Episode 18 Real Rescues

Today, on Real Rescues.... I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

A man shatters his rib cage

after helping his neighbour prune a tree.

You can see that this section here is moving in when he breathes.

Roger, is he? Yeah.

A 999 call from a jet-lagged woman.

She's threatening to take drastic action to escape a fire.

And a young Border collie gets her leg trapped.

It's a job for the animal rescue specialists.

DOG WHINES

Hello, and welcome to the world of the emergency services.

This is Real Rescues.

Now, when the most serious accidents happen,

there are emergency doctors trained to carry out procedures on the scene

that once could only happen in a hospital emergency department.

But it only happens in some areas

and it's often thanks to charities

that these specialist doctors are available.

In Peterborough, a team from the emergency medical charity,

Magpas, is responding to a call.

A 74-year-old man has fallen from a stepladder,

injuring his chest so badly that a rapid response driver

has called for backup from the emergency charity.

Magpas doctor Ali Tompkins

and Magpas volunteer paramedic Simon Standen are on their way.

There are lots of things that a chest injury could turn out to be,

from simple things like bruised ribs, which would cause a lot of pain

and discomfort and may compromise breathing,

to severe chest injuries whereby you've got multiple rib fractures

in multiple places.

It's here, it's right here. Sure? Yes! Oh, yes. Oh!

They arrive to find out an ambulance is just ahead of them.

They make their way to the garden. Hello.

It's full of debris from the accident.

Two neighbours had been trimming a tree.

The injured man is in terrible pain.

He does have emphysema,

but normally it's his right side that's the problem.

Good air entry on the right, no air entry on the left.

The fall has left Roger unable to take any breath

into his stronger left lung.

You've fallen from quite a height.

About five foot. No pain in your neck? No.

You haven't knocked your head? No. OK.

No pain in your sternum, not knocked yourself out?

Magpas doctor Ali Tompkins

needs to find out if his lung has collapsed.

HE GROANS Sorry, my darling.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. OK.

Oh, my God!

None on this side whatsoever.

INDISTINCT

Thank you. But clearly very sore, yes?

Yes, very, very sore.

Now she's examined him, Alison and Simon can get on with

administering the most potent pain relief. OK.

I'm just going to have a wee listen here.

I'm going to pop a needle in, give you some pain relief,

make that chest more comfortable. Are you allergic to anything? No.

Oh, pain! I'm allergic to that. Yeah. That's fair enough.

You and every other person in the world, quite appropriately.

The morphine will act very quickly to reduce his pain.

Anything that helps, eh? Absolutely. It's hurting so much.

What size cannula would you like?

Oh, no! Is that me? Oh, no!

No, it's not you, it's me! Oh! It's hurting.

Alison needs to look at the back of his rib cage as well.

She immediately sees signs of a potentially life-threatening injury.

He's got a flail. Has he?

A flail chest means a segment of Roger's rib cage has broken

and become detached from the chest wall. Oh, it's really difficult.

You can see that this section here is moving in when he breathes.

What that means, Roger, is you've broken some ribs.

You've probably collapsed a lung under there.

But what's happened is,

because you've broken a few ribs in a few places,

the bit of ribs...the bit of ribs...

the bit of ribs that are broken are moving the wrong way

when you breathe, which is why you're so breathless. It's hurting a lot.

I know it is.

Dr Ali Tompkins knows just how dangerous this injury is.

A broken rib could pierce his lungs.

What we need to do is get you a bit more comfortable

with some pain relief, all right? Get you into the ambulance...

It's there.

..and make a full assessment,

just make sure you haven't injured your tummy as well.

Roger needs to be taken to a major trauma unit.

It's a 45-minute journey away.

Roger is now depending on his right lung to breathe,

but that's damaged by emphysema.

He's well aware of how much trouble he's in.

Yeah, I know. Fluid.

I know. If that builds up...

That's what we're worried about as well.

Magpas paramedic Simon updates control.

He triggers positive on the major trauma triage tool.

So our plan currently is to reassess him in the back of the ambulance

and we may well have to go direct to Addenbrooke's.

'Roger, thank you.'

Even with the pain relief,

the flail chest makes any move agony for Roger.

But they need to get him onto

their own chair to carry him to the ambulance.

All right, we won't pull you. You stand up in your own time.

You can just shuffle sideways if that will be easier.

HE GROANS

Two seconds, Roger. Good man, OK. Right, Roger, sit down.

Good man. Well done, Roger. OK.

That's all right.

ROGER INDISTINCT

We'll have a really good look at it.

That wouldn't surprise me with that kind of fall.

That's why we need to make... Can you bend this knee, sir?

There's a little metal bar under your foot. Perfect.

Oh, the pain is so terrific! It's like having a heart attack.

Have you had a heart attack? I think I've had three.

All the time, Alison does her best to reassure him.

Now there's another worry -

Roger also has a history of cardiac disease.

The medics are aware this trauma could trigger heart problems.

So far, Roger's crushed chest has been their main concern.

Now he's inside the ambulance, they'll be able to check

for any other serious injuries.

There's no time to waste in getting him to the trauma unit.

ROGER GROANS

Later...it's a painful journey

but the Magpas emergency team, Ali and Simon, stay with Roger,

who may take a turn for the worse.

It's very important that we get on top of his pain, for one thing,

and then monitor him very closely for any deterioration.

They'll have them at the hospital? What? Your medicines?

We've got them. We've got yours, yes. We won't miss any.

It's past midnight at Cheshire Fire and Rescue control centre.

A 999 call has come through from a very frightened woman,

trapped in her house and threatening to take drastic action.

The call is coming from this house near Runcorn.

The smoke is so thick the caller can't tell

whether the fire is upstairs or down.

The call handler needs to find out if she's alone and

if there's any way to prevent more smoke coming into the bedroom.

The call handler needs her to concentrate on keeping herself safe.

The woman tries to shut the bedroom door to keep the smoke out,

but something stops it from moving.

The firefighters are en route, all too aware a life is at risk.

On the way to the incident

I'm obviously thinking about the plan of action when we get there.

We had a message from our control centre

and it automatically makes your ears prick up anyway.

And she said, "We need an estimated time of arrival

"because the lady is still trapped in the property."

But just minutes before the fire crew get to the house,

Karen becomes too terrified to stay inside.

Unbeknown to the call handler, she climbs onto the window ledge.

Later, firefighters recall the intensity of the flames

threatening Karen.

We've been faced with a real hot compartment.

It's full of toxic, hot fire gases and smoke.

The temperatures in this room, at the top of the compartment,

you're probably looking in excess of 1,000 degrees.

The traffic cops are on duty in Milton Keynes.

Their job is to keep the roads safe,

preventing accidents from happening, as well as clearing up afterwards.

PCs Mat Waters and Sam Silk are on patrol

hen they suddenly spot

something falling from the side of a moving van.

They signal the driver to pull over.

The van stops and they think they recognise the van driver.

Are you all right? Yes, the side door just opened, like.

You wait there. I'll go and get it.

Mat disappears off to clear the pallet from the road.

What have you got in there? Pallets.

The driver is Lawrence, a local man.

PC Waters heads back to investigate

why the vehicle has shed part of its load.

That was a bit of a surprise. Look at that!

The open door reveals a van packed to the ceiling.

With so many pallets, Mat is concerned the van is overloaded,

a potential hazard to Lawrence and other drivers.

The chap that we've just stopped

is obviously collecting pallets

and, for whatever reason,

the door slid open and pallets have fallen out onto a live carriageway.

So we're going to pop him back into the weighbridge,

get the vehicle weighed and go from there.

There's a smell of alcohol.

Right.

They'll get those standard tests done right way...

You can't beat a good Transit.

..starting with a weigh-in at the local weighbridge.

It's absolutely rammed full of pallets,

so this is going to be well overweight.

PC Waters is very confident that the van is overloaded.

Yeah, roger that. We're just going to get it weighed now.

But I've got a feeling this is going to be well over.

It might be worth doing a breath test as well,

because the van smelt of alcohol.

PC Sam Silk gets on with the breathalyser

as they wait at weighbridge.

ENGINE DROWNS SPEECH

Lawrence gets the all clear.

But they have to switch drivers before the weigh-in can take place.

Whoever was in that van needs to be driving it. Yeah, he's Lawrence.

Legally, the van owner, Lawrence,

must drive the vehicle onto the weighbridge.

If Mat was at the wheel, he would be liable if the van is overweight.

I bet you, come on.

They can't resist speculating about the results.

I reckon you're going to be over as well. Nah. How much? No way!

Honestly, Lawrence, that'll be over. A packet of Skips.

Seriously, you really think I'm going to be over? We both do.

Why wasn't you wearing your seat belt?

So Mat is chancing a bag of crisps on the outcome.

Did you slide out of it?

Ah. Busted!

What do we do with you? Insecure load or seat belt?

I'm having a hard enough time. MAT LAUGHS

The results are in. So who's won the wager? A packet of crisps.

It's fine.

Sgt Chris Appleby is going to reveal all.

I owe him a bag of crisps!

Mind how you go. He needs to get that one, though, that one pallet.

To put him over? We've got to go and help him now.

You won the bet. Thanks!

So Mat is down a bag of crisps.

The van is within the legal weight limit.

But as part of the routine weighbridge test,

the vehicle has to be checked over by VOSA,

the agency that enforces roadworthiness.

Lawrence is clearly a good judge of weight

Is this chap all in order?

But VOSA have noticed a few things that need attention

on the vehicle - a loose tow bolt.

A stop light is also not working.

And losing the pallet seems to be caused by a broken door handle.

He's given a ticket by VOSA.

Basically, it means you're going to need to get the door handle fixed

within a certain amount of time.

But this chap here is going to be...

No. I'll get it done today.

So the van's problems were not quite as Mat had predicted.

However, he's hoping to get away without paying up on that wager.

I owe him a bag of crisps.

Which he hasn't mentioned yet, so I might just keep quiet.

Even the most experienced officers get caught out.

You're going to need to get your tyres sorted soon.

Yeah, there's still a little bit left on them. Not much, though.

As a goodwill gesture, Mat and Sam are going to retrieve the pallet.

You hang on here. We'll go and get your pallet.

Yeah, we'll go and get his pallet.

and then we can drop it off there and he can...

Yeah. At least he'll be safe then, won't he?

Right, we'll go get it. Cheers.

But Mat still can't believe he's lost out

in the "guess the weight" competition.

Still to come on Real Rescues...

The animal rescue team is called in after Star the dog

gets a leg trapped in a metal trolley.

And ambulance crews head to a roundabout.

A man has suffered a massive stroke in his car.

OK, just lay down, darling.

With a bit of luck we can interrupt Richard,

who is on the other side of the desk here and find out about

some of the colourful language they have to deal with on calls.

Are we able to interrupt you, Richard? Yup. Jolly good.

So, the language isn't always choice when people call in? No.

The very nature of calling in 909, it's an emergency

and fairly stressful, and so people don't tend to be at their best,

and having a bit of a panic, so, yes, sometimes the language gets...

Tell us about the time you had to deliver a baby

when the language was quite fruity.

Yeah, this lady was having a second baby, I believe,

and lived in a rural town right on the edge of Dorset,

and had gone into labour a little bit quicker than they were expecting.

Husband called it in.

Basically, the baby's coming

and there is no time to get her into hospital.

We've got a response car going from one side of Dorset,

which is right on the border.

We've got an ambulance coming from the other side, in Wiltshire.

But being in a rural town, it took about 20 minutes to get there

and the baby wasn't waiting for anyone.

She was in a lot of pain and her language was getting more and more...

unsavoury

the longer she was having to wait for these ambulances to turn up.

And what happened? Was the baby born? Did Dad help?

Yes, he did.

I was giving instructions over the phone. The baby came out.

Dad was doing a fantastic job.

Um, but there was a rather

chilling moment just after the baby was born,

when there was no noise.

Normally they come out and they cry

and there's a fantastic sense of relief.

This was just quiet, which, from my point of view,

is a bit of a danger sign.

Yeah.

I was asking about what happened.

The mother is in the background still being quite vocal.

And father explained that...

he could see the baby was trying to breathe, but it couldn't.

So I asked a few more questions,

I found out what was going on.

Basically, the baby's mouth and throat was full of fluid

from when it had just been born.

So what we had to do was a form of CPR, a sort of infant CPR,

just to try and get that fluid out of the way,

just to try and get the baby breathing.

So I gave the father the instructions over the phone.

And? He followed them to the letter.

He was, considering all the chaos that was going on, and the baby,

he was absolutely brilliant. But did the baby survive? Yes, it did.

We worked on it. He did the breaths.

We worked on it more and eventually there was that magic moment

when you can hear the baby crying and gurgling in the background.

Fantastic. And you got a sort of apology in a card a few days later.

Um, I did. A card arrived. Very grateful parents.

Apparently, by the time they'd gone to the hospital

baby was a fantastic pink colour. Everything was wonderful.

Included an apology to the chap on the phone

for the terrible language that she'd been using.

And, yeah, it was a lovely card and it was nice to have a thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think if I was actually giving birth,

some of my language would be choice as well.

So I think we can forgive her on this occasion.

Thanks very much. Richard.

Oh! Oh, my God!

An emergency medical team from the Magpas charity is preparing to

take a seriously injured man to the nearest major trauma centre.

Roger has fallen from a ladder

and suffered multiple rib fractures.

His rib cage is unstable and one lung has collapsed.

Can you wiggle your toes? Marvellous.

Let's have a good look at this.

Now...

Magpas doctor Ali Tompkins

is now checking for any other significant injury.

How is that bony bit? That's all right?

Excuse me being a little bit personal, my dear.

How is that bony bit in there?

OK. Can you bend your knee?

She's concerned he may have broken a hip as well.

I think you may have been lucky to get away with bruising to the hip.

Roger's also complaining of stomach pain. Oh...

Sorry.

It's just tender, not the same.

It's not a broken rib that I'm pressing on? No.

We'll check out your belly when we get to hospital,

but, at the moment,

I think if we lie you down you'll struggle with your breathing and...

No, I don't want you to do that either.

It's the flail chest which is the most dangerous injury.

Roger will have to travel propped up throughout the 45-minute journey.

Magpas doctor Ali Tompkins will monitor him all the way.

When you breathe,

it moves the wrong way with respiration,

so it compresses the lung underneath

and it compromises the respiratory efficiency that most of us have.

So it's very important that we get on top of his pain, for one thing,

and then monitor him very closely for any deterioration.

At the moment I think it's predominantly pain,

but obviously he can get pain relief better at the hospital.

They might give him a button to press.

They might do something called an epidural, which can block

the level of the injury, which can help him to breathe better.

And they may well offer him physiotherapy to help with that.

But we'll keep a close eye on him in the ambulance

and take him to the major trauma centre,

which is Addenbrooke's Hospital.

Roger also has a history of heart disease.

The pain from his fractured ribs could mask anything

going on with his heart.

He will remain connected to the ECG machine

as the ambulance heads to Addenbrooke's.

The risk of deterioration in Roger

in a very rapid time frame was

a very real concern.

They drive off as smoothly as they can.

Inside, the team works hard to keep Roger as comfortable as possible.

Two hours later, at Addenbrooke's, Magpas doctor Dr Ali Tompkins

can check Roger's X-rays - but they confirm the diagnosis.

Part of his chest is moving the wrong way

and those sharp edges of bone

have caused injury to his underlying lung

and he's got something called an pneumothorax, which is

where air collects around the lung,

so all of this space is air that shouldn't be there.

You can also see he's got three...

certainly two definite rib fractures there, on the posterior ribs,

these are the ribs at the back.

And the other rib fractures that we were talking about maybe here,

may be hidden under this white section here.

But all of this air needs to be drained away with a chest drain,

and that's what they're doing in the hospital just now to get him

more comfortable -

to drain that air and hopefully to improve the effort of his briefing.

At hospital, Roger is treated in intensive care.

His collapsed lung is being drained.

It's just a matter of waiting to see if the lung reinflates.

Later, Roger recalls his long road to recovery.

Fire and rescue animal specialist Buster Brown is heading to

a house in Farnham.

A pet dog has trapped a leg.

The owners have tried but failed to free it.

In the garden he finds 10-month-old Border collie Star.

She's got a leg wedged between two bars of a folding trolley.

The metal has pierced her skin.

Good girl! Buster is having to muzzle Star with a bandage.

It's only for your benefit.

In her fear and pain, she has already nipped

a well-meaning neighbour.

Stop your biting.

That's pretty! Not.

It was a very delicate operation in as much as

we didn't want to cut the dog,

we didn't want to damage its leg any further,

or cause any bruising to the joint

because it was the joint part of the leg

that was actually trapped on the metalwork

Now it's safe for vet Sorrel Proctor to give Star a strong sedative.

How long does that take to act?

Ten minutes. OK. We'll leave her quiet.

'There's no way we could've rescued this dog without causing it'

further injury -

ie, it would have struggled, or it would have panicked

and bitten the rescuer - without the sedation from the vet.

'Once that was done,

'a towel was placed over the dog's head to keep it nice and calm.

'Generally, if they're darkened down a little bit,

'and can't see what is going on,'

the animal relaxes a wee bit more.

Right. OK.

As the sedation begins to take effect,

vet Sorrel makes Star more comfortable.

Good girl.

She monitors the Border collie's heart to check the drug's progress.

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

Buster's first thought had been to cut the trolley's metalwork with

a hacksaw but Star's paw is so stuck tightly wedged,

it's lost circulation and is now cold to touch.

They need to get her free quickly.

'The vet suggested that we use some heavy cutters, if available.'

And I then called the local fire service, who happened to be Surrey -

they were the nearest fire station to where this incident occurred -

and a crew turned out and we used the dedicated cutters.

The hydraulic cutters are more commonly used to cut

the door pillars of crushed cars to release passengers.

They make short work of the sack trolley.

But this is precision work.

STAR WHINES AND SQUEALS

All right. All right. And Star's still not free.

Good girl.

Must be about 40 minutes.

That's lovely. That's great.

The final piece of metal trapping Star is so close to her leg,

the rescue workers are going to use a hacksaw.

But it's solid metal and takes some time.

There you go.

OK?

INDISTINCT

At last, the leg is free.

Star will go to the vet's to find out the full extent of her injury.

Come on, girl.

What's interesting to me about the difference between 111 calls

and 999 is it depends on the person calling,

whether they think it's an emergency or not.

And different people have very different views of what's urgent

and what isn't.

For example, Vicky had a call from a professional-sounding gentleman.

Yeah, a very elderly gentleman.

The symptoms he mentioned right at the beginning of the call

sounded like urgent symptoms, chest pain.

Had previous heart problems.

And straightaway we need to get into the questions that are going to

decide whether we're going to need to get him

an ambulance straightaway. OK.

So, he sounded well educated and knew what he was talking about?

He did, yes. But he wanted to add too much information.

What we need to do right at the beginning, is get there

very quickly to establish whether it's an urgent call or not.

After that, we could maybe slow down a little bit.

At the beginning, we need to make sure straightaway,

and he wanted to add lots of extra information, which means

we've got to try and focus him and get what we want from him

so we can sort out what he needs.

Interestingly, he had a little spray that he was supposed to use

but didn't have it with him. So, what was that?

He had a GTN spray because he'd had previous heart attacks. GTN is...?

It's just a spray for... It's a spray you use.

When he got the pains similar to the heart-attack pain

he'd had before, he would have used it to see if it eased the pain.

Those were the instructions he should have been given. Right.

And it's really something he should have with him

all the time, or know where it is, or keep it in date,

but people tend to forget that.

So, did he want to go wandering off and try and find it? Yes.

Once we'd called the ambulance for him, we wanted to give him

further advice on what to do whilst waiting for the ambulance.

He wanted to go off and try and find the spray

but that could have taken him too long.

We wanted to keep him on the phone.

He could have gone up and downstairs - not a good idea

when he's suffering from heart pain, I suppose.

Do you think a little knowledge is a dangerous thing

in terms of people self-diagnosing and telling you? Sometimes.

I think especially with the elderly -

they don't realise how serious some things are.

They don't want to bother us - that's why they call 111.

They haven't called 999

but in some of those cases, 999 is what they need.

If we can control the call, which we teach our call advisers to do,

we can quickly get them to the right place and time isn't wasted.

If you're dealing with a professional,

who is used to being in charge, you still have to take control of

that situation rather than have them dictate it to you.

Yes. He wanted to go off and make toast, didn't he?

He did. We give them a list of instructions for when they're

waiting for the ambulance. Just the straightforward things.

Put the lights on. Put the pets away.

Don't have anything to eat or drink

because that can cause difficulties for the crew when they arrive.

Of course. It's not just that you don't want him wandering around

making toast. If he needs to have an operation,

then eating now would be a bad thing.

Yes.

We need to just tell him exactly what to do whilst he's waiting

for an ambulance, till the crew take over and deal with him then.

And did you get control of him until the crew arrived, in the end?

Yes, we did. Everything was fine.

Maybe we should take it seriously. If you think you know

a little bit about what's wrong with you, listen to the call taker -

they probably know best. Thank you very much.

At Cheshire Fire and Rescue control centre,

call handler Wayne is on a 999 call to a woman threatening to jump

from the first floor of her burning house.

All the time, he's updating Karen about the fire crew's progress.

We pulled into the close where the lady lived,

and I immediately got out of the fire appliance and ran to the property.

She was actually hanging out of a first-floor bedroom window.

It's a 15-foot drop from the window ledge.

There's still a chance she will jump and suffer serious injuries.

I could see that Karen was kind of maybe even edging herself more

towards the window ledge when she saw me.

And maybe the fact that when she saw me she thought, "Right this is

"my chance, I'm safe now. I'm going to jump," kind of thing.

At control, Wayne's work is far from over.

He has to keep telling her to wait to be rescued.

Karen and her dog will soon be safe,

but the fire is still raging through her home.

A second crew moves in to tackle the flames.

We've made entry to the property through the back door

and been faced with a real hot compartment.

It's full of toxic, hot, fire, gases and smoke.

Temperatures in this room, the top of the compartment,

you're probably looking at in excess of 1,000 degrees.

The doorframes have melted,

a lot of the kitchen worktops have delaminated,

the rear windows have crazed and cracked due to the intense heat.

And also, the rear doorframe has badly melted and distorted.

If we were to introduce oxygen into here, that could cause an explosion.

It took under an hour to put the fire out.

Two months on, the damage is still clear.

Fire crews believe the fire was burning for 30 minutes

before Karen was woken by her dog barking.

It started in the dishwasher.

Luckily the house had fire doors

and Karen had closed the kitchen door.

The fact that the door has been closed at this time

has just given Karen just enough time to get herself out.

Now, if a smoke detector had been fitted in this room, it would

have activated in a fire like this in well under a minute, which,

of course, would give a vast amount more time to get herself out safely.

It's going to be another four months before Karen, her daughter

and her dog will be able to move back into their home.

The fire happened the night Karen returned from holiday.

She was jet-lagged

and didn't follow her usual routine before going to bed.

I'm sort of the type of person

that will go around the house

switching every socket off.

I'm really conscious, you know, about, sort of like, fires.

I put the dishwasher on, it was about 9:30,

I went to bed about 10:30

There was NO smoke alarm and it was thanks to her dog that she woke.

About 12:30 I woke up.

There was sort of like banging and explosions.

So I jumped up and I thought, "God, why is it so hot?"

And then I thought, "Why can't I see?"

Cos I was a bit sort of disorientated.

This was a very narrow escape.

I think Karen is INCREDIBLY lucky to be alive. I really do.

I've been in the fire service now for 11 years

and I've seen a lot of really serious house fires.

I can't think of an instance

where someone hasn't had smoke detectors fitted

and they've managed to tell the story at the end of it.

I definitely feel there was

a guardian angel looking after me that night.

SIREN WAILS

..311.

Ambulance technician Tracy Cambell is working alone

in the rapid response car.

It's lunchtime when she's radioed by ambulance control.

RADIO INDISTINCT

Thank you.

There's an emergency at a roundabout.

It's happening inside a car.

SIREN WAILS

The priority with any stroke victim is hospital treatment fast.

It will dramatically affect long-term recovery.

An ambulance has arrived a few minutes ahead of her.

He's a bit delirious. The driver is slumped at the wheel.

Ambulance technician Lynn Northover brings Tracy up to date.

Left-side paralysis. OK.

Confusion. Brilliant. Cool.

My name's Lynn. My colleague's name is Tracy. Hello, my darling.

My other colleague's Chris, OK? Yeah

Is his handbrake on?

Lynn and Tracy know exactly what these symptoms mean.

'The patient was'

leant forward in the car.

It was obvious that he had a left-sided weakness.

'He had facial droop

'and he did say that he couldn't move the left side of his body.'

'He'd had a massive stroke.'

It's the extent of the paralysis that tells the crew just how

serious this stroke is but they don't know exactly when it happened.

The quicker he gets the hospital, the better his chances.

But getting him out of the car, when he can only move one leg

and arm, is far from straightforward.

But it's what they're trained for.

With the help of emergency care assistant Chris,

they're going to slide him onto the stretcher.

Put his legs on and slide him down.

TRACY: Give us your hand, darling.

Just watch. Oh...

Let go. Just lay down, darling.

Just relax, sweetie.

Well done.

Well done, sweetie.

He's got a dog in the back. Will we be able to sort that?

With the help of the police as well, they get the man on the stretcher.

The traffic police can now deal with the car and its back-seat passenger.

It turns out the driver was just on his way home

after walking the dog with a friend.

In the ambulance he's being given oxygen,

as Tracy puts the hospital stroke team on stand-by.

Yeah, course I will.

What they'll do is they'll call the stroke team down.

They need to send details of the man's blood pressure.

But it's proving difficult.

Arm still, arm still.

Keep it nice and steady. I know it's tight, darling...

Doing a blood pressure on somebody that's had a stroke

is quite hard to do.

Sorry, my darling.

They're scared. We try to explain to them that you need them

to keep their arm straight.

It-it just doesn't register with them.

You ever had a stroke before, sweetie?

MAN: No.

No, what medical history do you have, poppet?

Hi, can you hear me?

Right, we're en route to you with a gentleman, left-sided CVA...

Tracy is relaying all the information

to the stroke team at the hospital,

as the ambulance crew prepares their patient for the journey.

OK, ETA's going to be about seven minutes.

Yeah, OK.

At the moment, all we've got is SATs of 98 and pulse of 88.

The man's blood pressure is extremely high,

as they would expect from a patient suffering a stroke.

Blood pressure is 138/147.

GCS is 14.

15.

Yeah, the whole of the left side, yeah.

OK, thank you, cheers, bye.

Take him straight into Resus.

The ambulance is now ready to leave.

It turns out the alarm was raised by another driver,

who's trained as a first aider.

I knocked on the window first,

but he just wasn't responding at all.

So I didn't think that was normal behaviour.

I put two and two together

and thought I could see that he was having a stroke.

So, I thought the best thing to do was ring the ambulance service.

And hopefully he'll be all right.

The driver is now in the hands of the stroke team

at Southampton General Hospital.

We'll be finding out more later.

Roger has now largely recovered from his very serious injuries

after falling from a ladder in his garden.

He suffered multiple fractures in ten ribs and a collapsed lung.

He was in intensive care for ten days

and he still gets pains in his chest.

Roger recalls how a simple job helping out his neighbour

led to the terrible injuries.

I went and got the steps.

I climbed up, held a branch over his side of the fence...

It was sawn through and as it was getting near the end, it cracked,

and swung round and knocked me off the steps.

Although he only fell down a few steps, the effects were devastating.

He suffered a flail chest.

A section of his ribcage breaking away and the left lung collapsed.

He already had a history of emphysema in his other lung.

These injuries are very severe in normal circumstances

and can rapidly become life-threatening.

In Roger's case...

..the underlying presence of disease made the chances

of his injury becoming worse, quicker...

all the more real.

As well as the chest injuries, Roger also dislocated his left shoulder

and fractured the orbital bone around his eye.

He knows he's lucky to be alive.

I'm delighted that I can continue...

physically active and mentally quite sharp still.

And I've still got...

..this urge to do more. I really have.

The Border collie puppy, who ended up getting trapped

in a wire trolley after a run in the garden, is recovering well.

At the vet's, x-rays revealed Star had not broken her leg.

She did, however, suffer a deep cut,

which needed staples to fix the wound.

Star is now living up to her name.

Although her accident has delayed agility training,

she's back on track and her specialism is playing flyball.

It took her quite a while to get confident at it,

but she's qualified for Crufts, with the junior team,

with my daughter.

And she's also worked her way up to our top team,

which are quite successful.

The driver who collapsed at the wheel suffering a stroke

underwent seven hours of surgery at hospital.

He's now working hard with the physiotherapist and doing well,

thanks to the support of his family and the medical teams.

You remember earlier I was talking to Richard

about the lady with the fruity language?

He's on a call at the moment,

so we can't interrupt him, but he did have the card with him.

He didn't want to make a big deal of it.

I've just read the letter that's along with it

and I thought I'd share some of it with you.

"To the man on the control desk, thank you so much for everything.

"Thanks for talking my husband through the delivery.

"It kept him calm and focused, and thank you for talking us through

"getting our baby to breathe.

"We couldn't have done that without you.

"Thank you also for keeping calm and putting up with me screaming at you.

"I'm so sorry for that, I was just very frightened -

"I really thought we may lose her.

"But thanks to all of you and the midwife and all at the hospital,

"she's doing really well and a picture of health."

That's what they do here.

Isn't that fantastic?

That's it for today's Real Rescues, see you next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd