Episode 2 Real Rescues

Today, on Real Rescues...

An all-service rescue operation to find survivors after a car

plunges into a freezing river.

Is there someone else in the car? Yes or no?

Is there someone else in the car?

Yes? Yup.

A frantic young woman dials 999 after waking to find her

boyfriend has stopped breathing.

A retired doctor diagnoses himself after falling off his bike.

As far as I can make it out, it's acromioclavicular.

But I'm not sure the shoulder hasn't gone as well.

Hello and welcome to Real Rescues.

For six months, we've been out on the road, in the air

and on the water

with the emergency services across the UK.

We've witnessed some extraordinary rescues featuring the work of the

ambulance, police, fire and rescue, coastguard as well as lifeboats.

Emergencies almost always start with a 999 call in a control room like this.

And occasionally, in a major rescue, all of those services work together.

10.30pm in Pevensey, East Sussex.

PC Stu Kenway and Richard Brand are heading back to base

when a call comes in.

We've got a vehicle which has crashed into a ditch.

The call's come via East Sussex Fire & Rescue.

So far, it sounds like a routine collision,

but, as they approach the scene, the radio message reveals they're

dealing with something much more serious.

The car isn't in a ditch. It's in the river. OK.

The river is extremely deep.

The local Pevensey fire crew are already on the scene.

Witnesses say the car was swerving all over

the road before plunging down the bank into the river.

One person appears to have escaped,

but there could be others still trapped inside.

I need to make sure we haven't got anyone else in this car.

The crew smash the back window

so they can gently prod inside the car to see if anyone's trapped.

The rescuers are working on a steep bank.

Below them, deep and freezing river water.

So far, there are no signs of life.

Visibility's very low.

The crews use a thermal imaging camera to pick up any heat

sources which could be people but nothing is showing up.

They're as sure as they can be, at this stage, no-one is inside.

But they need to be certain.

Can we get a couple of strops down here?

We'll get a strop round that corner.

We'll turf off that lamppost.

Even if we can get it up enough to see if it's clear inside.

This is now a major operation.

Sussex group manager Neil Robinson is taking over control of the scene.

I'll keep liaising with the police.

I don't think we'll get the car out.

We might get it up enough to have a good look inside.

That's the plan.

Police investigations are going on back at control to find

out who the car belongs to.

'I think I spoke to the owner of the car.

'However, it's her son's vehicle.' There's still no sign of the driver.

They're making progress stabilising the car with large straps.

The vehicle's secured now so it won't drift off down the river.

The crews search for anyone who may still be in or around the car.

The police efforts continue to find the man spotted swimming

out of the vehicle.

News comes over the police radio - a man has been found.

Go with him.

The North East ambulance service control room in Newcastle.

It's 2am and call handler Callum is working the late shift

when a frantic 999 call comes in.

Callum knows immediately to scale up the response

to the highest emergency.

We knew he wasn't conscious from minute one.

We're trying to work out whether he's breathing or not.

It was about getting the phone to the mouth. I couldn't hear anything.

She said he was breathing initially,

which was confusing. He was taking very long breaths which is not good.

You need a regular breathing pattern so we needed to get CPR on the go.

CPR is the emergency chest compression that can keep

blood pumping around the body.

The suspicion is that not only is the man not breathing,

but his heart has stopped.

The desperate caller Lynette had been asleep next to her

partner David and baby Ella.

Waking, she immediately realised something was wrong.

As soon as I touched him, he fell over this way.

He fell on top of the baby so I had to lift him up and move him to here.

He lay across the bed here

and started gasping, like holding his breaths.

I knew straightaway he was taking his last breaths.

I was just focused on what I was doing, to be honest.

I can't even remember what I was thinking.

I was just focused on helping him. Doing everything I could to save him.

I knew the lady was very distressed.

Towards the end of the call,

you did hear the child in the room, which was a bit upsetting.

The main thing I'm focusing on is listening to the lady and making

sure she's making an effort to do the chest compression because

it can be tiring.

The best thing for us to do is stay on the phone and say,

"You need to keep going. There's someone coming."

Talk them through it and it gives them something to focus on.

Even your voice. It gives them something to latch on to.

Otherwise, if you're not there, they're going to panic.

ambulance to the house.

On board is paramedic Gail Savage.

Obviously the lassie's quite frantic and she's asked us

to go into the house and directed us to the upstairs bedroom.

When I got there, the patient's lying on the floor.

He's not breathing. No pulse. I started doing CPR.

They started doing everything they could for David.

They were giving him adrenaline, they had an oxygen mask on him.

By now, David's father has arrived.

All I remember hearing is him going, "Come on, son. Come on, son. Come on, son."

At this point, Lynette's back in the bedroom,

really quite frantic with the little child and she was screaming,

"Daddy" or "Dada," but I just remember hearing that,

going permanently in the background.

She wouldn't know what was going on, screaming. I was crying. It was awful.

We couldn't find any heart rate.

Once we got the pads on, we found it was a shockable rhythm and

there wasn't that straight line like you see on telly.

We've shocked David at that point. It isn't enough.

They can't delay getting him to hospital.

That means stopping all treatment to move him downstairs to the ambulance.

At this point, all equipment comes off.

All the machines and David's had no CPR at this point.

He's had no oxygen from us.

We start all over again.

In the back of the ambulance,

they continue trying to restart David's heart.

We gave him 16 shocks, which is a lot of shocks.

David still didn't have his heart working properly at this point.

He still wasn't breathing for himself.

Later, the fight to save David's life

and restart his heart continues for over an hour.

They said his heart had been stopped for about 17 minutes

so that's why they said he'd definitely be braindead.

They say, after four, you've got some kind of brain damage.

This map gives a pretty good idea of the area covered by this control room.

You've got the M40 up the top, M4 down the bottom

and it pushes in as far as the M25.

Sometimes the control room here gets calls from slightly

further afield, as Rich is about to explain.

What's the furthest away you've ever had? A call from Tasmania.

Explain how you end up getting a call from Tasmania.

A woman had got home from a couple of days away

and noticed her car had been damaged and there was no note left.

She's gone into her phone and typed Beaconsfield police station.

Where is she? She's in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. In this country?

So she types in the thing and what does she get?

She got a number on there.

She didn't look at it and just dialled

and went through to Tasmania at quarter to three in the morning.

Somebody's working a night shift in Tasmania. How does that call go?

I think he took the call thinking it was something in their town

and it wasn't until they got the exact location,

they put the street name and realised they didn't have a street of that

name in THEIR Beaconsfield so they thought they'd give us a call.

The English accent should have given it away.

When he gets through to you, you go,

"Yes, that's definitely in our area."

I had a search and a name under that street came up.

I took the call. I took all the details and I gave her a call.

That has to be the furthest out anyone's ever

been in terms of trying to make a phone call.

How far away are we talking? I think it's about 17,500 miles.

As an error, that's about as big as it ever gets.

Thanks very much.

An ambulance is heading to sheltered accommodation near Southampton.

On board are paramedics Sally and Jason.

A lunch time bike ride has left a man injured.

It sounds like a fairly routine assignment for Sally and Jason,

but that always depends on the patient.

They don't come across many as well informed as former RAF chief

medical officer Dr Ted Morley.

Dislocation of the shoulder.

Fabulous. I don't need to do anything then.

Look at that. Oh, so you have! Any pain along here?

No, that's all right.

Dr Morley is already running through a range of possible diagnoses.

As far as I can make out it's acromioclavicular,

but I'm not sure the shoulder hasn't gone as well.

It's popped forward, hasn't it? Yeah.

You know what we're going to do. Yes, I do.

We're going to pop you in a sling and take you up to A & E.

Simple as that. Well, that's right.

Dr Morley came off his bike after avoiding a speed bump.

Despite his injury, he got back on his bike

and cycled the rest of the way home.

There's no other injuries anywhere else? I've got bruised ribs.

You can breathe OK, nice deep breaths? Oh, that's painful.

I'll put my shirt on? Yes, you will.

Although he must be extremely uncomfortable,

Dr Morley has been in no hurry to ask for medical assistance.

It's less than two hours since I did it. Less than two hours?!

Yes, it was quarter to 12.

Was it painful? Smarted a bit?

I was going to say, what the hell do you expect?!

Dislocate your bloody shoulder. Of course it's bloody painful.

We can give you some Entonox for that. I wouldn't worry about that.

Pain relief's not high on Dr Morley's priority list.

He just wants to solve this particular medical puzzle.

I just want to know whether it's acromioclavicular

and also the scapula ligament's gone as well.

I think. I think you are probably right.

Fabulous.

I wish all patients were like that - knew exactly what was the matter with them.

He always this organised, is he? Marvellous.

Organised and, as you might expect from an ex-RAF officer,

prepared for any eventuality.

Also, in case I faint, I'm an auricular fibrillation.

I won't let them put a bloody pacemaker in because you're

relying on amps.

You can't trust amps.

LAUGHTER

Duly warned that Ted has refused a pacemaker for his already

diagnosed irregular heart rhythm, the paramedics lead him

out to the ambulance.

Pop yourself down on this one. Thanks very much.

Off we go. My blood pressure's usually about 160 over 60.

When I've been cycling hard, it comes down to 140.

All right. It's not all that bad. You weren't knocked off your bike.

You just fell off it?

Not at all. No, no, no. Entirely my fault. Going too BLEEP fast.

You couldn't write this, could you?

You couldn't write this story.

Without painkillers clouding his judgment,

Dr Morley confirms his diagnosis. You think you've got a fracture?

I think it's just the acromioclavicular joint.

But the acromion may have been fractured.

OK. I think so.

In which case, there's nothing you can do about it.

It will be up to the hospital if the acromion,

the name for the end of the collarbone, is indeed fractured.

Very kind of you. My pleasure, sir.

You're a bloody good driver.

You've been a breath of fresh air today. Yes. That's good.

The strength of character the guy has is absolutely amazing.

Getting back on your bike and getting home

and then worrying about it when you're home.

That takes such strength of character.

He was so much fun to talk to,

I found it really difficult to write anything down.

I didn't want to miss anything. He was amazing.

I hope he's all right and I'm sure he will be,

but it'll be interesting to find out how he does later on.

Later, we learn if Dr Morley's self-diagnosis is correct.

Coming up on Real Rescues...

A pony kicks off inside its horse box after getting stuck on a bar.

When a vet tries to sedate the animal,

she's forced to make a hasty retreat.

And paramedic Gail battles to restart the heart of young

dad David after a cardiac arrest.

He'd been down a long time and he'd had a lot of shocks.

Hand on heart, I don't think any of us expected him to live.

In Sussex, police officers Stu Kenway

and Richard Brand are at a major emergency.

A car's ended up in the river and crews have been searching

for signs of life in the submerged vehicle.

Eyewitnesses have reported seeing one person swim away.

Suddenly there's a development over the police radio.

A man has been found in a field by

dog handler PC Graham Fox.

Ambulance crew? We've got him in a field unconscious but breathing.

Maybe it's the driver. The dog man's with him.

Do we know how far away he is? Don't know yet.

I see you shining.

It's a long trek across thick undergrowth

but before the police and paramedics even reach the man,

PC Graham Fox radios over some very worrying news.

This changes everything.

He's saying there was someone else in the car.

Go with him.

Paramedics reach the man and start to treat him immediately.

Can you hear me? What's your first name? Any pain anywhere?

None at all? But the police need information.

Was there anyone else in that car?

Is there someone else in the car? Yes or no?

Is there someone else in the car?

Yes?

It confirms their worst fears.

The fire crew have already searched the car and haven't been

able to find anyone.

They need to know who else could have been inside.

Do you know the name of the person in the vehicle?

Hold my hand.

Do you know if it was a male or a female?

The man is increasingly distressed. His information changes again.

Is it a female in the car with you? Do you know her name?

No.

But there is someone with you, yeah?

It's all right to tell us. Just relax.

We're doing our best to get them out.

We just need to know, yeah?

According to the man, two people were with him in the car -

a man called Adam and a woman.

But it's over an hour since the car went into the water.

The thermal imaging cameras haven't picked up any signs of life.

A police helicopter has been called in to help detect anyone

who might be in the river or on the river bank.

In the field, the man is starting to ask about Adam again.

Is Adam all right?

Adam? Adam is the chap in the car, is it? He was driving.

He was driving. Is he all right? We're just checking on him now.

Just checking on him now. He was driving. I only just got out, mate.

I had to...

I only just got out. I had to get out cos it was filling with water.

Of course it was. Yeah.

What's your name? What's your name?

The paramedics have managed to find his wallet.

This should help confirm his identity. Is it Andreas?

Is that your name, Andreas? He said Adam was driving.

Where is he? He was in the car.

We're just sorting him out. He is in that car.

He's in... We are dealing with that.

Don't worry about that. The fire service are here.

We are looking after it but we need to know how many people. One or two.

Can you think back?

Was there just you and Adam in the car, then? It was?

Are you sure?

Andreas seems confused

but they radio through the details to the riverside team.

Reinforcements are arriving to help get Andreas out of the field.

What we do is get him on there.

Blanket, foil blanket and we'll get some straps on him.

The paramedic team, assisted by the fire crew, work swiftly to get

Andreas strapped onto a rigid board so he can be carried to safety.

Brace. LIFT!

The journey through the undergrowth begins.

It's thanks to PC Fox and his police dog Abbie that he was found.

I've spoken to a witness who said somebody had swum from the vehicle

that was submerged in the river,

to which I then deployed with my police dog, who picked up the scent

of somebody on the other side of the bank.

And we then tracked across to the adjoining field,

probably about 100m, 150m, to where we found a male, very wet,

cold, unconscious but breathing, luckily.

Emerging from the field,

the crew carry Andreas to the waiting ambulance.

We'll have you on board in a minute.

One survivor is on his way to the hospital.

The search of the car continues.

Lifting it out of the water is going to be the only way

to check no-one has been trapped inside.

The New Forest and specialist animal rescue team are on the move.

There's an emergency at a stables.

The information is that we've got a horse trapped in a trailer.

That's all we've got at the moment.

The stables are behind a hotel.

Just leave it out here for the time being.

Right. Book us in, mate.

Animal rescue specialist Jim Green is greeted

by the worried owner and her staff.

The horse had been on its way to the vet when it tried to make a break

for freedom by jumping over a safety bar in the front of the horse box.

Now it's stuck.

First thing we're going to do is we're going to put the box back up.

What's his name? Scooby. Scooby. We're going to have you out of here.

Don't worry.

Daylight will only provoke Scooby to try another escape route.

So how old is Scooby and what is he?

Jim needs to find out the character of the horse to see

how it will behave when the firefighters start work.

18 years old. How many hands high? 14? Not too big. OK.

Jim and his team can't start work until Scooby,

who's starting to make a bit of noise, is sedated.

He's stuck on his breastbone so as soon as we've got everything

nice and quiet, we should be able... WHINNY DROWNS OUT SPEECH

It's a waiting game until the vet arrives.

Jim briefs his team of specially trained firefighters

to get ready with cutting gear

if they can't undo the bar that's trapping Scooby.

14.3, something like that,

so he's not a massive horse but he has just got the...

His fronts now are resting over the breast bar so he is on his sternum.

Every now and then,

there's signs Scooby is still trying to free himself.

BANGING

Steady, boy. Steady, boy. Steady.

His feet are on the ground, actually,

so our key now is just to keep him nice and chilled.

A backup team has arrived. Right.

So we've got a 14.3 horse.

Once the vet's here we'll get it sedated.

Then we've got the issue of cutting the breast bar off.

The animal rescue-trained firefighters

try and get a closer look at the bar.

HORSE WHINNIES

It doesn't look like the breast bar.

Inside, Scooby has got his head down and seems to be feeding

but suddenly he makes another bid for freedom.

BANGING Steady, boy. Steady, boy.

Steady, boy.

Steady, boy. Steady. Steady. Steady.

BANGING

Just stand back a little bit.

If he does get... Hello, boy.

Despite Scooby's frantic efforts, he's still stuck.

I can see you.

Just in time, vet Beth Robinson arrives.

Hello. Are you all right? Yeah. Good stuff. Good, good, good.

So this is... You obviously know Scooby?

He was supposed to be coming in for treatment! Yeah.

He's kicked off big time in there, gone over the breast bar.

He's doing the normal stuff. Rest and thrash, rest and thrash.

Yeah, sure. We've just shut the box right up to try and calm him down.

Beth prepares the injection.

She needs to administer it into his vein and then it will work

within five minutes, but getting access will be difficult.

The breast bar is down on this side...

Jim's colleague Anton Phillips has also arrived to add his expertise.

I'm thinking Allen keys.

We're ready with Allen keys if we need them

so we'll go for that as a first option.

BANGING Steady, boy. Steady, boy.

Jim takes a closer look from the ladder.

Steady, boy.

This is going to be the best way for vet Beth to administer the sedative.

Steady, boy.

Just get ready to shut that in case we need to, James.

But as Beth climbs up the ladder to inject Scooby...

BANGING

Steady, boy. Steady, boy.

..things get a bit lively.

Stick your head back in there, son.

The rescue team have closed off what the horse perceives to be escape routes.

It's the only way to stop him trying to make his own bid for freedom.

What we need, Anton, is a jab stick. Do you want to knock one up quickly?

This horse is far too powerful to approach without sedation

so they're going to have to mount the syringe on a pole

and stick the sedative in his rump muscle.

It's going to be a longer operation but just as they prepare

a different approach, there's more noise from the horse box...

BANGING

..and an update from one of the stable hands.

Is he off? Oh, yeah? Good boy. Well done.

Scooby has managed to get free all by himself

and now it's a case of leading him out of the trailer.

Right. We're going to try and back him out.

Steady, boy. Steady, boy.

And without a murmur, Scooby obliges.

He is out!

Over this side. This side.

He is walked over to his stable to be checked over by vet Beth.

Everything is looking fine.

Scooby survived with only a scratch near his eye.

So this is the breast bar

and this is what stops a horse from moving forward in the box

when they're travelling but, as I say,

when they were loading him, he decided to rear up

and he has managed to, in quite a restricted space, here,

go up over the breast bar and his legs were down this side.

And of course, with 500 kilos on here,

we're not going to be able to lift it off.

The only issue now is persuading him to get back into the horsebox

for that trip to the vets for treatment to his feet.

But that doesn't have to happen for a day or two.

A lot of this region is rural and one of the crimes that the police

come across every now and again is hare coursing.

For those of you who don't know it,

it's the setting of dogs onto wild hares in the field

whilst betting on which dog is going to catch up with the hare.

It is illegal and will be clamped down on very severely

by the police if they get hold of it.

Are you all right to talk to me now? Yes. Yes.

You had a case of this not so long back? We did.

We had a call during the night from a farmer

that said there was someone in his field

and he believed they were hare coursing.

We sent officers to the area and we located a vehicle

that persons were in with dogs.

They made off from us initially

so we asked the helicopter to come and join in the search

to pick up the vehicle, which we did locate quite nearby.

Did you manage to stop the vehicle? No.

The vehicle made off from us

so we strategically placed officers around

with what's called stingers, stop sticks,

which is like the stingers that you put out in the road

and it bursts the tyres.

So we deployed one of those

and that was when it burst the tyre of the vehicle

and that vehicle went into a field and everybody dispersed.

So you've now got an on-foot chase going on. Yes.

So we've gone from a vehicle chase to an on-foot chase

so we've got the dog unit to go to the area where the car was

to pick up any sort of tracks that they can.

They've located one track and followed that track

and as they are following it,

the helicopter is also following and recording what is happening

so we've got a live feed coming through from the area as well

so we can see what's happening.

And then as the dog was pursuing one of the persons,

we had a bit of cussing come over air. Really? Yes.

It would appear that our dog handler, Bessa,

was being pulled so hard by the dog

cos he's got a really good track, that she couldn't keep up.

THEY LAUGH Did you find them?

We did. Yes. He ended up being in quite a wooded area

and we could find a heat source using the helicopter

but couldn't work out where it was and it appeared he was up a tree.

He climbed up a tree? Climbed a tree. So you got him in the end?

We did. We nicked him in the end.

So that's how seriously the police are taking hare coursing.

They will employ the police helicopter

and police stingers to stop you on the road

and also employ dogs correctly

to track down criminals who are using them to catch hares.

Thanks, Lynn. That's all right.

In East Sussex, it's two hours into a major rescue operation.

A car has careered off the road, plunging into a river.

The driver, Andreas, has been found barely conscious

in thick undergrowth along the river bank.

He's told the emergency services

there were two friends in the car with him.

Police, fire and ambulance are on scene.

A helicopter is searching overhead.

Now a specialist water rescue team are trying to get to the car.

Thermal imaging cameras have found no trace of anyone in the car

but the rescue teams can't ignore the driver's claims.

All we've done is secured the vehicle

and we've got one team here trying to locate it

and we've got another swift-water rescue team

that are actually going to go into the water now.

I think the plan might be that we'll turf the vehicle out

the way it came in, up that shallow bank.

But we'll see what happens.

But even with crews in the water,

it's proving hard to get to the car.

The car is so deeply submerged,

rescuers still can't be certain if anyone is inside,

nor can they see if anyone is under the water.

They'll have to lift the car with the utmost care.

If we go that way and somebody is out in-between here and there,

they are at risk so it's worth checking that side first.

There is nobody on that side. We can confirm that.

Right. OK. There is no-one that side. OK.

There's nobody that side, it has been confirmed.

The swift-water team have brought in a specialist fire truck

often used for hauling animals out of ditches

but even this may not be powerful enough.

If it is strong enough to pull it up...

Or we might have to reposition and then use the crane. OK.

The cables are attached.

The car starts to emerge.

OK. Slow down! Slow down! Stop!

But the weight of the car and the water is too great.

It has to be hand winched from the side but slips under again.

Finally there is some success.

Now the car is higher, the raft can move in,

allowing rescue crews to take a closer look inside.

Can we get a torch into that, please? Floodlight.

Let's just hope there's no-one in there.

Slowly the car is pulled clear of the water.

Upside down, the extent of the damage is becoming evident.

But more importantly, there is no-one inside.

With the car lifted clear of the river bed,

the fire crew do one last check,

probing the mud to make sure no-one is under the water.

Now the car is visible, PC Richard Brand

can at last look for reasons why it left the road so suddenly.

Evidence, looking at these tyres, show that the tracking

has been out for a while

cos this tyre here is all smooth on the inside,

it's missing most of the tread on the inside as well,

which obviously doesn't help when you are driving and the roads are wet.

This gives you less traction.

The rescue workers can now pack away their kit,

satisfied nothing more can be done at the river.

PC Brand comes to take another look. It's a shocking sight.

He was lucky to get out of that, wasn't he? Very much so, yeah.

Anything that could be used as evidence is put back in the car.

It's more than four hours since the car came off the road

and finally, it's loaded onto the truck.

The police helicopter will continue to search the surrounding

countryside for any signs of the missing passengers.

So we have to know what happened next. Was there anyone in the car?

Where do you go from there at that point? From our point of view,

we then had to continue a search of the surrounding areas.

I did that personally with my police dog

to clear either side of the car because obviously,

we know he came out one side but there's nothing to say

somebody couldn't have come out the other side.

Was anybody in the car with him? No. There was no-one else, luckily.

And when did you find that out for sure? Next morning.

My colleagues from the road policing unit in Sussex at Polegate

went to the hospital to speak to him.

He never directly admitted driving

but he said he was the only person in the car.

So how did it end up in the river, then?

How did that car and he end up in the river?

He was drink-driving. Right.

90-degree bend, and he failed to negotiate the bend,

straight through the fence into the river, where the car sunk.

The first thing that came to my mind

when my police dog found him and he came round and said,

"Where's such and such?",

my heart just sunk because now I'm thinking there's somebody

in that car and the balloon went up, as we call it.

So we had to go and have a look, had to do it.

And people were going into the river.

Weather conditions were terrible

and it was cold at that time of year, wasn't it?

So people going into the river, risking their lives?

We spend a lot of time wasted in them sort of scenarios.

We can save a lot of time and keep our emergency services on the road.

Look, smashing work you're doing with your dog.

Thanks for coming in and updating us. Thanks for having me.

The driver of the car pleaded guilty to careless driving,

driving while over the drink limit and driving with defective tyres.

He was fined £165, ordered to pay £515 costs

and banned from driving for 14 months.

It turns out that Dr Morley, the ex-RAF chief medical officer

who fell off his bike, was correct in his self-diagnosis.

I think it's just the acromioclavicular joint.

In other words, he had dislocated his shoulder from the collarbone.

Throughout the programme we have been following events

which triggered a dramatic 999 call.

28-year-old David was rushed to hospital

in Tyne and Wear after his heart stopped in the middle of the night.

It was his partner Lynette who dialled the ambulance.

Lynette's CPR kept the blood pumping.

The ambulance crew then took over,

shocking him with a defibrillator,

but as they arrived at the Royal Sunderland Hospital,

his heart was still not working.

I don't know how long it took to get to the hospital

but it felt like a lifetime getting there.

At the time we dropped David off,

hand on heart, I don't think any of us expected him to live.

He had been down a long time and he'd had a lot of shocks.

They were waiting for us

with a mechanical device called a thumper which does the CPR

and basically, within minutes they had got a heart rate.

His heart was working.

Even though David's heart is beating again,

Lynette's warned the outcome isn't looking good.

His heart had been stopped about 17 minutes.

So that's why they said he would definitely be braindead

cos they say after four you've got some kind of brain damage.

David is put into a coma and packed in ice to shut his body down.

It will give his brain the best chance to recover.

After 36 hours, they took the ice off his body

and his body reheated itself and then they took the sedation off.

Against all the odds, David has survived.

He woke up and tried to assault the doctor

and tell him to get out of his house!

Last he knew he was in bed, so...

I think it was four or five days later

I actually happened to be in coronary care at the hospital,

dropping off another patient,

and I looked round and David's dad was there.

I said, "How is David?"

And he pointed and David just walked along the corridor

and I was absolutely gobsmacked.

Really quite shocked to see that David was up and about

and walking only five days later.

Now back home with his family,

David has amazed the medics with his recovery.

It has been a quite quick recovery, like.

For what happened,

I'm surprised at how good I feel, you know what I mean?

I feel all right at the minute. THEY LAUGH

He has no memory of the night his heart stopped.

I come home, got the bairns sorted and went to bed.

I woke up at 12 o'clock in the night,

gave the bairn a bottle and then after that, obviously,

I went to sleep and that happened to us.

And I can't remember...can't remember even being in no pain.

It was just went to sleep and next thing you know,

four days later I wake up in hospital

with wires in us and everything and they says I could have come out

and could have been disabled

or not being able to speak, talk or anything

and I've come out back to like how I was - normal.

Call handler Callum puts David's miracle survival

down to Lynette's CPR skills.

It helps that she has done a really good job

and especially the fact that she got on straightaway.

Some people are difficult when they come on the phone

and you have to talk to them for five or six minutes

before they listen to what you're saying and start.

This lady came on and as soon as she was told what to do,

she went off and did it and it was no problem whatsoever.

I had the consultant come up to us in the hospital and shake my hand

and say, "You saved his life."

So I guess I did in a way.

But if it wasn't for the paramedics and hospital staff,

he wouldn't be here. You know what I mean?

It was them that actually saved him and got him back.

I could never thank them enough.

He's one of the most fortunate guys I know.

He had Lynette, he had us close.

He was just very lucky.

Although David has been given the all clear,

doctors never discovered why his heart stopped beating.

It's left him with an understandable worry.

Since that happened, I'm a little bit wary of sleeping by myself.

So, like, I always make sure that obviously...

She lives with us, my girlfriend,

so I make sure that she's with us all the time.

Cos obviously, if it happened again, she'd be there to save us again.

Hopefully it doesn't but if she saved us once,

she'll do it again if she can.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Can you do CPR? Can your partner do CPR?

If you want to go on a course you can ask your local GP,

the British Heart Foundation will give you information

and you can even get an app for your phone these days.

But if push comes to shove,

it's reassuring to know that if you dial 999,

one of these call takers here will be able to guide you through it.

That's it for today. We'll see you next time for more Real Rescues.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd