Episode 5 Emergency Rescue Down Under

They're the Brits who race to the rescue down under.

Multiple patients critical.

Everyday heroes saving lives.

12 miles to run.

Battling fires...

If you don't go out now it's too late.

It can be extremely dangerous.

..and fighting crime.

Put your arm down.

Police! Open the door!

From the big city to the outback.

Our policing district is bigger than the whole of the UK.

From the bush...

He's been crushed between one of those Dingo diggers and a Ute.

..to Bondi beach.

The search continues for a British tourist who hasn't been seen

since he went for a swim.

You never quite know what you're in for or what's going to happen.

Three, three, two on the head in.

Very high impact. He's really quite critically injured.

Brits on blue lights under blue skies.

Today down under, a British shoplifter's caught on camera.

He was getting too aggressive, I think he was on something.

-You're under arrest right now.

-Go away, don't be silly.

Flight nurse Sian takes on a tiny passenger.

He's still requiring a fair amount of oxygen.

It will result in cardiac arrest if not treated.

And the animal A&E cares for the casualties of the big freeze.

We moved to Australia because I'm not a big fan of the cold.

All our dreams have been shattered.

It's the climate that brings many migrants down under.

You can surf on Sydney's beaches in mid-winter thanks to

sea temperatures that rarely sink below 20 Celsius,

and few Aussies even bother to have heating in their homes.

But today the weather's turned.

It's Lars Peterson in for Jason Staveley this evening.

With some showers expected for Sydney, could even still get that

thunderstorm coming through later this evening, as well.

Flight nurse Sian Ellison, from Newcastle upon Tyne, faces flying

through the remains of a tropical storm to reach a newborn baby

with a potentially fatal condition - a collapsed lung, or pneumothorax.

The problem with a pneumothorax is if it's...

that collection of air's allowed to develop and gets larger

and larger, it not only makes it harder for the baby to breathe,

it can also move the heart across and it can reduce the cardiac

output and it will result in cardiac arrest if not treated.

Sian's a member of the NETS team, dedicated to transporting

babies and infants into the big city for specialist treatment.

We've been tasked to Dubbo, which is about 370km, I think,

from Sydney, which if you drove is going to be about

four and a half hours.

So rather than drive out there we're going to fly out there with

air ambulance, so we've got a little plane out waiting for us.

The team must climb above the weather to clear the massive

peaks of the Blue Mountains.

Initially some respiratory distress, but then this morning...

..had a marked increased work of breathing

and they did an X-ray - pneumothorax.

Oh, really?

Welcome to sunny Dubbo.

-Yeah.

-Not.

Oh, it's cold.

Dubbo is a farming community famous for its lamb.

40,000 people live here,

but its hospital transfers critical cases to the big city.

It's freezing. And wet.

I feel like I'm back in Newcastle again.

OK, that's lovely. All right, yeah.

Jock Pye was born the day before yesterday, but he's in a bad way.

He has a collapsed lung.

They've tried everything they can to help him absorb more oxygen,

but none of it's working.

So, this is the X-ray taken yesterday,

which possibly shows an early hyperlucency in the left lung

that has markings right to the periphery.

Lung today shows obvious pneumothorax on the left side.

If this continues, the team may have to anaesthetise Jock

and take over his breathing.

It's a potentially risky procedure.

We're just having a discussion at the moment

whether he actually needs intubating or not before transport.

OK.

Now I see it.

What are we looking at?

-Yeah.

-See, that much...

The only reason I suggested it is that much...

Might make a difference, so, yeah.

Cos I'm surprised that he's not any better.

Yeah. It's a hard call, isn't it?

Usual thing is when he hasn't had an improve in oxygenation

since the pneumothorax was drained successfully...

He's still requiring a fair amount of oxygen.

If he doesn't improve, they'll be unable to fly him,

and his survival could depend on specialist treatment in Sydney.

Sydney is six times the size of London with less than half

the population, but the rush hour is just as frantic down under.

There's just been a three-car accident on the N4 pass.

Greystanes Road, city-bound, only one lane getting through.

Significant traffic delays down the Sydney Olympic Park.

And today it's brought another emergency for the crew

of the CareFlight chopper that rushes trauma doctors

to urban accidents by air.

Road traffic collision, multiple calls.

-Cross street is Windsor Road.

-Yeah.

-Cheers, mate.

This medical team can perform surgery in the street,

and its speed saves lives.

It's RAF veteran John Legge's job to get them

off the ground within two minutes of the call.

Five miles to run, three, three, two, mate, on the head in.

Liverpudlian John used to fly wounded soldiers

out of the front line in Afghanistan as the crew chief on a giant

Chinook helicopter, often while under fire.

-RADIO:

-Multiple patients critical.

Now he's responsible for navigating CareFlight 4

through Sydney's crowded skies.

Obviously the priority initially is for us

to get to the scene as quickly as we can.

We've got to identify the scene,

make sure that where we land is the best place to land for the doctor

and the paramedic to get to the patients as soon as possible.

RADIO CHATTER

Probably about half a mile short.

He's British-born pilot Greg Ohlsson's eyes and ears,

talking to medical control on the radio

and looking out for likely landing sites.

That's copied.

It's right next to a field, so we should be good to get in there.

It looks like there's waste ground right next to the crash.

OK, accident should be down on the nose now.

But landing here can be as tricky as it was back in the RAF -

someone's built houses on the vacant lot.

There's a development area just coming through now.

Ambulance on the far side of that.

Coming on our nose.

I really need you, Giles, to look at those back yards,

make sure we're not causing a storm here.

Do you think we are?

We could just go a little bit further away and we'll be fine.

Back yard's good.

OK, coming to ground.

Wires are good on the right there, Andrew?

The smash is a bad one.

Head on, five victims, including a young boy.

Legge! Can I have some goggles?

-What's that, mate?

-Goggles.

-Goggles.

John's job is to keep the medics supplied

with the equipment they need.

-John, can you cope with the ultrasound, as well?

-OK.

'We are very much obviously a team, we've all got our specialist roles.

'But there's definitely points in the...in the mission,

'if you like, where there roles do overlap.'

Dr Andy's concerned.

Patients with fractured femurs can bleed to death internally.

I've got low on the right, Giles, I've got lung sliding on the right.

Medics are seriously worried about two of the five victims.

Legge, worth checking the fluid bundle from inside.

The fluid bundle inside.

An ambulance service chopper is arriving to fly one of them.

Got the fluids running, shall we switch straight to blood?

While Dr Andy fights to stabilise his patient, John's planning ahead.

He's concerned that rubberneckers could make their takeoff dangerous.

Is there anyone who can look out? I'm just thinking,

cos there's lots of people using this as a walkway.

-Yeah.

-And generally when we start engines that's like a magnet.

Everybody ready?

We have to take into account how we're going to get the patient

transported to hospital. We always have to kind of adapt

to how we're going to transport the patient. Initially, anyway.

The medics decide it'll be safer to drive their patient to hospital.

It means they can monitor him better.

-Ready to load?

-Yep.

Cos we had to tube him there's a chance that

they may have to do things to him en route.

So if you do have the option to go by road, you take that option.

And because the hospital isn't too far away,

that's what they decided to do.

For crewman John and pilot Greg it's time to return to base.

It's the CareFlight chopper's speed -

160mph - that saves lives.

OK, I'm ducking across some power lines now...

Pilot Greg's a naturalised Aussie, John's still a Brit.

But neither would swap their jobs down under for life in

a UK air ambulance - flying and landing are easier here.

You're very rarely less than,

or more than, 500 metres away from a cricket oval.

-So it's probably why you're winning the Ashes.

-That's true.

Because we generally only get called to high-end trauma,

you see the people that you're helping and then

we'll take them to the hospital then the doctors and the paramedics,

they know the condition of the patients and stuff.

So even at the end of the shift you kind of know what

you've achieved, which is a nice feeling.

Australia is a house-proud place.

Doing it yourself is a passion, and thousands of Aussies

choose to build their homes from the ground up.

As a nation, they spend £10 billion a year on home improvements.

In Perth, British cops Andrew Page

and Richard Casey-Chisholm enjoy homes that would've been

well beyond their budgets back in the Warwickshire force.

But today they're on the trail of a fellow Englishman

who's been accused of doing his DIY on the cheap.

What's happened here is somebody's been shoplifting.

He's tried to leave the store, they've stopped him

and it looks like he's assaulted one of the security staff.

So we've got a stealing and an assault.

Staff at a store on a Perth retail park were already suspicious of a

man with a British accent who seemed to return a lot of goods for cash.

Then they spotted this on the CCTV -

an expensive tool set shoved up his jumper.

How you doing? Andy. How are you? What's gone on?

He's a regular and he's known to us, like, you know, pick stuff up.

So just kept an eye on him.

He picked up a tool kit kind of thing.

As soon as he exited I approached him

and said, "Man, you got something on you?"

I said, "what do you have?" and he started to get a bit aggressive.

-He said, like, "Do not touch me."

-OK.

Thanks to the store's security team, this case looks pretty open

and shut for the police.

Not only was the crime captured on camera, the suspect recently

left his name and address when he hired some tools.

-He's nightly in the store.

-Oh, OK, so you know him.

-I don't personally...

-No, but you know his surname.

Yeah, he always wears a beanie.

Yeah.

It's a different colour every day.

This guy certainly didn't want to be caught.

As he makes his way to the exit, the security team ask him to stop.

There's been a mention of an assault.

Did you take a punch or something? What's happened?

Yeah, he held on to me from here and just there.

-OK, so he's grabbed hold of you.

-Yeah, just like...in the struggle.

This international stand-off ends with a rapid exit

by the shoplifter, minus his swag.

He was getting too aggressive. I think he was on something.

Basically, what's happening now, we've got all the statements,

CCTV, everything's pretty well done,

so we're going to do some checks on him.

Got to go and pick up our sergeant

cos he wants to come out for a bit and then we'll go and try

and locate our offender for this and arrest him.

More than half the people living in this area of Perth

are British migrants like the wanted man.

It turns out crime runs in the family.

According to intelligence, the wanted man's wife is in jail.

In Rockingham, look.

Aww, they could have a little family reunion.

For criminals without Aussie citizenship,

a visit from the law can be a big deal.

Some British passport holders have been sent back to the UK after

40 years down under after they've been convicted of serious offences.

-What number?

-Three. There it is.

-Victor Charlie 108.

-'Charlie 108.'

Just for information, we're at Port Kennedy trying to affect an arrest.

KNOCKING

-How you doing?

-I need to speak to you in relation to an incident

-that's happened in Port Kennedy.

-What about it?

-Some stealing. A chisel set.

-No, not me, mate.

-No?

-No.

-OK.

-What have you come here for?

-Because you've been named.

They've got your registration plate and they know you

cos you're always in there.

You've had stuff off them before, so they know you.

Well, I really...

Mate, I really don't care how well they know me. I haven't been.

-That's fine.

-Not me.

-OK, that's fine.

I'm arresting you on suspicion of stealing, then, in Port Kennedy.

We're going to interview you and we'll go from there.

You're not interviewing me cos I've done nothing wrong.

We'll interview you anyway. You've got to come down the station.

Can I just check with my lawyer to see if I've got to come down?

You have to because you're under arrest.

You have to. There's no choice.

-Can you imagine how...?

-Easy now. Calm, mate. Mate, calm down, OK?

I'm standing within my own house.

You're under arrest right now, OK?

-Bring your top, as well, cos...

-Bring my top?

-because I'm seizing that as evidence.

-Don't be silly.

-Yep.

-I only just put that on.

That's all right, though,

cos that matches the description given, so come on.

We've got to go.

Andy and Richard aren't taking no for an answer.

Jump in. Go on, then.

He's obviously denying being there, etc.

He's wearing the same top anyway, so seized his top as evidence.

Yeah, he's not very happy about it.

But hey. Oh, well, never mind.

Suspects can avoid a criminal conviction for a minor offence

by agreeing to pay a fine that doesn't appear on their record.

It's called an infringement.

It saves court time and money, but carries a hefty penalty.

You can buy a lot of chisels with 500 -

that's around £250.

At the police station the suspect is still protesting his innocence.

..jumped on me, done all this to my neck.

-Tore all my clothes off me.

-Yeah.

I don't know why they did it.

I've got to ask somebody why they did it,

see if it's right. But you know...

Let's go.

It's not unusual for Richard to be bringing a fellow

Englishman in for questioning.

But before confronting his suspect with the video evidence,

he has to check in his gun.

It's just policy, just in case anything happens

and they try and grab it.

Within the hour, the light-fingered handyman admits his guilt.

He's come clean. He's admitted he's done the stealing

now he's calmed down.

He's got no previous convictions.

We've got all their goods back

so because of that we can deal with it by infringement.

He's happy to receive it, so he's going to sit in the room now

while we sort out the infringement notice.

We'll issue that and then he'll go.

Jump in and we'll give you a lift back, OK?

He's 500 poorer.

Now he's been given that fine he wants his chisel set back.

He's saying it like, you know, in the way that, oh, well might as well

get the item if I stole it and you have to cop the penalty for it.

Hmm... Don't think it works like that.

Try to get that on straight at the palm because it just kinks if not.

In the farming town of Dubbo, flight nurse Sian Ellison is assessing

whether it's safe to fly tiny Jock Pye to hospital

300 miles away in Sydney.

Jock's fighting for breath. He needs the intensive care

only a specialist children's hospital can provide.

While this child's been currently very well looked after

in Dubbo Hospital,

there's only a certain level of care that that hospital can provide.

So by bringing that baby to Sydney,

it means that all escalations of treatment can be provided.

Jock's mum Sarah and dad Troy are worried.

Yeah, so everything that the intensive care unit

has we pretty much have.

So Abhijat's an intensive-care doctor.

I'm an intensive-care nurse.

We have a ventilator, we have machines, we have pumps,

we have drugs, we have... We're stocked.

So...

We'll...

We can transport him safely.

But the remains of a tropical storm blanketing the mountains that

lie between Dubbo and Sydney means that this flight is not routine.

Ready to go.

-You can pop your hand in there.

-Oh, no, that's all right.

Can I grab about four little salines

and a 20ml syringe?

Yeah, that'll be good, thanks.

OK, let's go.

RADIO CHATTER

At 6,000 feet, the cabin pressure and the amount of oxygen

in the air are significantly lower than at sea level.

It's of little consequence to an adult,

but it could be crucial for Jock.

He's being given extra oxygen from a bottle.

The air ambulance pilot will fly as low as is safe.

As soon as the plane's clear of the mountains, he'll try to descend.

We have very successfully transferred this 34, 35 week baby.

The baby has, er, been quite well throughout the transfer.

Within half an hour, Jock will be receiving the specialist

hospital care he needs.

Thankfully, after several days in intensive care,

Jock pulls through and mother and baby soon return to the country.

Australia has twice as many roads as the UK,

nearly half a million miles,

and only a twentieth of the traffic.

But away from the cities, tarmac is in short supply.

Aussie drivers need four-wheel drive to reach many

parts of their vast continent.

But these rural dirt tracks have their dangers.

And today, near Perth, the British officers of the local

response team are on their way to a serious crash.

We're going to an accident.

Looks like it's on an off-road track somewhere

so we're just going to get to the location and see what's going on.

British constables Andy and Richard

and their sergeant Troy know the road where the accident

happened is used by off-roaders practising their skills.

We've dispatched a, er, medi-vac helicopter.

So it sounds quite serious, so we'll get an update.

-You all right?

-There's two casualties, both unconscious.

One was physically under the vehicle.

But now there's paramedics, there's four paramedics

-and two managers that's working on them now, so...

-OK.

-We'll just wait and find out.

-It's that bit over there, is it?

They went down this limestone track here.

And then we've lost them. So we can't see.

Sorry?

Even getting to the scene is challenging.

It's over there.

It's on... Er, yeah, you go down just off to the left -

there's a bend.

Ugh!

LAUGHTER

I wasn't expecting that.

Firefighters - or firies, as they're known here -

and volunteers from the local rescue team have freed the injured man.

Think he'll pull out of it or...?

Oh, it's too hard to say, yeah...

Trying to drift, apparently, according to the rear passenger,

so it sunk him and rolled and he's got stuck underneath.

So they've managed to get out. She's got some shoulder issues which

have been treated for obvious reasons.

The other two are more important.

And then the driver's stuck, but they managed to get him out.

The driver's badly hurt.

Eyewitnesses used a jack to ease the weight of the car off him.

I take it he's still... is unconscious.

Don't know. It looks like it.

They need to find out if this is a public road.

If it's not, many of the usual laws don't apply.

Looks like they're going to use helicopter to

transport probably one or two of the casualties to hospital.

Paramedics fear the driver's in a bad way.

They've called in the air ambulance to fly him

50 miles to hospital in Perth.

He has serious head injuries.

But it's feared his body took the full weight of the rolling

vehicle after he was thrown free.

He'll need body scans and X-rays.

For the police, it's back on patrol.

It turns out this is a private track.

There'll be no charges,

but the medical consequences for the driver could be very serious.

The year-round sun, laid-back lifestyle

and warm seas bring 25,000 British immigrants to Australia each

year and few miss the British climate.

Vet Lucy King from Bristol certainly doesn't,

but she didn't expect the worst of the UK's winter to follow her.

Quite exciting. Everyone's getting overexcited about the snow.

But it's cold.

This is June in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney,

and this is the harshest winter they've seen in 20 years.

A foot of snow has fallen around the town of Katoomba,

and for the first time in living memory, all roads in are closed.

I came in, I braved the snow,

because we've got some in-patients so I had to come in

and check on the dogs and cats we've got here in the clinic.

This is Aika. She fell over in the snow

and she's hurt her back.

So we're keeping her in tonight on pain relief

and just resting her, keeping her nice and warm.

When she joined the local animal A&E, Lucy never envisaged this.

We moved to Australia because I'm not a big fan of the cold.

And I was like, "It's warm all the time over there.

"Even in the winter it'll be warm."

All our dreams have been shattered.

The weather may be familiar, but the patients aren't.

They bring in wildlife. We've had a couple of possums,

a wood duck and a cockatoo.

They're very unusual to me

and no-one else is particularly excited

cos they see them all the time.

So someone brought in a parrot.

I'm not sure how they managed to pick it up.

It looks angry.

Someone told me the other day that

if people find a poisonous snake, they try and catch it and take

it to the vet so that we can get their venom and make anti-venom.

But I'm not sure if that's true.

I need to ask people cos I wouldn't want to try

and get venom off of a deadly snake.

Lucy decided to begin a new life down under with her dog Tex,

and she still has a big canine caseload.

Coco has a cough which has been going on for a little

while, so we're just going to examine the back of his throat,

his tonsils, and his soft palette, and we're going to do an X-ray

of his chest to make sure there's nothing horrible going on there.

Good girl.

Do you want to prep and then I'll run out?

So this here should be black like everywhere else.

So that, that should be sort of black lung

and it's kind of greyed out, which means there's fluid or

something in there, which is a bit of a concern.

But hopefully it's just a bit of a chest infection

and it'll clear up with the antibiotics.

A vet's work is similar the world over,

and some patients originally hail from home.

So we're going to spay Mollie today, is that right?

Yep.

Hey, puppy.

-Being an English lass...

-Mmm?

..she's half Smithfield terrier.

Oh, is she?

Now, Smithfield terriers come from Smithfield.

Mm. When was the last time she had anything to eat?

About half past seven last night she had steak, fried biscuits,

beans, carrots...

That's about it.

OK, good.

I want steak and carrots for dinner.

I like that they do that.

They seem to get, like, loads of really nice food.

Whereas in the UK they would just get, like, meat and biscuits.

But she's very cute. She deserves steak and carrot.

Lucy's found herself dealing with some unusual emergency

admissions, including the curious case of the snowboarding dog.

This is Ninja. He was out with his owner playing in the snow.

His owner was snowboarding and Ninja got caught under the snowboard

and has cut his foot.

So we're just going to give him

an anaesthetic and clip and clean that.

I think it needs a couple of stitches.

Oh, puppy.

DOG WHINES

Good boy.

You're so brave.

We don't get much snow, especially not in the south west,

so this is the first snowboard incident I've had to deal with.

So we've had to move into an X-ray room because we're so busy

and the other operating rooms are in use.

That's why I'm stooped over here and squished next to a wall.

Cool. Job done.

See him in a couple days for a check-up.

Like Ninja, Lucy's looking forward to the thaw, when the Blue Mountains

once more become Australia's favourite summer playground.