Episode 13 Real Rescues

Today, on Real Rescues... a fishing boat is sinking.

A lifeboat man leaps to the rescue,

but the skipper is missing.

A 999 plea for help after a young man falls,

cracking his head on rocks.

And gridlock on the roads, but it's non-stop for traffic cops.

Wet roads are causing accident...

..after accident.

I have an accident. Oh. Oh.

..after accident.

This is only the fourth one we've been on this stretch of road today.

Hello and welcome to Real Rescues, where we

see the men and women of the emergency services

responding to 999 calls from people facing

every sort of crisis you can imagine.

We're about to see one of the closest calls.

The emergency is at sea off the coast of Berwickshire in Scotland.

It's a fisherman in trouble and there's very little time to react.

Radio check. Channel 16, over.

The Dunbar lifeboat is heading out into the Firth of Forth.

The RNLI station has picked up a faint

but desperate mayday on the shipping emergency channel.

The fisherman has reported his boat's taking on water.

He's given his coordinates but, when the coastguard calls him back,

there's no response.

The current is strong. The rescuers are just over two miles away.

Everyone is on deck on lookout.

As they near the site, a shout goes out.

The boat's been spotted.

Only the bow of the 25-foot boat is visible

and there's no sign of the fisherman.

The lifeboat volunteers fear the man is still inside his boat,

but the water's too shallow to get in any closer.

They'll have to put a man in the water.

Are you going in? Aye.

Volunteer Alistair Punton is going to swim across on a safety line.

All Alistair can do is try and make contact with the trapped man.

It's too dangerous to get in the boat.

Battered by the waves,

Alistair looks in the cabin window for any signs of life.

He bangs on the hull and listens for any response.

I was trying to ascertain if he was actually inside the boat,

if he was still conscious.

There was a lot of things going through my mind at that time.

It seemed like an eternity,

but it was only a matter of seconds no doubt.

It's a situation where you think, "If he is in there, what do we do?

"Can we get him out?"

Very unlikely.

If the skipper is trapped inside that air pocket

and if we breach that air pocket to try and get the skipper out, there's

a good possibility that the vessel would sink underneath his feet,

taking the skipper down with him.

Suddenly, the focus of the rescue changes.

Another RNLI volunteer has spotted what looks like a figure

clinging to some wreckage.

Whereabouts? Straight ahead. Right at 12 o'clock.

In the water.

Alistair is hastily pulled back aboard.

But moments later, he's back in the cold, choppy sea.

By now, the fisherman has been in the water for 40 minutes

and the offshore wind and current are sweeping him further out to sea.

When I arrived at the casualty, he was extremely cold.

His hands were pure white with holding on.

Very little blood. His face looked really...white.

He was a little bit concerned for his own safety, I would say,

and he really needed to get back to the lifeboat

and safety as soon as possible.

This is a two-man job. Another RNLI crewman is put in the water.

They have to haul him on board using a strop.

The signs are he's suffering from sever hypothermia.

Once the crew started pulling him in,

you could see that the skipper was cold and grey.

He looked really clammy.

Once we got him out the water, he was checked for cold

and he'd suffered hypothermia.

The lifeboat heads back to shore at Torness.

The Air Sea Rescue have landed a paramedic on the quay,

ready to treat the fisherman.

Meanwhile, below deck the skipper's wet clothing is removed

and he's warmed gradually with blankets.

Once at the quayside, the paramedic goes aboard.

Pass that down.

More blankets are brought down.

The skipper decides not to go to hospital.

It takes an hour for his temperature to return to normal.

Is he all right? Yeah.

Oh, really?

Later that day, the RNLI head back out to recover the boat.

They use airbags to float the ship.

Then it's a slow tow back to shore.

It's the evening rush hour in Milton Keynes.

After weeks of dry weather, it's raining.

It's making the roads very greasy.

It could be a busy shift for the traffic cops.

PCs Russ Irwin and Steve Leathersitch are on the evening shift.

Before they even get out of the station gates,

the first job comes in.

We've had a report from Ambulance of a two-vehicle collision.

They've also had a call from Fire Brigade as well,

because it's apparently an entrapment.

They're not sure what the level of injury is at this time.

The accident's happened east of Milton Keynes,

on the edge of the Thames Valley Police boundaries.

But there must be another accident as the traffic's already backing up.

It doesn't normally queue back this far, does it?

It is confirmed that somebody's trapped.

No-one's arrived on scene as yet.

Right, Bedfordshire border.

They spot a break down is causing these problems,

but Russ and Steve can't stop to help.

The heavy traffic is delaying Bedfordshire Police,

so it's up to the Thames Valley team to get there.

I can see lights up there.

92, we are 06. It's on the 421 just before 13.

We've got Fire and Ambulance on scene, over.

Eventually, they make it through the miles of queueing cars.

They're the first to reach the scene.

A woman is trapped.

Her car has gone into the one in front.

Hello.

OK, what level of injury have we got?

While fire crews and paramedics plan how to free her,

Russ and Steve need to make the scene safe for them to work in.

Just bear with us.

Fire wants us to put more cones out to push them over.

This A-road is a key arterial route.

Pushing the passing cars further out should also slow them down,

but the fire incident commander wants the traffic stopped altogether.

While I'm cutting at the moment, I do, yeah.

They're really flying down there.

Yeah, but if we narrow them down... Yeah, can you do that?

Yeah, we'll narrow it down.

But I think if we close it we're going to cause more hassle.

If you can narrow it down and slow them down, that would be great.

Paramedics treat the young woman driver as the fire crews

prepare to cut open the car.

We've narrowed it down to force everyone to slow down enough

so they've got a safe environment to work in, to get the roof off

and get this lady out of the car as soon as possible.

The driver's in a lot of pain.

The sooner they can cut off the roof

and get her on a spinal board, the better.

Bedfordshire Police have finally made it through the traffic.

Russ takes witness statements until he can hand over to them.

Yeah, OK. Right-oh. That makes sense.

Basically, traffic lights are red. She's stationary, he's stationary.

She's gone to move forward and in the rear-view mirror

she's seen the little red car come up the back end.

Once the car's roof is off, a spinal board is put in position.

The red car's hit the green car. Yeah.

Up the back, yeah. But the red car seems to have fallen apart.

The driver is safely out of the car on a stretcher.

Despite the damage, the impact is not as great as first feared.

Yeah, that's why think it's probably not as quick as the damage shows, as it were.

Russ and Steve can now leave the scene,

but they haven't finished helping their Bedfordshire colleagues yet.

OK, there's a BDV back there that's slowing everyone up,

so we'll clear that out of the way as well. All right.

That BDV, or broken down vehicle,

they spotted on outbound journey is still holding up traffic.

All because of a flat tyre.

As they arrive, they are passed by the ambulance carrying

the injured woman from the accident they've just left.

Rather than wait any longer for recovery,

Russ is going to drive the car to the nearest lay-by.

We're going to drive a bit further along the road to a safer area.

It just makes it a bit safer.

It would cause more chaos if we left it here.

We'll take it out of the road,

hopefully it will clear it up for everyone else behind us.

But they are going to have to wait a little longer.

Russ is taking it very slowly.

Moving the car to a safer place will have helped the recovery service,

but it was a challenging drive for all the wrong reasons.

That did feel like the longest drive ever.

I don't now how far we went but it seemed like it went on for eternity!

More traffic gridlock,

but Anglo-German relations are in good shape,

after the friendliest of collisions.

A wasp or bee sting is an uncomfortable thing

but there are worse places to be stung than others.

We might as well find out. Dani, are you all right to talk? Yeah.

You had a call from somebody who was next to somebody who had been stung.

Yeah, it came from the daughter of the patient.

She'd been out in the garden doing her gardening, it was a nice day.

Then all of a sudden they said,

"We think she's been stung by a bee or wasp."

They thought she was having an allergic reaction.

Where had she been stung? In the mouth, on the tongue.

And that is particularly dangerous, isn't it?

Yeah, because the tongue can swell,

and it can tend to swell quite quickly.

And that would make it difficult to breathe. Absolutely.

I suppose the other thing is knowing whether someone is allergic to them.

A lot of people are allergic to stings, aren't they? Yeah.

How do you find out something like that?

Generally rapid swelling, difficulty breathing, a rash,

things like that are all signs of a possible allergic reaction.

So, after you'd asked all the questions,

did you get the impression that this lady was allergic?

Yeah, she was swelling, having difficulty breathing

and was generally becoming quite poorly very quickly.

From being absolutely fine in the garden to being very poorly.

You'd think she'd know whether she was allergic or not.

Yeah, apparently she'd never been stung ever. Wow.

To wait that long and then get stung on the tongue is pretty unlucky.

So how do you deal with it, what can you do?

We advised to give some antihistamines,

just to help whilst we're on the way.

Did the daughter have any? Yeah, luckily.

They were asking if they could give that to her straight away,

right at the beginning of the call. So they gave her that

and then she just continued to carry on being very, very poorly indeed.

We've mentioned the fact that stings on the tongue are particularly

dangerous, because obviously thee potential swelling

and cutting off airwaves, but it's a very rare thing, isn't it?

Yeah, that was the first call I've had about a bee sting or wasp sting

on the tongue, and I've been here five years.

Is it that rare or have you had others since?

We had a couple that week. It was the start of bees and wasp stings.

In the mouth? Yeah.

So how are they happening? I don't know.

People riding on bikes, drinks, if the bee or wasp is in the can

or glass and they're talking and don't realise, things like that.

Yeah, cans, that's really interesting.

I know someone who's done that.

With a can, if the wasp goes in you don't see it,

you go to drink from the can,

you're going to end up with a nasty sting that way.

It's worth pouring it out into a glass where you can see

whether a wasp has got in it or not. Absolutely.

Certainly something I'd want to try out, for sure. Thanks very much.

You're welcome.

Early afternoon at the South Western ambulance control room in Exeter.

Emergency medical adviser Doris Perrin has just taken

a 999 call from a young woman on a beach in Cornwall.

The call came in

and obviously the lady on the telephone was very distressed.

so you get an impression already then that it's quite a serious call.

The emergency is happening on these rocks

at Swanpool Beach near Falmouth.

The two young graduates had headed out crabbing.

George was just behind his girlfriend, Gwenno,

and his sister, Emily.

Obviously with the rocks, you had to jump over one to get to the other.

I think he must have tried to jump over

and then felt a bit faint at that time, or he just fainted.

We don't know what happened exactly,

we just turned around and he was in between the rocks.

There was quite a loud, hollow bang.

I don't know, that must've been the echo in between the rocks,

but I don't know if it was his head or something.

It was a horrible noise.

You can't put it into words really, never experienced

anything like that before and I've no idea what was going on.

I climbed down and there was blood everywhere, because he landed

in some water, so the blood looked a lot more than it was.

The priority is to keep George breathing and stem the bleeding.

I was worried about the head injury

because obviously that can have serious repercussions.

If there is any kind of fracture or disturbance to the skull,

it's best not to press on that area.

On the beach, a passer-by has come over to help Gwenno,

as she tries to calm George.

The struggling and confusion

could be signs he's suffered a brain injury.

The gentleman jumped down to help me.

I've no idea who he was, but I'm very grateful.

I don't know if he gave his T-shirt or another person

gave his T-shirt, but we all worked together to keep George safe.

I tried to put him in the recovery position but was a bit impossible

because he was in between the rocks at the bottom.

I physically could not put him on his side then.

He was very agitated and so I had to hold his hands down.

By now an ambulance is very close.

The paramedics are on-site.

Only now does Gwenno realise the extent of George's injury.

They put a collar around his neck.

While doing that they noticed he had pretty big gashes

in the back of his head.

So they thought that was quite a large swelling on his head,

on his brain or something. So then they were more worried about that.

Once Air Sea Rescue from RNAS Culdrose are on-site,

it's going to be up to them to airlift George out of the crevice.

Gwenno can only look on.

One of the worst bits was walking back onto the beach.

I was covered in blood everywhere.

People must have been looking at me like, "What has she done?"

Safely on board the helicopter, George is on his way to hospital.

We'll discover the extent of his injuries later.

Coming up on Real Rescues...

a man is showing all the signs of a heart attack.

Can you point one finger to where the pain is? OK.

These symptoms can't be ignored, he needs treatment quickly.

This is getting ridiculous!

Steve and Russ assist a broken down vehicle

and yet another accident happens in front of them.

Just behind us, this lorry has gone into the back of that Jaguar.

Wet weather is causing chaos in Milton Keynes.

Traffic cops PC Russ Irwin and Steve Leathersitch

are needed at an accident,

their third of the evening and all on the same A-road.

It looks like there's a lorry at the side there that may well have

been involved in a collision.

But I'm also looking at the bus that's just across that roundabout,

that has forced his way across and then come to a stop

and prevented everybody else going round.

They are going nowhere fast.

The accident is just on the other side of the roundabout

but they can't get to it, not even with lights and sirens.

There's nowhere that cars can go.

When you put lights and sirens on,

people tend to drive differently from what they would normally.

Everyone's out of the vehicle that we've seen

as we've driven past, it looks to be minor.

Shall I just walk down and deal with it and come back,

then we can go?

But Steve wants to try a detour.

He's going to head up to another roundabout

then double back on the other carriageway.

On this side of the carriageway they can weave their way through.

The detour has worked.

We've shown him, but you know.

Oh, well there's a thing, isn't it?

Oh, good. Hurdy-gurdy birdie.

The pressure is on to clear this up quickly.

The problem is we had an accident and both stop and go.

This man comes on the right side and I stopped, then... For go in.

And then with the last centimetre of this truck

he goes a little hard on the left side.

Then he has broke my...

Does your vehicle move? Yes.

Will it drive? Yes, no problem.

I make it open and I fixed it.

Have you exchanged details with the other driver? No.

Not yet, no.

It's my first accident in England.

My security in Germany says when we are not in Germany

and accident, please call the police.

Thankfully, the drivers are being very cooperative.

There's just a bit of maintenance to do and some more paperwork.

We'll complete what's called a TA6,

which is basically exchanging the details between the two drivers.

Then we'll get the road open and everything moving again.

Slightly quicker than it is now.

He hopes!

What is the name for this? Security... Insurance.

Insurance.

No problem, we'll get everything exchanged for you

so that you'll have all you need to pass to your insurance company.

OK, super.

Can I... Yeah, if you want to carry on and make that roadworthy.

The German driver needs to secure the broken headlight panel.

Understandably, the chap from Germany was a bit concerned,

he's in a foreign country.

He'll want to make sure he gets the correct details of the other driver,

and that's all we are doing.

So it's just helping out to make sure it's all done.

It's just the paperwork.

Problem solved. They find some cable ties.

Michael should soon be on his way.

The paperwork, however, isn't quite so straightforward for PC Irwin.

I'm just trying to decipher the German insurance certificate.

With my best English because I don't speak a bean of German.

So we're just trying to get all the other information that

the other driver is going to need so that they can progress the claim.

Fortunately, German driver Michael isn't afraid to tackle English.

When I go to England I must speak English. I agree with you.

It is better for two and a half years before I have an accident, oh!

I thought you were going to tell me

you were always having accidents, that's why your English is so good! Yes.

Paperwork complete, and the drivers can get on their way.

OK, ready?

Sorry we have to meet like this.

The other vehicle is undamaged so the offside carriageway will soon be clear.

OK.

Thanks then, Michael. Take care.

I just wish I could speak German how he can speak English.

Ten out of the because when you first started speaking to him,

I noticed the accent come out so he could understand your English.

GERMAN ACCENT: I don't know what you're talking about.

Half six already. But the traffic is taking a while to get going.

Where are we going to sit now?

Are we just going to sit here for another hour?

The night shift is far from over for these two police officers.

Later... Another international incident on the roads

and a second language lesson for the police.

Trying to translate Polish into a manner that the driver of the Jaguar

is going to be able to take away to advise an insurance company.

So a multilingual day.

Now, one of the regular calls that comes in

to a call centre like this is about children having fits.

Babies in particular.

And it's obviously a very worrying thing for a parent to deal with.

But we can talk to Phil about that kind of call now.

So give us an example of a call

and how you might become involved even if you're not the call-taker.

We get mothers, well,

parents ringing in if their children are fitting.

Basically because they've got too hot.

And that can be down to a number of reasons.

They got too many clothes on,

they've got illnesses or they've got congenital problems.

The call-taker will run through a series of questions

which are clinically based.

And if I happen to be listening into the call that's absolutely fantastic

because I can make sure the call is going down the right pathway.

If not, I can take over the call and it's just to reaffirm that they've

given them Calpol, things to actually bring the temperature down.

And they've taken layers of clothing off

because we do get a lot of young mothers who put three, four, five

layers of clothing on, fashionable and because it looks nice.

Whereas, in fact, in the home

you only need to have the temperature of about 16-18 degrees.

Now that's surprisingly low

because I'd say that most people's houses are around 22-25 degrees.

So 16-18 is the optimum temperature for a child's room

if they're wearing a blanket in bed.

That's absolutely right.

And bearing in mind that children can start sweating and they can't control

their own temperature, so that's when you just adjust the layers.

So the advice is if you can get a proper little temperature gauge,

never mind what it says on your central heating gauge.

But if you've got a temperature gauge in the room,

and you can keep baby's room at about 16-18 degrees, that's optimum?

Yeah. All right, smashing. Thanks very much, Phil.

Mid-morning and an ambulance crew

are on their way to a caravan park near Southampton.

A 55-year-old gentleman has got chest pain.

They have tried the 111 route first.

And 111 have deemed it necessary to send a 999 ambulance out

as it is chest pain.

The first thought is this patient

is having or is about to have a heart attack.

The man was just stopping at the caravan park to pick up a work colleague.

As soon as he saw him, his colleague immediately dialled 999.

Technician Steve Gooch

and paramedic Tom Davies are directed to the sick man.

Where are we going to, in here? Yes, please. OK. This is Fred.

Hello, Fred. How are you? My name is Steve. This is Tom.

Can you put your one finger to where the pain is?

It's all across there. Thank you very much.

Are you normally this sweaty,

because you've gone quite hot and sweaty, haven't you? Yeah.

What we're going to have to do is get you out of here and do an ECG

and I think we're going to take a little trip up the hospital as well.

OK? Fred's condition appears to have improved,

but the crew are not taking any chances. How bad is the pain?

It's not so bad at this present moment in time.

I just feel it when I breathe.

OK. It gets worse when you take a deep breath in?

Um, it's nowhere near as bad as what it was like five minutes ago. Right.

I seemed to have like a headache.

What were you doing when the pain came on? Driving.

And does the pain go anywhere else?

It doesn't go into your shoulders, down your arm,

up into your neck or into your jaw at all?

No, just there. Just in the chest area.

OK. We'll go out to the ambulance and do a ECG if that's all right.

I think we'll pop you up to the hospital as well. Nice and slowly.

No rush, please. OK.

Once in the back of the ambulance, they run some tests

and get some more information.

Do you have any medical conditions that we need to know about? No.

No, you don't take any tablets on a regular basis for anything?

I take Co-codamol. What do you take those for? A bad back.

Steve needs to know if Fred is on any medication

that might have side effects or be affecting his condition.

Fred, I'm going to do your temperature. Stick this in your ear.

And...

..just remind me what you were doing when the pain came on? Just driving.

Just driving, OK.

Had you been doing anything strenuous or exerting yourself prior to that?

Nothing. I'm going to grab some paper from above your head.

Nothing at all?

Fred, to do the ECG we need to get the left side of your chest.

Can you uncross your legs for me, please?

They want to use an electrocardiogram, or ECG,

to measure the electrical activity of Fred's heart.

And see if there are any problems with the rhythm. It's gone.

It's gone at this present moment in time. It's completely gone?

Um, yeah. Completely gone.

Sharp scratch, one, two, three.

Fred may no longer be in pain,

but his earlier symptoms were very worrying.

Squeeze on there with your thumb.

When the pain was at its worst, how bad was it out of ten? I'd say nine.

So quite bad. Was it constant pain? Yep.

Can you describe how the pain was? It was... Uh...

It just took my breath away.

I found it hard even to drive.

Absolutely no pain at all now?

Nothing.

You've never had anything like this before at all?

Never? No. OK, fine.

A number of self-adhesive electrodes

are attached to Fred's arms, legs and chest.

Once all the electrodes are in place,

they wait for the results.

From the first lines we see,

there's nothing actually jumping out and concerning us.

We just need to get a clearer reading on it if that's OK.

The ECG is not showing anything serious

at the moment.

There's nothing that jumps out on your ECG, OK?

That's good, then.

It is, but the only way to rule anything out cardiac-related

is to take you over to the hospital, let them do some further checks for you, OK?

We recommend quite strongly

that we take you over and check it out a bit further.

Your blood pressure's good.

The oxygen level you're taking in is good

and your heart rate is quite steady.

The initial results all look positive,

but they're taking him to Queen Alexandria Hospital

in Portsmouth for further tests.

They'll keep an eye on the ECG as they make their way.

The ECG still looks OK. No changes there.

And Steve had one final message for Fred.

Chest pain really is very important.

Especially the kind of chest pain

you're describing in the area you're describing it,

it really is important you get it checked.

And please be assured that, if ever this happens again,

don't think, "Oh, it's nothing, I'll leave it."

If it happens again, you dial 999 again, OK?

SIREN WAILS

It's really important that you do, OK? Yeah. Thank you.

That's all right, no problem at all.

..as we take you off the vehicle, OK?

At hospital, Fred will undergo further investigations.

In Milton Keynes, two police officers are on a mission

to keep traffic moving on one of the town's main arterial roads,

but every time they clear one, another one happens.

This time it's a breakdown.

I'm just trying to get through to the recovery now. OK.

Have you got an towing eye at the front?

Ah, look, on the left-hand side.

We'll tow you down out the way.

Is that all right? Yeah.

Steve, the radiator's blown.

We'll tow him.

I just bought this, as well.

Absolutely gutted. I love it, and it's done this.

The breakdown is the fourth incident on the same road

and it seems it's not the last.

This is getting ridiculous.

Rear-ender.

Just behind us here,

this lorry has gone into the back of that Jaguar.

At least it's in walking distance.

The police are going to split up.

Steve will deal with the latest incident

as Russ stays to help the camper van driver.

What's the plan, Stan?

What we'll try and do is tow this one out the way

to clear the road

while Steve's dealing with the other one.

However it looks like the AA have just possibly arrived.

Did you call the AA? They're going to help us now.

Fortunately, an AA truck was passing and stops to help.

Good timing.

I was going to say, yeah.

We'll see what he says before I hook you up.

Yeah. I've just bought this as well. Really? A grand-and-a-half.

Hopefully it's just the radiator, then. Yeah.

This chap is a member of the AA through Barclay's.

Through Barclay's. Do you have a membership card with you?

No, it's through Barclay's.

I was just trying to get through to get you.

Right, for the sake of the roads, I'll get you off and put you in a service station.

Leaving the van driver with the recovery service, Russ heads off

to help his colleague sort out the collision which has happened

just behind them.

Just in the queue coming into Milton Keynes,

probably for about half an hour

and a Continental driver from Poland's

just turned straight into the side door.

It's only the fourth one we've been on this stretch of road today(!)

There was a broken-down vehicle with a flat tyre,

then a lorry reversed into a car on the other side,

then that one, then this one.

Inside the Jaguar,

the front-seat passenger is unimpressed, but unhurt.

She's fine. She was asleep,

didn't even feel it. It's only a nudge, it's not major.

Nothing major, but it all has to be recorded by the police.

That means another language lesson for Steve.

I clearly said "tea and medals" too soon today.

Keep my mouth shut now.

How's he getting on down there?

I'm conscious of them getting rid of that car and my car being down there on its own.

While Steve grapples with the paperwork,

Russ retrieves the squad car.

This section here is the location of where it's occurred.

No collision report because it's damage only.

Some frequently-asked questions in there.

Are we happy for him to go now?

I'm quite tight behind.

I'll wave you out, I'll slow them down

so you can pull out. Oh, OK.

And it's another amiable parting of the drivers.

OK. All right, then.

And the quest for a cup of tea continues.

Shall we try again?

You need to put the seat back or it'll take your head off.

What was that - take five?

Tea withdrawal.

But in this weather there's no end to it.

Another call has come in.

The police can't risk the roads getting snarled-up again.

All copied.

It's a broken-down vehicle but will only add to the traffic misery,

so it's sirens on and tea break abandoned.

I didn't want a cup of tea anyway(!)

Negotiating the roads in built-up areas

is the usual headache.

See if one of our friendly buses has seen you.

That would be absolutely perfect.

I refer to my earlier comment.

You're just a rebel.

They can only speculate

what nationalities will be involved this time.

What have we had? German, Polish...

South African?

Maybe Hungarian, I reckon.

No, I'll stick with the home team.

I reckon it's UK.

As they approach the scene,

the road is surprisingly clear.

It seems PC Irwin's instincts were right -

it's a British-registration car

that's broken down at the roundabout.

Clutch gone, has it?

Is it stuck in gear...?

The driver has called the recovery service but they're stuck in miles of traffic.

Luckily the a car is out of gear so they can move it off the road.

HE SIGHS

The kerb is sloped so it's not too strenuous pushing it onto the verge.

All right, is that enough?

There you go. You should be OK there.

If you want to go and grab a coffee...

Make sure you lock it up.

Lock it up, I haven't locked it. OK.

All right, then.

Job done and finally it's back to base

for that elusive cup of tea.

Your turn for the brews, then.

Kettle-on time.

We were chatting earlier about febrile convulsions with Phil

who has surprised me with some of the information,

that's having had three children.

There's more information which might help you

if you're a young parent with a baby,

you might want to hear more about how you spot it and deal with it.

Febrile convulsions, temperature-related fits

in babies who can't control their own temperature,

so how do you recognise that your child is having a fit?

The first to look out for leading up to the fit

is if they're unwell -

they're not feeding, very upset all the time,

or not as responsive as they normally would be.

To actually see a seizure

doesn't always look or appear to be the shaking of the body.

You can see the eyes jerking up and down into the head.

So twitching eyelids and eyes can be...

Exactly, that's an early sign.

That's not to be taken lightly.

With an adult you get throwing about of the limbs.

babies don't do that because they're really small.

They can just have little jerky movements as well,

but that's normally the kind of thing to look for.

Also they can go very floppy, almost lifeless.

It's quite terrifying, isn't it?

Yeah, they can do that

and they won't respond to you.

They have this blank stare, so they're looking through you

or don't even recognise who you are

and are not responding whatsoever.

Let's deal with the information we can give.

If you see that in your child and you're talking to emergency services,

they will try to get the baby's temperature down.

People talk about taking the baby outside into the cold or putting a fan on.

Are they good ideas? No.

That's what they used to do in days gone by,

but these days we realise by doing that

we can make them really cold very quickly

which is the same as if you put a fan on them or open a window.

The cold air hits the body, makes them shiver,

which in turn raises the temperature even more.

Of course, the shivering mechanism is to heat up the body

which is counter-intuitive.

It's a very frightening experience. One of the things that worries people...

You have to calm them down cos they're saying,

"Get an ambulance to me, don't ask me questions,"

but people forget you've already sent an ambulance, right?

Of course, yeah. From the time the call begins,

an ambulance is sent.

Especially with children, regardless.

Even though they may be able to calm that parent down

and start to cool the baby down

by taking layers of clothing off,

they'll still need to do checks on that child,

because we don't know what their temperature is,

what medical history there is of that child, et cetera.

I hope that helps. As a young parent, if you see this, get on the phone straightaway

If they ask you questions, don't worry, they've already sent the ambulance,

it's not taking up any extra time

dealing with the person on the other end.

Despite initial fears that Fred

was suffering from angina,

doctors concluded his pain was a reaction to a new prescription drug.

He has made a full recovery and has not suffered any more chest pains.

The graduate who suffered head injuries after falling

on a beach into rocks is making a good recovery.

George Harris is back at home with girlfriend Gwenno

after the accident near Falmouth.

Gwenno dialled 999

after George was showing all the signs of serious head injury.

He had to be airlifted from the beach

and remembers very little of the day it happened.

I do remember climbing onto rocks and feeling everything was a little

wavy, I felt dizzy and light-headed.

It's something that's never happened to me before - I've never fainted

ever in my life before so I didn't think that was on the cards.

I don't remember the fall at all.

I don't remember slipping, tripping, anything like that.

George was drifting in and out of consciousness

throughout the rescue.

I remember asking if I was going to die

because I didn't have a clue. I could feel my head was just pounding.

My hip was absolutely in agony.

The Royal Navy Air Sea Rescue flew George to the

Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro.

He spent ten hours there undergoing X-rays and brain scans.

Luckily, apart from bruising,

his worst injury was two large gashes on the back of his head.

I had seven staples in the back of my head,

which was actually the most painful part of the whole thing.

I had various bruises down my body.

I remember my hip, I was struggling to walk

for the week or so afterwards, properly.

I had concussion, so I had some migraines after.

George still has the odd dizzy spell

and is undergoing further investigation.

And with the blank spots of his memory now filled in,

he has a message for girlfriend Gwenno.

It was our first holiday together

so I just want to apologise to her for that, really.

I just want to say a massive thank you to her.

She was the one who held my head at the time,

called the ambulance and coastguard

and got it all together, really,

so she was the main one I owe it all to, really.

Make no mistake, the call handlers you see around me

aren't only taking calls,

they're a key part of the emergency response

and are instrumental in saving lives every day.

Quite a job, don't you think? That's it for today on Real Rescues.

See you next time.

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