Episode 19 Real Rescues

Welcome to Real Rescues, going behind the scenes with all of our

emergency services. The cyclist is so agitated, the

medics put her in an induced coma on the roadside. A major rescue

operation to save 30 people. After a tall ship hits rocks of Co Cork.

We went into the rocks and there was over four metres inside of her.

Firefighters battled to save a family home. Every effort is made to

save Russia's hats and possessions. -- precious pets.

Welcome to Real Rescues, going behind the scenes with all of our

emergency services. Every day of the year, around 85,000 people in need

of desperate help dial 999 in Britain. Those calls are connected

to state-of-the-art centres like this. The staff in here know that

when lives may be at stake, it is vital no time is lost.

The Air Ambulance has been scrambled by the Emergency Desk at Control. It

is heading East to a small town near Portsmouth. The cyclist is

critically injured after a collision on the road. On board, paramedic Pat

Andrews and Dr Liz Shewry. The medics are already planning

ahead. The nearest neurological trauma unit is Southampton General.

They get their first sight of the accident. It looks like the cyclist

collided with a lorry. Priority now is finding a suitable place to land.

The road has been blocked off to traffic. Making it safe for the

emergency rescue crews. As soon as they are on scene, Pat and Liz are

brought up to date by the ambulance crew. The injured woman is showing

all the signs of a very serious head injury.

She has wounds on the side and back of her head.

The cyclist is in extreme pain, the paramedics cannot keep her still on

the board, she has already tried to get up.

The bike is still in one piece, it looks like the cyclist has been

thrown off after the collision. There has been a collision with an

articulated lorry. She has some serious head injuries and is very

unaware of what has happened to her. At this stage, we do not know how

serious the injuries are or where it is going to go from here. What we

know is her name is Cheryl. Liz tries asking her if she

remembers anything. Cheryl is now secured on a rigid

long board which will prevent any further injuries.

But her levels of agitation keep fluctuating. She needs to get to

hospital as quickly as possible, but it could be too dangerous by air.

Before they make a decision, Dr Shewry needs to examine her patient

more closely to check her breathing and for any other signs. Well done,

Cheryl, you are doing really well. All the time, Steve continues to

reassure Cheryl. The road is still closed, they

update the police. Have a look at her and make a

decision. And find out what the score is, yes?

Yes. OK. I have got your head, Cheryl. It is

Steve again, OK? I am going to hold your head.

The priority now is pain relief. Steve has noticed another injury to

her head. As Liz organises the injections,

Steve continues to chat to Cheryl, trying to distract her from the

pain. OK, what's my name? It's Steve. Do

you remember? Steve, yes. Help! It hurts!

We are getting you some painkillers now.

As well as reducing the pain, Dr Liz is hoping the drugs will also calm

Cheryl, Making it safe to take her by air to hospital.

You have had a bit of a bump on your bike, OK?

Liz continues her examination, as paramedic Claire McKenna prepares

the morphine. You are going to be fine. Please

don't hold this. Listen, listen. She was in a lot of pain from her

left arm, her left chest, so we gave her some morphine and paracetamol to

see if that would help and whether she would become less agitated with

that. We gave her some time for that to work, but she seemed more

agitated. They need to work out if Cheryl's

agitation is caused by pain or something more serious going on

inside her brain. Dr Shewry has noticed a worrying symptom, Cheryl's

pupils are different sizes. Did you ever have problems with your

eyes before, Cheryl? No! Please, stop the pain!

This can be a symptom of bleeding on the brain. This is a neurological

emergency, they have to make a decision about which hospital and

the quickest way to get there. The only option now is calming

Cheryl by putting her into an induced coma.

Cheryl's symptoms leave the air medics with no choice.

When we looked at her pupils, it is one of the signs we look at. We

began to be unsure whether they were the same size, and that often is a

sign of a head injury, rather than the sign of someone who is just in

pain. Later: the hospital comes to the

roadside. Cheryl is anaesthetised. Milton Keynes, 8pm, traffic cops

Russ Irwin and Steve are heading to the A5. The main North-South

arterial route. We've been called to a traffic

incident. We've got a report that a BMW has left the road joining the

slip road of the dual carriageway and collided with a lamp post. The

person that has called it in has said that three males have run from

the car. They arrive to find two cars on the

slip road leading to the main carriageway. One of them has

nosedived into the hedge and has serious damage to the front. The

driver of the other car saw it all happen and tried to record it.

I had my video phone, but was on the phone to the police at the same

time. There were at least three, possibly four.

Paul tells police how the crashed car originally overtook him and then

just slammed on its brakes in front of him. Paul avoided the car and

then, in his rear-view mirrors, saw it come off the road.

He put his foot down, skewed off straight over to the grass, slammed

into the laphost. As it fell, the lamp post crushed the roof and

dented the boot, before the car ended up in the hedge. Amazingly,

the driver and passengers all walked, or rather ran, away. I went

back to make sure they were all right but, by this time, they were

off, up the hill. Lucky for them, modern lamposts are more forgiving

than the old concrete variety, or they wouldn't have got off so

lightly. Some of the crash might have been

caught on the nearest CCTV camera. Hello, I'm at your roundabout, where

is your camera facing today? But he is out of luck. Isn't that

always the way? There is a CCTV camera covering the roundabout,

which is the only one off-line at the moment, so no help there!

Thankfully the lamp post ended up on the grass verge. If it had fallen

across the road, this could have been a very different story. The

bits are all... All live there so the council will come out and they

will deactivate that post and make it safe so no-one can get caught out

by it. But it is up to the traffic cops to deal with the crashed car.

It is displaying a tax disc belonging to a different car

altogether. And when Russ checks the chassis number it does not tally

with the registration plate. We found this tax disc which is

displayed in the vehicle. It comes back to a completely different

registration and it is a Ford Fiesta van anyway. The registration plate

of the crashed car has been copied from a similar BMW. This is a stolen

motor vehicle, stolen in May of this year from Staffordshire so it has

got false number plates on it and that has been confirmed through the

vehicle identity number. My suspicion was raised when I saw the

numberplate back up the road which was being held on by a double-sided

sticky tape. The thieves are long gone by now. The police will alert

local hospitals just in case they turn up for treatment. And they will

check other CCTV in the area for any signs of them. The stolen BMW is

beyond repair. It just needs to be cleared off the road. As night

falls, Russ prepares himself for one of those shifts. Oh, it is just one

of those very strange occurrences that you can guarantee on the night

of a full moon. The number of jobs we get sent to increases. People act

even more stupid than normal. It's just something that you could put

money on, that a full moon is always going to be a busy night.

Still to come on Real Rescues: A tall ship hits rocks off the coast

of County Cork. On board and in danger, 30 trainees sailors and

crew. And at the roadside, the air medics prepared to put injured

cyclist Cheryl into an induced coma. Call takers here at the South

Western Ambulance Centre are 111, 999, doesn't matter which, have to

be detectives to a certain extent because things aren't always what

they seem when callers come in with information. You had a call from

someone who thought they had bad toothache? Yes, we get a lot of

dental calls, we really do. We deal with the Dorset Dental Service. This

gentleman had a toothache but when we take him through the questions we

need to ask, because people over a certain age, we will check whether

their dental pain is radiating to anywhere else around, you know, to

their chest, to their jaw, anything else. If it comes up as a positive

answer there we will look into it further. Why? He thought he had an

abscess. He knew he had an abscess he was having trouble with and

assumed the pain was dental because of the abscess. Yes, but the pain he

had was radiating away from there which can be the early signs of

heart problems, having a heart attack. We always have to

investigate that further. And in that is what it turned out to be.

Yes, it did. Because it is not usual we have to check. We refer it to a

clinician to give further advice. They did that, felt the man needed

an ambulance and when the crew got there he was having a heart attack.

The other thing that is a surprise is I did not know that teeth

problems or dental problems, people call in with those. We get a huge

amount of calls from people with dental pain. A lot of people are not

registered with dentists. We have details of the emergency dental

service in Dorset, which is actually a very good service. It varies

around different parts of the country but the Dorset dental

service, we can get people booked into in the majority of cases if

they have not got their own dentist. Having had really bad tooth pain, it

drives you mad and you desperately need some relief. And we need to

deal with a lot of patients who are in an awful lot of pain and not

happy. All right, smashing, thank you very much. Very interesting.

In a village near East Grinstead in Sussex, firefighters are battling to

save a family home. The blaze has already taken hold when it was

spotted. The owners have managed to escape unhurt, but within 15 minute,

the flames filled the entire roof space. To make matters worse, the

first-floor rooms are all built in the roof. It is making it difficult

to get on top of the fire. It was a construction which involved having

bedrooms and rooms in the roof space. That creates an issue for us

because that creates voids around the bedrooms where the fire can

travel and go undetected. And also once we had detected it, it is

difficult to get access to it to put it out. It is just too dangerous to

put men on the first floor inside the roof, so all their efforts are

being concentrated on pouring water on to the roof. As high-powered jets

are trained on the roof, firefighters going on the ground

floor to check gas and electrics, as well as saving precious belongings

and pets. We have been made aware by the occupier that two of her rabbits

were in the area just know the fire. Crews were made aware of this at an

early stage and they were removed to safety. Both pet rabbits are smudged

with soot but are otherwise unharmed. Firefighters are being

called in from other stations as back-up. It's a difficult job. They

have to remove tiles to get water onto the fire, but that also fans

the flames. It is a balance because when you remove the tiles you are

opening up the area for more oxygen to go in. That could potentially

feed the fire. But we need to make that access so we can put water onto

the fire to extinguish it. The teams work in relays using breathing

apparatus. But the fire keeps breaking out in different rooms. The

firefighters are working from ladders to attack the fire from

above, but the flames keep bursting through again and again. They need

more water but they can't get the big aerial platform anywhere near

the house. The alternative is more crews and more appliances. 16 fire

engines and 50 firefighters are now at the scene. On top of that, it is

starting to break through into the ground-floor as well. Threatening to

engulf the entire house. They have been pouring water on to the flames

for almost an hour. Firefighters are surrounding the house, working from

the back and the front. They are running out of water. But they have

a lucky break. The water supply we had from the hydrant was not enough

to deal with the job that we needed. Luckily, the occupiers had a

swimming pool at the back and so we used the water from the swimming

pool to feed the hose reels so that helped us out a lot. It is 90 minute

before the flames are finally put out but the firefighters' work is

not over. There is still a danger the timbers could reignite at any

time. Now it is safe for the fire crews to move inside the roof space.

They need to open it up and cut away the burned timbers. There is a

landslide of tiles as they work quickly before the fire can start up

again. It is four hours before they can issue the stop message. The fire

is finally out. All the burnt and smouldering wood has been cut away.

The following day, the crews return. We stayed for another two to three

hours, maybe more, and we did some more salvage. We took some stuff out

for the occupiers, all the time monitoring the progress of the

debris, to see if there are any signs of fire. Only when we are

convinced it will not go any further then we close the incident. A

different time of day and things could have been far worse. Had this

have happened in the evening, it could have been a different story

with the fire allowed to develop undetected as there was no fire

detection up in the roof space as well.

This is Peter who is coming up for retirement after 40 years' service

with South Western Ambulance, before it was South Western Ambulance. Who

did you start out with? I started with Hampshire Ambulance Service in

1973. We moved into Dorset in 1974 and then South Western Ambulance

service in 2006. I thought it would be a good opportunity to look back

over 40 years of service at the differences and how it has changed

over those 40 years. What you think the main differences are? A whole

range of things. The vehicles we drive are much better equipped, more

modern. My first ambulance that I drove had a bell on it. Right. And

what was in it? Very basic. A stretcher and a few pieces of

resuscitation equipment, blankets and that was about it. We carried

chairs and stuff like that. Nowadays there is a whole range of equipment,

defibrillators and stuff like that. And is that ambulance that turns up

today, more well-equipped than say a hospital was when you first started

out because there is so much that you carry? I would say so in some

areas, certainly, yes. The equipment they carry now is far more extensive

than the equipment I had when I was operational. Our paramedics are

trained to a much higher level and to a much greater degree now than I

was when I first started in the service. And the personnel itself.

How does the training compare when you started to how they are now? We

did six weeks at training college and that was it and you're

operational at that point. It is a university degree to become a

paramedic nowadays. It's three years at university just to become a

paramedic. And we are in a communications hub here, how

different is communications from when you first started? Well,

hugely, when I first moved to the hub environment in 1982, we just had

telephones effectively and a VHF radio. Now, we've got data,

automatic vehicle location, the call advisory to give advice to the crew

and ambulance. In the old days, we used to tell the caller that the

ambulance was on its way and that was the end of it. So much more

interactive? Very much so. We are the first point of contact with the

general public and are very qualified and willing to give

advice. Have you enjoyed it all? I've loved it. Really? Really. No

doubts? Nothing bad over the years, no changes that have been difficult?

Well, there's always change, but I have a very positive outlook on life

and I've enjoyed my career. I can honestly say that there is never a

day when I haven't wanted to come to work. It's an extraordinary thing to

be able to say. One of the things that strikes me is that

occasionally, ambulance crews come under attack. They do, occasionally,

yes. Now and again. It's very occasionally and it's not every day

of the week. Do you think it's more now than when you first started?

Yes. Because of a change of attitude? I think so, yes, and drink

and drugs have a part to play in that, I am sure. And I think society

has changed as well. Do you think? Yes, the emergency services are not

held in the same regard as they were 20, 30 years ago. Which is

extraordinary,why would you want to attack the people that are trying to

help you? And we hear this from the Fire Service as well, which is kind

of weird. So looking back, you wouldn't have changed anything? No,

I wouldn't. I've loved what I've done. You'll be bored, won't you,

when you retire? No, certainly not! No, I have a lot of hobbies and

interests. We are caravanners so we will spend time in our caravan. And

my two sons have just got married and bought a home. You'll be helping

them do their houses up! I am, yes! Well, a fantastic and interesting

career, when you add up the number of people that you've helped in your

life. I mean, massive, a fantastic achievement. And good luck with your

retirement. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you.

Guys, if you could come down here. A busy road is about to become a

makeshift trauma unit. Back a little bit. About there. A woman cyclist

has been critically injured. Cheryl has been given pain relief in an

ambulance, but she is still agitated. The signs are she could

have damage to the brain, as well as serious injuries to her chest and

school. Air medic Dr Shewry puts her under anaestheticnow on the

roadside, so she can be flown to a neurological unit at Southampton.

We will give you some medicine to make you feel really relaxed in a

minute. Liz works as a hospital anaesthetist, but these are very

different circumstances. 15 mls of that. Right. She has had

ten of morphine... OK. So when it comes to it, I think 15 is about

right. Steve has been reassuring Cheryl

throughout. First, Liz needs to give extra oxygen.

The chest injury means she is not breathing properly.

When we give someone an aesthetic, we actually stop them breathing for

themselves. We need a good period of time with enough oxygen before we

can breathe safely for them. The injuries are also making it

difficult for Cheryl to understand what's happening.

Trust us. The bright sunlight is making things

difficult. I can't see the monitor at all.

They are using blankets to shield them.

Drop all that, that's fine. Liz and Pat work closely with

ambulance paramedic Claire McKenna. Relax, relax, relax, relax.

Cheryl's SATS, or oxygen saturation levels, need to be higher. They need

to press on. Paramedic Claire prepares to give Cheryl the

painkiller. Hold on a second. Flush it in. A big

breath for me, Cheryl. Next, they give her the anaesthetic,

effectively paralysing her. Liz has just a few seconds to take

over Cheryl's breathing. A small hollow tube is used to insert a

breathing tube into Cheryl's windpipe. It is the most critical

part of the procedure. Got it? I have. The Tube is out. We

will do a BP. OK, suction. SATs are 97 still. Are you happy the suction

can go off? I am happy the suction can go off, thank you.

Cheryl is now under anaesthetic, her oxygen levels are good, she is

breathing via a ventilator. She is now asleep, like an intensive

care patient would be. We are keeping her asleep, we are breathing

for her, providing her with oxygen. Then we have to think about getting

her to the hospital as soon as possible.

Air Ambulance pilot Stuart radios ahead to the hospital helipad. At

last, Cheryl's induced coma makes it safe for the airlift, and also

reduces the brain's need for oxygen, stopping any increase in swelling.

The teamwork has to be carefully choreographed. The ventilator has to

be operating manually as they load the structure. I will do the bag.

Somebody has got the tubes? Ready, steady, lift!

Watch the right elbow. The ventilator is now connected up to

the aircraft. As soon as she is on board, Dr Shewry contacts the

clinical team at Southampton. We are coming in by air, we will be

ten minutes. It is a Level One call, for more seriously injured patients,

where we have the whole hospital response. So we expect an

anaesthetist there to take over my role, surgeons, someone to run the

trauma call and the emergency department there. Cheryl is closely

monitored throughout the flight, in the second makeshift emergency

department of the day. We have a ventilator which continues to

breathe for Cheryl. I was giving her drugs to keep her asleep. What we

would call a general anaesthetically induced coma. They touch down at

Southampton, it has taken less than ten minutes. The careful monitoring

has to be maintained the whole time. Thank you.

Cheryl is wheeled to a trauma unit. Now Liz can hand over to the Resus

team. She is a 53-year-old. Hit by a

lorry. Head injuries, to the point of her head and to the back. Pain in

her left shoulder. The work is now over for the Air

Ambulance medics. Cheryl is in the hands of the hospital. We will be

following her progress later. The people who deal with 999 calls,

like the people in this control room, never know what to expect. For

example, when a tall ship carrying more than 20 teenagers gets into

trouble off the coast of Ireland, that is a job for the RNLI and the

Irish Coast Guard. The ship's engine has failed and it has hit rocks, the

lives of 30 people are at risk. A tall ship is sinking in heavy seas

off the South coast of Ireland. It is the final heartbreaking scene

after a dramatic rescue. The Astrid's engine failed near Kinsale.

Gale-force winds and a four metre swell pushed her onto the rocks.

On-board, 30 people. It was fast becoming one of the worst days of

the Dutch skipper Pieter De Kam's life.

We had a blackout in the engine room and a blackout means the engines and

the main engine. And then force seven to the rocks, and a swell to

the rocks, and you know you are in trouble.

Astrid is a sail training ship, with 26 trainee sailors on board. Some as

young as 15. In charge, four professional crew. The ship was en

route to Kinsale Harbour in County Cork when disaster struck, leaving

all 30 people on board in danger of going down with the ship. The Irish

Coastguard accept the Mayday call. Within minutes, a helicopter is

scrambled and four RNLI lifeboats launched.

The crew are helping the trainees. With life jackets and things like

that. And they put them in a safe place, and we are waiting for the

lifeboats. The concerned lifeboat crew get

sight of the Astrid, she is already riding the rocks, the vote could

break up at any time. We rounded Hangman's Point, the headland and we

saw the vessel was very close to the rocks. We train there quite

regularly. We knew straightaway that we had to get them off. Helmsman

Nick is put on board the stricken ship. He works with the captain

moving the 26 trainees from the Astrid onto the lifeboats. All the

time, waves crashing against its decks. She was touching the bottom

at that stage. Beam on to the rocks. There was probably just over a four

m swell inside of her. It made it more difficult for Liam and Jim in

the lifeboat behind me to come alongside to take the 12 off me. The

first 12 people are organised to leap into the RNLI RIB but the

treacherous conditions are making it very hard. We are hitting the rocks

and we are a little bit silent and he is coming up. The first six,

seven people are jumping in but it was very dangerous. It takes 20

attempts to get the first 12 into the lifeboat. They are transferred

to the safety of the offshore lifeboat, while RNLI helmsman Nick

starts organising the next group through the small doorway into the

Astrid's life raft. He is down under and you do not see him and then she

is coming, coming, coming and then there is a hole. They are sitting in

a circle. The skipper just has time to grab a few possessions. I go one

time inside and take a look through all my Navy stuff and take my

backpack with all my important papers and I go into the life raft.

I was filling up the life raft with the remaining 18, so when the

lifeboat came back in we established a tow on the life raft. We cut the

life raft loose. We towed the life raft out and passed it on to the

local harbour master. RNLI volunteer Nick is the last one to leave the

sinking ship. He has got all the sailors off safely. Just two minutes

later, Astrid's decks are covered by the rising water. It looks like the

end of Pieter's seven year love affair with the tall ship Astrid. I

look to her and I see her go slowly down under. That was not nice to

see, of course. On that moment, you think, OK, my trainees are safe.

That is very important. They are safe in the yacht club and that was

OK. The rescued sailors were transferred to the RNLI lifeboat and

a local yacht and then taken to Kinsale. 16-year-old Rose Lynch was

one of the trainee sailors on-board Astrid. She recalls how they

practised for just such an event. We trained in case it would happen but

it never crossed my mind that it would happen. There was definitely a

shock. Clearly there was an element of fear in everyone but no-one was

panicky or stressed out. Everyone was perfect and calm. The respect

the trainees had for skipper Pieter helped save the day. He was kind of

like a father to all of us, I think. We all got on really well with him.

We all trusted him. The trainees are just glad to have survived their

ordeal. Everyone was safe and happy. We were all lucky to have everyone.

We had all left stuff there like laptops and phones but no-one really

cared because everyone was OK. The rescue was a great team effort by

coastguard and RNLI. Obviously, we have never been involved in a rescue

with that amount of people. But we had to get them off. There was

no-one injured or anything. It was a good result at the end of the day.

Alan is a call taker here. We were just talking about the fact that

pain can make you react abnormally and make you more aggressive. It can

make you act in all kinds of strange ways, all of which you have to take

into account when you deal with a caller. Yes, I have seen people

shout a lot, especially with things like toothache and back pain. It

makes people quite angry. To them it is quite important that they get the

care because they are in pain. And the more the pain, the more

aggressive they are likely to be. Yes. What are things which are

particularly painful? Earache. Earache is painful and it is the

kind of pain which does not go away and you cannot get to it because it

is in your ear. That makes people quite angry. Certain conditions can

make you act abnormally as well? Yes, things like diabetes can make

you act abnormally, high and low blood sugars. Also a stroke, I

presume. Yes, things like slurred speech and things like that can come

across on the phone as almost being drunk but obviously, they are not.

So when you take a call from some who may appear drunk, you have to

assume there may be something else going on. We take everything quite

seriously because it is someone's health care at the end of the day.

That is not to say that occasionally you get calls from people who are

drunk? We do, yes! It is trying to narrow down what kind of things they

are. But what you are saying is pain will make people, for example, it

has always fascinated me that in the latter stages of Labour, that women

will shout, but almost involuntarily and scream and swear a lot. Yes,

that is the pain, making them aggressive. I would not know because

I have not been in that kind of pain! No, and luckily, neither you

nor I will be in that kind of circumstances. Interesting, because

you have to take into account the condition that somebody is in. Yes.

I suppose you have to grow thick skins to deal with it. Yes, yes,

obviously, we get a lot of people in pain, it is the nature of the job so

you do get thick skinned quite quickly. And you have to work on

your assertiveness as well to get information from people while they

are shouting at you. Yes, you have to be assertive. You have to get

people to back down a little bit so you can ask them questions that need

to be asked so you can give them the care. And not everybody is a

naturally assertive person. But the training helps that? Yes, we do get

some training on that. You get used to it after a while. Obviously, the

support from your colleagues helps as well. Fascinating. Fascinating

what people have to work out. It is almost like a detective thing that

they have to work out what is going on. Thank you very much.

A month after the fire that came close to destroying a family home

near East Grinstead, the house is still in a sorry state. The first

floor was completely destroyed. Much of it collapsed and ended up

downstairs. With all the water damage as well, 70% of the ground

floor is in need of repair. It will be many months before the family can

move back in. It was seven days before the tall

ship Astrid could be salvaged. A floating crane was used to lift the

submerged wreck of the 42 m rig. It is now in dry dock in Kinsale. The

damage is far worse than its owner and skipper had first thought. I saw

the first movies underwater. I thought it was still OK. She is not

broken. The damage is not so bad that we cannot repair her or things

like that. But you can see it only when she is out of the water and now

I see her damage on the starboard side, it is very bad. Pieter can't

give up on his beloved Astrid. He hopes to re-fit the 95-year-old

boat. First, my job is now to bring her back to the Netherlands and we

shall take a look with a naval architect, and see if we can repair

her. It will not be the Astrid's first refit. In the 1980s, she

underwent a complete overhaul. But Pieter is determined the Astrid will

sail again. I will give all my good years now for her that I have. But I

do not know if we can find the foundation for the Astrid for such a

lot of money. Because I do not have money for that. All the money was in

the ship and now she is gone. Yes, we must see now if we can arrange

all the things. Earlier, we saw cyclist Cheryl had

been critically injured after colliding with a lorry. Air

ambulance team, Dr Liz Shewry and paramedic Pat put Cheryl into an

induced coma at the roadside before flying with her to Southampton's

emergency department, where she was handed over to the trauma team.

There is pain but she is more agitated. I was worried that she had

a chest injury, like she had some air up here. It suggested that she

might have something called a pneumothorax, where air, or a rib

has punctured the lung and air has escaped from that. Thankfully, when

I got there, there were no other signs to suggest that she had any

other obvious injuries at that point in time but I was pretty worried

about her head. I hope that the fact that she was quite conscious when

she was originally seen would mean that she would get over this, rather

than go on to have a devastating injury. And amazingly, just eight

weeks after the accident, Cheryl is getting over it, despite extensive

injuries. From the top, the head got a good banging and it is all

fractured. I have got fractures all across my skull. And then inside the

brain, what is left of it, swelled apparently, and then I had blood

hanging around on the other side. There were some fractures across my

ears. They hurt quite a little bit. My collarbone was fractured. My ribs

down one side were fractured. One of my backbones fractured and I

punctured my long. I think that was it mostly. I think that was about

all! Ironically, Cheryl had been on her

way to see a friend in hospital who had fallen off her bike.

Halfway there, something happened, which I have no recollection of at

all. I don't remember anything until four days later. After the amazing

treatment that the people in the helicopter had given me, and also in

Intensive Care. I wish I could remember it. I know some of it

wasn't very pleasant, but I would like to have known what went on. And

I know that people worked so incredibly hard to get me back

again. Put your hand down by your side. It

hurts my head! One of my sons told me I was making

a bit of a nuisance of myself, but I think that's what happens. You start

flaying around a little bit. I think at some time, they decided I was

best to be unconscious completely! So that is what they did.

My family said, you're just a pest, you need to be put into a coma as

soon as possible. I think they should be a bit more sympathetic,

don't you?! At first, Cheryl's injuries limited

her ability to move. I could lie flat, I could walk a

bit, but there was nothing in between. So sitting and leading a

book, working on the computer, looking at the television... Just

going for an appointment. You can't sit down in the waiting room. That

was awful for a few weeks. Once that started to improve, it was

fantastic. And her eyesight has also been

affected. My cranial nerves are damaged, so

this will just happily lie like that. It was double-vision for a

while and that is getting better. So I think if the nerves can heal and

all the muscles can heal, all the little bits of bone, I should be

fine. After such severe injuries, her

recovery has impressed Dr Shewry. I saw her a couple of times

afterwards and I thought she had done incredibly well for somebody

who had such a serious accident, and I am sure she will continue to

improve. I still can get a bit dizzy if I

move too quickly. I have fallen flat on my face a couple of times, but

nothing too disastrous. But every day, I can think of something that I

can do that I couldn't do a couple of days ago. I've just been really

lucky, I've healed very, very quickly, and so I'm just eternally

grateful. Reassuring, isn't it, that in our

hour of greatest need, there is an army of well-trained professionals

ready to come to our aid. That's it, see you next time on Real Rescues.