Episode 1 Helicopter Rescue

I don't think there is any greater calling in life for someone.

To be able to see a son or daughter's face

when you bring their father or mother back from the edge of death

and overcoming limits. It's quite powerful.

The RAF Search and Rescue force save hundreds of lives every year,

in dramatic locations around the country.

That sense of satisfaction when the team pulls together

and yes, especially when it's a life saver, it's second to none.

It's an amazing feeling.

After 70 years of service,

RAF Search and Rescue is coming to an end.

Soon, a private company will take over from the military.

Certain blokes have love affairs with their cars.

I think some air crew have love affairs with a Sea King.

But before they leave our skies, we follow the life-saving

work of the RAF Sea King crews

from mountainside to hospital bedside.

Oh, oh, oh!

With exclusive behind-the-scenes access at the base where

Prince William is stationed,

this is the story of RAF Search and Rescue.

Snowdonia.

Home to the highest mountains in Wales.

With 15 peaks over 3,000 feet high,

winds at the summit can sometimes reach 150 miles an hour

and winter temperatures can plummet to -20 Celsius.

Its wild mountain peaks and old industrial slate quarries

make this a vast and challenging terrain to explore.

The local RAF Search and Rescue crew based on Anglesey

know these infamous mountains only too well.

-Hi.

-Al.

Today, Snowdonia claims its latest victim.

When the job phone rings, you don't know what it's going to be

and it could be nice and simple or it could be...

job of the century, so to say,

and whoever's on shift -

it could be the newest guy, it could be the most experienced.

On shift with winchman Rich T today

are co-pilot Flight Lieutenant Dan Loxton,

radar operator Sergeant Paul Bramley

and aircraft captain Flight Lieutenant William Wales.

Once the phone's gone off and everyone's calmed down and you've

got the crew together, as captain you kind of stand off a little bit.

You're trying to play out the entire rescue and the transit to the rescue

and back again in your mind and pick up any circumstances or problems

you can foresee and then try and fix them on the ground

before you get airborne,

cos once you get airborne, things get a lot harder to communicate.

Rotors coming on, three, two, one...

The four-member crew are scrambled

to a disused quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

The RAF Search And Rescue flights

are based in six locations around Britain.

But it's the two flights patrolling Wales

which have the most callouts every year.

From the Royal Marines Barracks in Chivenor, in the south,

and RAF Valley in the north.

Today Valley's Rescue 122 has been called to Blaenau Ffestiniog

and the old slate quarry of Maenofferen.

Co-pilot Dan Loxton points out the route to the handling pilot,

Flight Lieutenant William Wales.

Right. Up here, Will. It's to the east side of Blaenau Ffestiniog,

in the quarries there.

-I'll just follow the mark.

-Yeah.

Some of the hardest flying is in the mountains,

usually because the weather's poorer.

The winds are usually a lot, lot stronger,

and turbulence is a big factor for us.

But equally, the mountains of Snowdon, cos it's quite a small,

sort of, mountainous area, so we can get in and out rapidly

so we can be anywhere within a few minutes.

Co-pilot Dan Loxton updates the crew on the casualty.

It's a 15-year-old faller,

with bleeding from the rib area, in and out of consciousness,

-difficulty breathing.

-Whereabouts?

-In a quarry, at the moment.

Blaenau Ffestiniog, in the quarries there. Let's have a look.

Rescue 122 have reached the old quarry.

Should be at the right-hand side now, I'm suggesting. OK? Eyes down.

Now they need to find the casualty.

Point zero eight we're heading.

Zero two four, so it's just behind this corner.

Spotting the young boy in all that slate

is taking precious time and - critically - fuel.

Let's have a look on these quarries.

Could be in the shade somewhere on the right. I'll just go round, guys.

Keep your eyes out. I'll put everything on the right-hand side.

'The weather was really good which makes searching a lot easier.'

Having the sunshine out is great, but with the sunshine comes huge shadows

as well, and so if you're inside those shadows,

you can't be seen very easily.

It's in this vicinity here now. Over.

-So it's right here. That's the exact grid.

-Can't see anybody.

You have a grid which you fly to.

Cos the shape of the quarry changes, it could be as much as 10, 20,

100, one kilometre out.

The longer they search, the more valuable fuel they burn.

Kinloss Rescue, Kinloss Rescue, Rescue 122. Over.

-Guys, I'm going to follow...

-'Rescue 122? Go ahead.'

There we go. Er, yeah, this is Rescue 122.

We're on-scene at an incident at Blaenau Ffestiniog.

There we go, guys. There we go. There we go.

William spots a member of the emergency services.

-Disregard. Located.

-That's the right guy. Right by the bridge now.

They've found the casualty.

Aircraft captain William Wales prepares to land.

Are you going to land in that big quarry puddle?

Just out of the puddle, so we don't get wet.

-We are committed.

-We are committed.

Winchman Rich T now needs to assess the 15-year-old casualty.

He's in a difficult and dangerous spot.

Yeah, on to the stones.

Did he get himself up off the road?

-With the help of his friends over there.

-They dragged him up here?

Yeah. You all right, son?

He fell off an old railway bridge,

but he landed on some quite hefty rocks, very uneven.

He was very battered and bruised in his ribs, but very purple,

and a bit of bleeding going on.

And that can lead to quite significant underlying

injuries that you can't see.

The seriousness of the boy's injuries means co-pilot

Dan Loxton needs to inform the local hospital.

Rescue, Rescue 122.

Winchman, be advised the casualty is 15 years old

and will require a trauma team on-scene, over.

Have you got his surname?

-He's Liam Evans.

-SHE SPEAKS WELSH

Time is ticking.

The Sea King is low on fuel after the long search,

and the crew now have to decide

whether to stay on site or go off to refuel.

Rich, you've got about er...about 12 minutes.

It's going to take at least 15.

'In this particular instance,

'Rich needed quite a long time on the ground to stabilise the casualty.'

In that situation it's always the paramedic's call - if he says,

"No, I want to go now", then we just stay and we go with what

we have and make do, but in that particular instance Rich was happy,

so we zipped off to Caernarfon and got a refuel.

Rich T stays behind with Liam. It's a vulnerable moment.

The winchman will need all his 13 years of experience

as a paramedic to make sure the boy's condition doesn't deteriorate.

I'm going to gently bring your head

so you're looking straight up at the sky.

'The ambulance service had done a very good job of stabilising him.'

My role really then was to package the lad as quickly as we could,

really, just in case.

Ease him up slightly there.

Pop this under as far as we can. Yeah?

Are you happy helping us?

On Tricia's call.

One, two, three.

Younger people can take a very big

drop-off and become very poorly very quickly,

so there's always that concern with the younger, that you must press on.

20 minutes later, the Sea King is back on scene.

Because of the tricky location,

the crew decide to winch the casualty aboard.

OK, Rich. Tell the guys we'll be coming over their heads.

The ones behind you.

If you're happy with the height, Will, so we can make the commit.

The crew now have to rely on one another to rescue Liam.

From the side door, radar operator Brammers acts

like a second pair of eyes for aircraft captain William.

Winching out. Right.

Handling the aircraft during the winch is one of the most

challenging tasks for the captain.

It is a challenging procedure,

and it's inherently dangerous to put a man

on a very thin piece of wire hanging underneath nine tonnes

of helicopter that's susceptible to turbulence

and problems itself, and may have to fly away.

'You have to analyse the information you're given

'and make the best judgement.'

It's not easy. It makes you feel worried, concerned,

You obviously want to make the right call.

I have a duty of care for the crew -

for the casualty in many cases as well,

so you do have to think very carefully.

Overall, I've got three other guys

I can always rely on for my decision-making.

I'm clear.

-Forward to the commit area.

-Yeah.

I'll get this... OK, mate. Winch.

-Out.

-Out.

-Stop.

-Stop.

Going to decline and take the tail round to the right.

Liam is safe onboard.

In just ten minutes, he arrives at Bangor Hospital

to receive urgent medical care.

It really focuses the mind when you've got either a young child

or a young woman or a young man or old man or whatever it is

you're going to, it focuses the mind

when there's an actual real person at the end of it

who needs your help. You are their only hope sometimes.

When the bell goes, you never know what you're going to get.

It can be a broken ankle in the mountains through to a major trauma.

I feel sorry for the poorly people we're going to rescue

but this is what we're here for. This is what we do.

RAF Valley on Anglesey

is home to the Search And Rescue Force Headquarters.

Here more than 50 staff ensure that helicopters and their crews

can respond to a callout night or day, anywhere in the UK.

The crews are on rolling 24-hour shifts.

They live, eat and work closely together

and that leads to a special bond.

You cannot do a job that is

as intellectually and physically and emotionally demanding as this

without bonding to people.

There's a lot of banter which is fun

but it's also building relationships and friendships

which are very important.

In this job, if you have friends and guys you get on with,

you've got have fun and laughs. At the end of the day,

you're operating sometimes in dodgy and dangerous conditions.

You have to rely on each other quite a lot.

Getting to know each other, being a family, is all part of that.

The Sea King crew are often the first to arrive on scene.

They sometimes have to deal with horrific experiences.

To cope, winchman Ed Griffiths turns to his family.

'Coming home, it separates everything.

'I have got Helen, and especially now little Xavier's here.'

Do you want some more?

Just down the road from RAF Valley, Ed and his wife Helen

have just celebrated their son's first birthday.

'It's great to have the two separate parts to my life.

'It just takes your mind of it.'

It enables you to de-stress,

and realise that that's not everything, if you like.

If he wants to talk about it, then, yeah.

I'm quite nosy so I try and find things out,

but I know if he doesn't want to talk then we just leave it. But, yes.

The most difficult rescues come in

when the Welsh weather takes a turn for the worse.

I don't mind saying it and I'm sure a lot of the guys feel like this.

It can be scary and essentially you do get scared at times.

Rescue 122 has been called

to one of the most infamous mountains in the Ogwen valley.

Tryfan.

Up there, because the snow had been falling,

it was icy, snowy conditions,

so it was ice with fresh snow packed on top.

Conditions underfoot were quite slippery and these poor guys had

quite sensibly clipped themselves onto the side of the mountain.

It is 10 o'clock at night.

The Sea King's powerful searchlight reveals four lost climbers

on the steep rock face.

The young students from Liverpool University

have been stranded for six hours.

'They're not injured.'

But the atrocious weather means the Sea King is struggling.

Snow and ice are major hazards for the helicopter.

The crew have to decide if they're able to carry on with the rescue.

The problems that we were facing or the reasons

why we were considering aborting the rescue, were first of all

the cloud that was coming down, so we thought we may enter into cloud

and we didn't have the option of escaping through the cloud

because the helicopter would have just frozen up and potentially,

at worst case, dropped out of the sky.

We were in heavy snow so the visibility was being reduced.

Also we have limits because what can happen is the air that

goes into the engines, those intakes can get clogged up with snow,

so we have time limits that we can fly in the snowy conditions.

All of these things, we were weighing up at the time,

and trying to get the balance right of risk versus reward.

The crew decide it's an acceptable risk and carry on with the rescue.

They come up with an escape plan - by increasing their altitude,

the helicopter can fly away safely if the rescue becomes too dangerous.

That means that winchman Ed

now has to be lowered down 150 feet to rescue the stranded climbers.

It can be scary and essentially you do get scared at times.

You kind of think, "I wish I wasn't here, I wish I was at home,

"I wish I was somewhere else."

Ed reaches the four stranded climbers.

He sends the first two up on the winch

while he stays on the rockface with the other two.

The first two climbers reach the safety of the Sea King

butt now the weather has deteriorated even further.

In blizzard conditions the Sea King's spotlight

is being reflected by the snow.

The pilot is flying blind.

At that point the weather got bad again,

the pilot lost the escape at that point.

We were in down drafting air, we were in turbulent air,

so we were pulling a lot of power,

but because our escape has gone, the safer place to be at that point

is sticking with the cliffs.

Certainly for me as the rad-op,

when we are that close to the cliffs and we are in turbulent air,

it does concentrate the mind somewhat and get the heart rate going.

We're here now, let us get them and let's get out there.

Rescue 122 has to leave as soon as it can.

The pilot contacts Ed over the radio.

To save time they'll winch up three people at once.

It's only in extreme rescues such as this one

that a triple winch is ever attempted.

The hoist is proved to lift 600lb, so that's our limit.

I know, unfortunately,

because I've weighed myself on the scales here, that I'm a little

bit heavier than 200lb, so I weigh about 240, 250lb, in all my kit.

I'm also faced with two adult guys who also have their kit.

We're very close to that 600lb limit.

So we left the bags behind, clipped all three of us on

just to expedite the rescue, and we did what

we call a triple lift, which we only use in extreme...

When we need to just get out of there.

INDISTINCT VOICES

On a steel wire no thicker than a pencil,

Ed and the two survivors are winched up to the Sea King.

A technical problem with the aircraft at that point is almost unthinkable.

It would be really tricky to recover from something like that,

so you have got to trust, you know, our engineers.

We've got a great set of engineers who maintain the aircraft.

Every now and again there's a little element of

crossing fingers, but I trust the winch,

I trust the kit and I trust the crew.

INDISTINCT VOICES

So when it's all over, there is that massive sense of relief,

and there is that...

You do get that sort of cathartic effect that you've achieved

something, and a sense of well-being.

At last the Sea King can fly away, with four grateful survivors

and a very relieved winchman onboard.

The Sea King lands at the Ogwen mountain rescue base

where the four university students warm up and are fed.

No, we couldn't...

There was things going on in my ear about the pilot struggling to see...

Yeah. It was...

So I was thinking, "Let's just get out of here right now."

-Just thanks so much for this.

-No, no. Not at all.

-Thank you very much.

It's too much.

When the pilots say, "All you do is go in for a cup of tea

"and eat stuff," I always tell them I don't, but we do really.

LAUGHTER

After difficult rescues,

the crews often turn to their loved ones for support.

Back at RAF Valley, Ed's first thought is to call his wife at home.

I usually, at that point, phone home and just have a chat.

I get told off by her for doing scary jobs,

but she's used to it, yeah.

Every time the Sea King returns to base,

a team of engineers give the aircraft a full service.

We've got a fleet of engineers

who work pretty tirelessly

to keep these things going.

-I've got it.

-No, no, no.

Nightshift is the intensive garage time for the engineers.

All the aircraft components have a lifespan

based on the number of hours flown.

From gear boxes to rivets, everything is checked.

Yeah, it is late hours, yeah, early hours of the morning.

When it gets to the witching hour, three o'clock, things like that,

yeah, it does get tiring.

It's quite nice being involved, as well,

thinking that you do actually help somebody

that needs the service.

The RAF search and rescue crews are always on stand-by

for the next callout,

24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Each crew member is on a tour of duty, which can take them

to any of the RAF bases around Britain and around the world.

Radar Operator Graeme "Livvy" Livingston

is back from his latest detachment.

Today he's back home in Anglesey

after being posted to the Falkland Islands.

-Hello!

-Hey! How are you?

For his wife, Debbie, it's been a long six weeks.

-Hello.

-I love you.

It's fantastic, obviously, to be back.

-It's heavy.

-I don't want a heavy one.

All I've seen of these guys, over the last six, seven weeks

is just a little computer screen

and it's nice to talk to them and everything out there,

but, yeah, just seeing them in the flesh again.

I know it's only been six or seven weeks, but it's long enough.

-Shall we go up to Cardiff?

-Yes, please.

-And see the Dr Who Experience?

-Yes!

Coming back to the UK now, it's summer.

Well, as good as summer gets and there are people out in boats,

there are people out sunbathing, people out in the hills,

doing all the things associated with nice weather and summer days,

so, I've got a week just to sort of chill out now and then it's

back to work next week and getting back into the summer job.

-Is that a deal?

-Yeah.

-Shall we do that? Cool.

Whatever the time of year, the Sea King is equipped to deal

with most of the challenges posed by the Welsh landscape.

And it's not just on mountains

and coastline. They can be called to the most unexpected places.

Rescue 122 is called out to a damsel in distress in one

of the turrets at Caernarfon Castle.

There she is.

On their mobile phones,

the tourists captured the unfolding drama at the castle.

The police and the other emergency services are already on the scene.

A 57-year-old woman has slipped down a spiral

staircase in one of the towers.

It's too dangerous to take her back down to the waiting ambulance,

so the Sea King is called.

Radar operator on the rescue is Graham Livingstone.

It was one of those jobs where it would have been five, six,

seven hours to extract her down the stairs.

But the risks made sense that we would get her onboard the aircraft

and get her to hospital.

I think I can see the casualty.

Yes, these are the firemen and the people down there.

She's lying on the walk way.

The nine tonne helicopter has to carefully manoeuvre

around the high turrets and steep castle walls to reach the casualty.

But that's not the only problem.

We were initially thinking, how are we going to get in here?

And probably, there's going to be a vast amount of people

that are going to be on walls and on turrets and things like that.

The Sea King is one of the biggest aircraft in the RAF's

fleet of helicopters. Due to its size,

it's creating a 30mph strong downdraught from its blades.

The tourists on the narrow parapets are now in danger.

There's one person in a red jacket that needs to move out of the way.

I will gesticulate in a second.

It's very difficult to actually tie in where we were going to

actually sit to carry out the rescue.

And then, have a risk assessment of how many people or where

they are in proximity to that column of air,

because it's a gale force, and it can knock people off their feet.

With the area cleared, the winch man is lower down to the casualty.

Over the side. Steady. Clear of the harness.

Winching to the area.

Steady.

Steady.

The pilot was working hard to maintain the hover.

I'm continually telling him, even if we don't have to move,

if we're in a good area, then I will continually be telling him

steady, steady, steady, in a nice flow and in a nice calm manner.

But I'm also looking around all the time, making sure that we

haven't sunk towards the castle, that the tail

hasn't moved towards any of the turrets and things like that.

Steady. Casualty on. Winchman on and winching in.

Clear on the ground.

With a suspected broken ankle,

the casualty is winched to the safety of the Sea King.

Next stop is the local hospital,

only a few minutes flight away at Bangor.

I think the main thing about the Sea King and the search and rescue

force is really, the flexibility and the diversity of the aircraft.

It's a large platform,

but we can really squeeze it into some pretty small places.

And then we just fly away from the area, job done.

For the RAF search and rescue crews, the Welsh landscape is

the perfect place to develop their rescue techniques.

We're extremely lucky in the Valley, or unlucky,

if you want to look at it a different way,

but we have the mountains, the coast, the sea,

we have everything right on our doorstep within 15 minutes.

We understand a lot of people go to the mountains for a quiet stroll.

the last thing they want to hear is a great big helicopter

going round and round above their heads, but the environmental

conditions here, you cannot get any better for search and rescue,

having so many different areas to train and to operate in.

I think most people are really good about it and a lot of people

see it and go, one day I might end up needing that.

But it's not all about mountains.

Over a third of callouts to the search

and rescue force are from the coastguard.

They often train with other rescue agencies like the RNLI lifeboats.

Where the mountains offer a challenge

in the fact that the weather

and the terrain itself, over the water, for boats, they move,

so it is the same, except the target we're trying to get to is

moving in a rough sea state or in the wind.

And obviously, people in the water, that is a whole new technique again.

Over the water, I would say, searching wise, it is

the hardest one we do.

You're tiny head bobbing around in these big waves

and the white water and it's a big area.

You can drift, you can blow in the wind, there's

a number of things that can happen to you when you're in the water.

Today, a call from Holyhead Coastguard will put that sea

search training to the test.

Rescue 122, Holyhead Coastguard, yes,

male was last seen entering the water,

believed to be trying to retrieve his kite surf board.

Male was wearing a black wetsuit and no buoyancy aids.

-No buoyancy aid.

-Ooops.

On the shores of Black Rock Sands near Porthmadog,

Rescue 122 from RAF Valley is looking for a missing kite surfer.

He was last seen 30 minutes ago.

The crew know that a wetsuit can't protect him

for long from the cold sea.

Hypothermia can set in within minutes.

-Blackrock Sands is there.

-Roger.

-So, now we are actively searching.

We've got various tools to help us find people.

The majority of the time, the best asset to use is your eye.

Sometimes, the best way is just to get everyone looking out the window.

You're in the general area and you fly along searching. With your eye,

you can see maybe some movement in the corner of your eye,

in your peripheral vision, which could be absolutely critical,

and that might be the only chance you get to find them.

There's something white just coming below left of us just now.

Is that not the bottom of the kite board?

That's the board, that's the board.

They found the kite board, but no trace of the missing kite surfer.

The crew fire a flare

so that the RNLI crew can check the surrounding area.

Search and rescue crews know that sea rescues are never easy.

It's a constantly changing environment.

The crew's action can easily mean the difference between life

and death for the casualty.

I remember one particular job, it was one of my first few jobs,

it was about two guys on a jet ski who were missing

out at sea about a mile off the coast.

And they were basically in the water

for roughly four, four-and-a-half hours.

Trying to find them was a needle in a haystack and after about 45

minutes or so searching,

I looked out the window and saw these two guys

and all it was was that one was wearing a life preserver

and I just saw an orange strip on his shoulder

where his life preserver was and they were hugging each other

and they were absolutely severely hypothermic and they were blue

and really quite ill - got them to hospital

and they made a full recovery.

It makes you appreciate not only life but also nature

and how dangerous this sea and the natural environment can be

if you don't prepare for it or don't respect it.

Back on the shores of Porthmadog, it's been 45 minutes

since they spotted the kite board.

The surfer is still missing.

As night falls, Rescue 122 are still searching.

I think he's going to be under the surface now.

So I'm pretty confident I can get a head

and shoulders possibly in the water...

if he's still alive.

It doesn't look good.

The kite surfer's been missing for more than an hour and a half.

Exhaustion and unconsciousness

can strike after less than an hour in the water.

Holyhead Coastguard.

The coastguard call in with some news.

The missing kite surfer has been found on the beach nearby

safe and sound.

Whichever way the casualty reaches safety,

a positive result is the aim for all the search and rescue crews.

People sometimes end up getting into bother but we're not there to judge.

We're there to make sure that if they do need help,

we're there to help them.

10 million people visit Snowdonia every year to explore its coastline

and mountains, but for some this terrain can prove to be more

challenging than they thought.

We get a lot of holidaymakers head to Anglesey and the surrounding

area in North Wales, so in the summer we're particularly busy.

People don't generally do the sports all year round,

so you know, kayakers,

general canoeists, divers, things of that nature,

windsurfers, kite surfers, they're the types of injuries that we get.

Rescue 122 to have been scrambled to Dorothea Quarry

in the Nantlle Valley.

The quarry lake is a popular training location

for amateur divers, but today one diver needs urgent help.

-I'll see you in a couple of minutes. Is everyone happy?

-Yes.

-Yes?

A 56-year-old diver is in trouble. After surfacing from his dive,

nitrogen bubbles have begun to form in his bloodstream.

Emergency services at the scene confirm the crew's worst fears,

it's a life-threatening case of the bends.

Got a diver, Dorothea, he dived to a depth of 160m.

Been up for an hour.

He's been sick.

If somebody has the bends, then they need to go to a decompression

chamber, so speed is of the essence really to get them into the chamber.

It's not the first time Rescue 122 has been called to Dorothea Quarry.

20 divers have lost their lives here in the last 20 years.

They need to get their casualty to specialist medical care

as quickly as they can.

You are clear below.

Winchman Dickie Myers heads for the casualty.

Diver Keith Moores is feeling nauseous, dizzy,

and disorientated - classic symptoms of the bends.

Paramedics have been giving him oxygen to reduce

the level of nitrogen in his bloodstream.

This will slow down the potentially deadly bubbles from forming.

You just don't want it getting any worse, really.

You don't want the nitrogen bubbles that are in the bloodstream

to get any bigger and develop and it can lead to unconsciousness.

I'm going to put him on this and then take him to the aircraft, OK?

I'm going to do that now.

But the oxygen won't cure this casualty.

He needs to be taken to a specialist pressure chamber

at Murrayfield Hospital on the Wirral.

There's no time to put him in a stretcher.

They need to get him into the aircraft.

The journey to Murrayfield Hospital takes half an hour

in the helicopter. By road, it would take three times as long.

But the captain needs to fly at a low altitude to stop more

nitrogen bubbles forming in the diver's bloodstream.

At Dorothea Quarry, they've already ascended at a point which is

quite high above sea level,

so our priority as pilots is to get them to the medical establishment

as quickly as possible but limit the height at which we fly them

to limit the effects of the bends.

The Sea King cruises at 200 feet above sea level.

After they arrive at Merseyside, Dickie hands over his casualty

to the decompression chamber staff.

-Keith.

-Hello, Keith. I'm the doctor - Tim.

'Well, luckily he's here.

'The actual transport from the site'

to here quickly is critical.

If he was left, the bubbles would be forming within the brain

and elsewhere in the body.

Keith Moores now starts an intensive eight-hour treatment for the bends.

He'll then have to spend two hours a day over the next four days

locked in the decompression chamber to treat his symptoms.

For Keith, what started out as an afternoon's dive

has turned into a nightmare.

Every year more than 1,500 people are rescued by Sea King helicopters.

Handing them to the nearest emergency department

is usually the last time the Search and Rescue crews see the casualty.

But not today.

Aletia and her mum have come to RAF Valley to thank the crew that

saved her life.

It's just an honour to be here, it really is.

Yeah. An absolute honour.

In October 2011, 16-year-old Aletia was involved in a serious car crash in Llandrindod Wells.

When the Sea King arrived, winchman Ed Griffiths

knew she was in a critical condition.

Yeah, I remember turning up and it was clear from the onset

that it was really time critical and urgent.

She was quite seriously injured.

I was concerned for her, actually.

When we got on the aircraft, I remember telling the pilots,

we need to go as fast as we can to the neuro unit at Cardiff.

Aletia suffered severe head injuries in the car accident.

For the last 12 months, she's been slowly recovering,

learning how to walk and how to speak again.

I was...

involved in a RTA,

which is a road traffic accident.

The Sea King come and saved me.

They saved her life, at the end of the day.

A year almost to the day,

Aletia is reunited with the people that saved her.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hiya, I'm Ed.

-Hello.

-We've met before but you probably won't remember.

-No.

-This is Nick, as well.

-How are you?

Hello...

We were down the back of the helicopter that landed and took you to Cardiff.

-Can you remember anything about it?

-I can remember the day.

Just because I've been told about it.

But, that's it.

This is the Mark 3...

Oh, my God.

The kit you see down the back here is pretty much the same kit...

To meet Ed and the crew here, it's just overwhelming!

Mum, stop crying.

THEY LAUGH

That's what mums do, they're allowed.

To see the Sea King, which, you know...

Lift!

Because without this, Aletia wouldn't be here now.

It takes a special person to do the work that they do.

It really, really does.

It's like a little waistcoat.

I just said, "You're a hero." Because he is, really.

There's one on that side.

I don't think that I am a hero. I think I love my job

and I do my job the same as all the other guys on the force.

-Do I look cool?

-You look superb.

For the RAF Search and Rescue force,

working in a tough and difficult terrain

is all part of the challenge of saving lives.

The job is the variety, actually going out and helping people

who otherwise would be in quite a predicament. It's as simple as that.

After falling 20 feet in a quarry,

15-year-old Liam made a full recovery from his injuries.

Oh, I don't know what we'd have done without them.

So thankful towards them.

That sense of satisfaction when the team pulls together,

and, yes, especially if it's a lifesaver,

then it's second to none. It's an amazing feeling.

And diver Keith Moores made a full recovery

after being treated for the effects of the bends.

-How does that feel?

-All right.

The Sea King is invaluable. It really is. The crew...

At the end of the day, you're doing an extremely important job, I think.

There's no greater feeling

than when you feel you've done some real good and saved someone's life.

-'What are we going to do about food?

-I'd rather have a curry tonight.'

Next time on Helicopter Rescue...

Summer in Snowdonia means one thing - tourists in trouble.

She's on a footpath on the cliff edge. It's hard to access.

An ambulance can't get there,

so that's where we come into our own, and that's what we are here for.

Sergeant Nick Jones shares a unique point of view

in the life of a winchman as he's called to a three-car collision

on his first ever shift.

We'll take a paramedic with us.

It takes the pressure off us then.

And after 30 years of service,

the Sea King crews pay tribute to the iconic yellow helicopter.

She's very old now. She's been around a very long time.

She's been a fantastic servant to everyone.

It's very sad to see her go.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd