

Subtitles by Ericsson