Episode 20 Real Rescues

Today on Real Rescues...

He's fallen off. ..an emergency in a back garden -

a man suffers multiple fractures after falling from a tower.

Get hold of my leg! All right, matey...

A desperate 999 call from an asthmatic.

He barely has enough breath to speak.

He's in a rural location and running out of time.

His condition was grave - immediately life-threatening.

And a four-year-old is knocked down after

straying into the path of a car.

Ambo working on her at the moment, so I don't know the full extent.

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 routed into state of the art centres like this.

The staff in here know that, when lives may be at stake,

it's vital no time is lost.

Ambulance clinician Simon Trenchard is heading to

an emergency on the south coast.

A man has had a serious accident in his back garden.

He's fallen from a tower.

It all depends how you fall.

It's a luck of the draw thing, really.

If you land on a particular

part of your back or your chest,

or your head, you can do quite serious damage.

SIRENS BLARE

An ambulance crew has also just arrived at the scene.

On-board, Ben Alloway,

Jason Fullarton and a student paramedic.

In the back garden, the man is in extreme pain.

Paramedic Paul Shears was first to arrive.

He brings Simon up to date.

That started to tip, he's fallen off.

About 10 foot, landed on left shoulder, wrist, left hip.

Ian is still lying where he fell. Simon makes an initial assessment.

Ian, where's hurting the most at the moment?

My shoulder and leg.

Your shoulder and your leg? OK. You landed on that side.

OK. I'll have a listen to your back, if that's OK?.

Then we'll look about giving you some pain relief.

A nice, deep breath in.

Keep going.

Ian's wife Janet was helping him

dismantle the tower when it happened.

He was quite a way down, really.

Then, all of a sudden, it toppled.

And he fell to the side.

The couple had just finished pruning trees.

Ian tried to jump free, but got tangled in the ladder

and tower, hitting the ground hard on his left side.

It was absolutely terrifying. I turned round and there he was.

Just on the floor.

That's good. Equal air entry.

And no pains when you do that at all?

You've got no pains in your rib at all? Yeah.

So your shoulder, your wrist and your hip, isn't it? All right.

Simon suspects Ian's suffered significant

injuries on his left hip, shoulder and wrist.

It's going to be impossible to

isolate any of the injuries.

Are we able to relax you onto your back at all, Ian?

Just so I can see you from top to bottom? Can't move my leg!

All right, matey, don't worry.

Now, Ian's complaining of severe leg pain.

His clothes are cut off for a closer look

before any attempt to move him.

All right. I'm going to pop a little tube in your arm

and give you some medication. Sort this pain out for you.

You're not allergic to morphine?

You haven't had it? So, you feel your left wrist is damaged?

Your left shoulder and your left hip. All left side, isn't it, matey?

All right. Nice and still.

There'll be a sharp scratch in the back of your wrist now.

One, two, three, here it comes.

Good man, well done. That's the horrible bit, all right?

Next thing we're going to do is just stick it all down.

We'll look at giving you some morphine, then.

Which should help ease some of the pain for you.

Once you're comfortable, we'll then roll you onto your back.

There's no massive hurry.

Everything we want to do with you is going to be comfortable,

as opposed to rushing you over and shooting you off. All right?

Simon is going to give him paracetamol for a drip,

then a separate injection of morphine.

Together, the drugs will keep on top of his pain.

A team effort on this. Yeah, just give me two secs.

I'll put them all... Flush through those, make sure his pain's...

If you can try not to move, that would be brilliant.

To add to Ian's problems, his position is making

an existing back condition worse, causing severe cramp in his leg.

We're going to get you comfy first.

My leg! What happened then?

We haven't touched it, Ian... Oh!

Whereabouts on your leg is it?

When he was laid on the ground, obviously time was ticking on

and he was getting vicious pains in his leg.

Is it higher up or lower down?

High up? OK. I've just got the pain relief.

That might just settle your leg down a bit. All right.

Right, don't move your hand just four two secs, all right?

Just re-sticking this needle down that's in your arm.

I'm going to give you a nice little slug of morphine just

to relax you a second, all right?

Can you feel that going in and starting to feel relaxed?

Keep breathing, keep breathing.

Later, Ian has so many injuries on one side of his body,

the air ambulance is called in.

Yeah, I wondered if we could request HEMS

on this query pelvis?

Listen, you'll be there in 15 minutes, OK? Trust me.

It's the early hours of a December morning.

A desperate call has come into

the East of England ambulance control room.

Martin's in bed at home in the grip of a severe asthma attack.

He's used up all three inhalers.

Now he barely has breath to talk.

Call taker Hannah needs to reassure Martin that she's

aware every reply is an enormous strain.

Martin lives in a village in Norfolk.

Emergency care practitioner Ryan Warwick is en route,

but even with sat-nav, it's a difficult journey.

It was a case of drive up and down to look for

a likely looking mud path.

There was very deep drainage ditches each side.

It was about one vehicle width dirt track,

absolutely full of potholes.

It was absolute pitch-black, because he's a house out of town.

There's no street lighting. There was no moon at that time.

It takes a superhuman effort for Martin to get downstairs

and reach the back door.

MARTIN PANTS

RATTLING

He staggered to the door to unlock it

and then staggered back to the sofa and collapsed.

Looking around, first thing I noticed was several inhalers

empty on the side of the table, which always indicates a worrying sign

when an asthmatic's used all their inhalers.

Brian examines Martin. At first the outlook seems bleak.

The asthma attack is so severe his life is in danger.

His condition was grave. Immediately life-threatening.

His heart was going very fast trying to push oxygen round the body.

He looked very pale and sweaty and clammy.

He was making an incredible work of breathing.

An ambulance crew arrive.

Martin's breathing is so restricted he cannot inhale any drugs.

Ryan is going to treat him intravenously.

We gave him magnesium en route to hospital. It did not fix him.

It's stabilised him and prevented him worsening.

It gave the anaesthetic team, once we got to hospital,

time to set up to prepare to do something called a rapid

sequence induction, which is to put him off to sleep quickly.

Martin was put into an induced coma and his breathing was taken

over completely by a mechanical ventilator. That saved his life.

It took over his breathing, allowed his respiratory muscles a rest.

He was so tired,

I don't think he would have kept on breathing for too much longer.

Martin was kept in the induced coma

for three days to allow his body to recover.

Now back at home,

he is aware he almost left it too late to make that phone call.

Breathing was becoming more shallow, I was struggling quite a lot,

actually, with my breath.

So I dragged myself out of bed, I've got some feather pillows which I

threw on the floor because I thought they were causing this problem.

I came down the stairs, could only get halfway down the stairs,

and decided I needed to phone an ambulance.

I decided that if I didn't make that call as soon as possible,

I probably wouldn't make it.

Call taker Hannah Unsworth was Martin's lifeline

until help could arrive. The lady at the end of the phone was an angel.

Everything I could have needed at that time,

she gave me through a calm manner,

erm, a caring nature.

As his condition continued to worsen,

Martin did not hold out much hope of rescue.

I was pretty certain I was going to die.

I didn't believe it would be possible for anyone to get

to me in time.

Martin's attack was exceptionally bad, but Ryan has no doubt

asthma sufferers should call for help at the first sign of trouble.

I'd much rather go out to 99 asthmatics who turn out to be OK

than to go out late to one asthmatic who then deteriorates significantly.

This is Tony, who is the duty manager.

If there were a Captain Kirk looking over the flight deck

this would be you.

We thought the ideal person to talk to about clinicians.

First of all,

we have met some paramedics that are clinicians in here.

But you don't have to be a paramedic to be a clinician,

so what is a clinician?

We have a range of clinicians, we also have some care practitioners.

We also have some nurses with varied backgrounds from midwifery through

to intensive care, a massive background of knowledge and skills.

These are people who have worked in the community, have a big

medical background, and you use them as backup

and extra knowledge. Absolutely.

We use their experience and skills to backup the computer systems

we have here and the knowledge of the call takers.

The call takers obviously build up experience

and they have question systems that help them.

At what point do you call in a clinician? Several points.

If the call taker goes through the assessment process with

the patient, and it's not reflecting what is actually happening...

You mean, they are just feeling uncomfortable?

Yes, if they are getting lots of not sures

and the questions don't seem to fit, they will pass over to the

clinician who can ask more freelance questions and use their experience.

At the end of the assessment, they reach a point where

it's need to go to get advice from a nurse for home care

or to be advised to go to an emergency department.

Equally, if I dispatch comes to give the callout to the crews,

if they have a look at it and think they are not sure

if it is correct they will ask questions of the clinicians.

I know for a fact having spoken to some of the people here that

one of the moments you automatically get a clinician involved is

if you get a pregnancy or somebody is

actually in the process of giving birth.

Although the callers actually have a system for dealing with it,

they always like to go, "Come in here now."

It is a good bit of moral support for the call takers

knowing there is somebody very experienced,

medically, on the end of the phone with them, who can give

them the extra hints and tips rather than what is coming up on the screen.

Although they are very well trained,

there is something about the paramedics

and the clinicians in here, because they have dealt with

the general public in the past, when the call takers are not getting

responses, they can be much more straightforward

and to the point, taking control and being quite aggressive

if they need to be to get the thing moving on. Absolutely.

Years of experience built up on the road,

or nurses in the wards, that they use to do that.

Handy.

It's reassuring to know there is this huge wealth of medical

knowledge that backs up the call takers.

Thank you very much, Tony.

Milton Keynes, Monday afternoon, in the middle of the school holidays.

Traffic cops Steve Leathersich

and Russ Irwin are heading to an accident.

A four-year-old girl has been knocked down.

It is a callout they dread.

We haven't got the full extent of injuries at the moment,

but when you're looking at children as young as that,

you've got to assume the worst and hope for the best.

An ambulance is already on the scene.

The young girl is crying. It is distressing, but it's a relief.

It means she is conscious. A local officer brings Steve up-to-date.

She is conscious and breathing.

Ambo working on it the moment, so I don't have the full extent.

You all right?

Paramedics have already given the little girl pain relief.

They fear she has broken her leg

but they also need to check for other hidden injuries.

The young girl appears to have run into the path of a car,

leaving the driver extremely upset and shaken.

Steve tries to reassure her.

All right, she is being looked after. All right?

She is in the best place at the moment.

It's very easy for me to say not to focus on it.

Just focus on me, OK? Were you in the car on your own? Yes.

Tell me what's happened.

Witnesses say the little girl followed her teenage sister

crossing the road, but when she saw none of the rest of the family

was following, she turned back, straying into the path of a car.

As you slowed down, that's when you hit her,

because you said something about going back across.

Steve clarifies everything with the little girl's sister.

You thought they were following you,

but it appears they have gone off that way and split up.

The pain relief has settled the young girl.

Her leg is in a splint and she is ready for the ambulance journey.

She'll be taken to A where

she will be X-rayed and examined for any other possible injuries.

The police are now anxious to reassure the other casualty,

the driver.

She has got a suspected broken leg,

but they are going to be taking her to hospital to see the full extent

of that, but they are not treating it as anything bad. Yes, a broken

leg is bad but they are not treating it as anything worse than that.

But the thing we experience with kids involved in car accidents,

they are very good at bouncing, generally.

That is how they are looking at it at the moment,

so hopefully that will make things better for you. All right?

The lady has done as much as she could do.

She's already reduced her speed

when she saw that the people were stood at the side.

And it's just been unfortunate

that she's caught the little girl and knocked her over.

So I've tried to give her reassurance that,

from a police side of things,

we're not looking to take this matter too much further.

It will just be a case of if insurance companies get involved,

they can deal with the injury side of things.

But with the prosecution side of things,

it's not something that we would see

as being in the public interest to pursue.

Still to come on Real Rescues...

The air ambulance is scrambled after a huge fire engulfs a family home.

Three people are unaccounted for.

An ambulance crew is called by a GP

after a man suffers an allergic reaction to a wasp sting.

In a back garden in Bournemouth,

paramedics are still battling to manage a man's severe pain.

Ian has fallen heavily from a scaffold tower

and may have broken his wrist, shoulder and hip.

That morphine I've given, has that helped at all? No. It hasn't?

MAN CRIES OUT

Ian also has a long-standing back condition

which may be causing bouts of painful spasm in his left leg.

If I have this for a second,

can we just have an exam on the femur, please?

I'll tell you what we can do to relieve the spasm,

can we pop on some Entonox?

Ian is already on a paracetamol drip, but now they going to

give him nitrous oxide gas, which acts as a muscle relaxant.

What we'll do is we'll try all different types of pain relief

just to get you sorted. Open your mouth a bit wider. That's it.

Lips and teeth round it.

I want you to take some big, deep breaths through it for us.

No, lips around it. You haven't made a seal, matey.

I'm sure they are.

He may need to go to Southampton's special trauma unit.

The quickest and least painful way there is in the air ambulance.

Just so we know, is the Helimed available if required? Over.

'The Helimed is available. Over.'

We are going to put a collar on your neck.

I know you haven't got any head or neck pain,

but you have other injuries that are distracting.

We want to try and protect everything else. OK?

Ian, just slow yourself down, Ian. Just slow things down.

Can you feel me touching your foot? Yeah? And the other one?

Can you wiggle your toes? And this one?

I need to get to that arm to do your blood pressure before we move you.

I don't think there's anything sinister going on.

Just relax.

While the painkillers go to work,

senior paramedic Simon Trenchard goes through his regular checks.

A bit of pressure on your arm. It's just doing your blood pressure.

It may stop your drip in a second.

OK, that's fine.

But even after morphine, a steady flow of intravenous paracetamol

and Entonox, Ian is still suffering.

Ian, Ian, just relax.

If we can try... That's it, you've got it. That's it.

Ian, whatever you're doing now, continue.

You've got the hang of that now, breathing that in. That's it.

That's better.

He was in an awful lot of pain,

but they were giving...

As they were giving him the pain control, it was...

it was helping him

an awful lot.

Any pain in your neck at all? No. Any pain here? No.

Here? No. Here? No.

After one more check for spinal injuries,

Simon worked out a strategy for the best way to put Ian on the board.

Can you hold that wrist for me? Also might put in a small vacuum...

Have we got vacuum... ..vacuum splint.

Do you want me to investigate?

Yes, let's do that.

Before they start, Ian's wrist, which is almost certainly broken,

must be protected.

Can you grip? Just grip the end of that. That's it. Well done.

OK, guys. Right, ready, set, roll.

I'll do leg. You're on leg. You're on... I'll jut sort of do torso.

There'll be a bit of pain. Just go through it.

Nice deep breaths on that for me.

Keep going. Keep going. Ready, set, roll.

Keep going. Keep breathing. Keep breathing.

HE CRIES OUT

It's clear Ian has a significant injury,

and by hyperventilating he is making the pain worse.

Simon needs to calm him down quickly.

Ian, Ian, stop. Just relax a second. Stop.

HE CRIES OUT

Simon decides Ian's injury should be investigated

at Southampton Hospital's trauma unit.

Do you want to get online for HEMS? Yeah?

Paramedic Ben Alloway makes the call.

I wonder if we could request HEMS on this.

I think... 61-year-old. GCS is 15. His GCS is 15. Not knocked out.

I wonder if we could have them RV with us

on the green by Hengistbury Head.

Ian, what we are going to do, because your hips and pelvis

are hurting in that region, and because of your shoulder,

it ticks a few boxes for us to take you to Southampton Hospital,

which is our major trauma centre in the area.

The quickest and nicest way for you is by helicopter.

Oh, I hate helicopters.

OK. Listen, you will be there in 15 minutes, OK? Trust me.

If we take you by road, it'll be 45 minutes and bumpy.

Because he's had morphine, which induces nausea

and he's going to be laid on his back,

because it a helicopter, we can't roll him at all.

So to stop him being sick en route, we are going to give him

an anti-sickness now, just to keep him stable.

Now on his back, Ian's leg spasms can be helped by raising his knee.

Can you come round this way, Gareth?

I want someone strong with the lady. And we are going feet first.

Emily, Gareth, Paul, me. Then we'll get our balance. Everyone happy?

Ready, set, lift.

And balance. And then carry on.

Their rendezvous with the air ambulance at Hengistbury Head,

a local beauty spot.

Simon calls the trauma unit to let them know what to expect.

Thank you. We've packaged the patient...

If you want to update the helicopter. Packaged the patient.

He's got a left shoulder fracture, left fractured wrist,

a possible left hip fracture. Query pelvis, not obvious.

He is stable, lots of pain relief on board.

The crew are loading him into the ambulance as we speak.

It's a very worrying time for wife Janet,

but at least Hengistbury Head is only a five-minute drive.

Marshal them into this grassy area just here.

In the ambulance, Simon hands over to air paramedic Steve Freeman.

Ian, this is Steve. Hello, Ian.

You happy for our little trip to Southampton?

Ready, set, lift.

OK, nice and gentle. Gently towards the aircraft. His feet loading.

When we get there, out of habit, I can't stop saying it,

we'll stop, pause.

Ready, set, lift.

And then gently down.

All right, matey. Sorry.

With the leg pain easing,

Ian becomes more aware of his other injuries.

I'll go and get my five of morphine. We'll do that.

Ben, have you got that five of morphine left?

My arm up a little bit.

My left arm up. Lift it up.

How is that? That's better. That's it?

Put him in a better position.

Right, this is the last bit I'm giving you, OK?

Simon gives Ian one last dose of morphine for the journey,

but he's conscious of not overdoing it.

Because when we get there, we want you to be able to talk some sense.

You've been talking sense throughout all of this.

Thank you.

It's only a ten-minute flight to Southampton Hospital.

This will be the bumpiest bit of the whole trip.

Ian goes to Resus

where air paramedic Steve Freeman hands over to the trauma team.

This is Ian, a 61-year-old gentleman, who was on a 10-to-15-foot gantry

pruning bushes.

He's taken a tumble from that,

landing on the hard ground underneath.

Ian is given some standard tests.

Then transferred to the body scanner

for a thorough examination of his injuries.

And with his pain now under control, he even manages a smile.

Later:

The consequences of Ian's fall from the tower are revealed.

This is Tish, who's going to explain, well,

hopefully you're going to explain the difference between 111,

999 and how you handle those calls

because, to be honest, I've been involved with

Real Rescues for several years now

and I'm not sure I understand what the difference is and how it works.

So, a call comes through to 111,

if it's an emergency, does it get shifted to 999 and vice versa?

It does, yes.

If you were to call 999, for example,

that should be for immediately life-threatening calls.

You would call 111 with non-life-threatening emergencies.

However, if you do call 111 and it appears to be life-threatening

then you'll get the same level of care as you would

if you called 999 for an emergency response.

So, in order to do that, you must have some kind of system or

filter that happens to separate, how does that work?

The South Western Ambulance Service,

we use NHS pathways which have been designed by the NHS for use

within the NHS, and it's a triage system so the patient or caller will

get asked a series of questions and depending on the answers given

they will be directed in the right direction for the most

appropriate level of care for them and those symptoms.

OK, so, for example, that sounds slightly scary

because it means you've got a number of questions and it sounds very

sort of bureaucratic in how you deal with a patient

but if someone comes on the line and says, "My baby's stopped breathing."

You will get immediate care.

Immediate response sent to you

and you'll get the same help that you would get if you called any number.

And the same bit, if I ring 999 and I say, "I think my son's got

"a cold because he's got a runny nose."

Then that'll get shifted sort of down the line to

an appropriate response? Absolutely.

It's about making sure that we treat calls as a priority. OK.

What you're looking at, because you look after people

when you're taking these calls. Yes.

It kind of looks like the coolest job in the world.

I come to work and make television programmes, people go to work

and do whatever they do, you come to work

and work with people who save people's lives on a daily basis.

Yes. It's a really rewarding job. It's really good.

Would you want to do anything else?

I'd like to add to my knowledge, yes.

But I really enjoy the job I'm doing.

I enjoy coming to work everyday. I'm not surprised.

It is a fantastic job. Thanks for explaining the 111, 999 thing.

I wondered how it worked,

all these years, I've never quite understood it. OK.

It's mid-afternoon on a summer's day.

Paramedics Jason Somerville and Sally Morrell are on shift.

They're heading out of Southampton. A woman's been badly hurt.

We're responding to an 85-year-old female.

It looks like she's fallen in the garden.

The information we've got so far is a bang to the head

and a fractured arm.

Jason arrives to find the woman still sitting where she fell.

You've got a little bang your head there, haven't you?

The woman is cared for by her daughter, Rachel.

She was in the house as her mum was enjoying the sun

when she tripped.

I went back upstairs

because I was dusting and changing the room around.

Came down to check on Mum and I saw her on the floor.

She didn't call out, didn't... nothing.

The woman is complaining of a very painful right arm.

What I'm going to do is just pop that forearm,

your forearm into a box splint, OK?

Which is a splint we put round either side and it'll keep it nice

and straight for us. But how bad... How bad's your pain at the moment?

It's, it's, it's all right, it's just painful.

Just painful in that one spot? Yeah. OK.

Did you trip, do you think or did you feel unwell at all? No.

I found one slipper off and one slipper on.

So I think Mum might have erm... tripped.

Let's have a little feel and make sure there's no other...

Any pain in your knees? No.

Jason needs to check for any other injuries.

Rachel's mum also looked bruised around her face.

Excellent.

Can you just...close your eyes a second? Open them up again. Fabulous.

I'm just going to shine a light in.

And... OK, thank you.

No small box splint. No small box splint? OK.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Paramedic Sally arrives with the splint.

I'm going to just place your arm in there.

And then what we do is, we fold it over, like so...

So that we can see your fingers.

And then we, strangely, suck all the air out of it

and it goes nice and stiff.

Very carefully, they wrap her arm

and then put it in a protective sling.

There we go. Grab that side.

The next task is getting Rachel's mum up on her feet.

They're going to use an inflatable chair.

What it'll do, it'll bring you up off the floor in stages.

And then we can get you to a standing position.

Just shuffle down.

All the time, Jason reassures his patient about what is happening.

I've got you, so you don't have to put your arm on the floor.

I need you to shuffle over here. If you can.

You're doing well sweetheart, don't worry, we've got all day.

Are you ready? Aha. OK that side, Jason? Hang on a second.

As each section fills with air,

the patient is gradually raised to her feet.

First floor, menswear.

Now, I need to bend your knees up.

Well done, and the other one.

Everyone should have one of these!

HE TITTERS

You'll be standing up in no time. So, when you're ready.

Now it's easy for Rachel's mum to stand up. How's that?

Do you fancy one of those? How's that, Jane? That's fine.

All right, my darling. All right, so what we're going to do,

we'll just walk you straight round to the ambulance, if that's all right.

Rachel is going to travel with her mother.

In the ambulance, they monitor her heart with an ECG

and take her blood pressure but there's no cause for concern.

That's one.

One more.

And you're down.

At hospital, the woman's arm will be X-rayed and she'll be fully

examined to see if she's suffered any more injuries.

In a Hampshire village near Winchester,

there's a massive house fire.

There's no mistaking where it is.

A plume of smoke's rising high into the air.

It's a major callout across the emergency services.

As well as fire and police, the air ambulance has been scrambled

to support road crews with any casualties.

There are fears that people may be trapped inside the house.

Local traffic's been diverted away from the area.

Everything's in place to deal with a major incident.

The Hazardous Area Response Team have been called in.

The specialist medical unit are trained to cope with

casualties in difficult and dangerous conditions.

And with a fire this intense, as well as people in the house,

they could have injured firefighters to treat.

Their chief briefs the air ambulance crew.

There's concern that three adults, a couple and their son,

could be trapped inside the house.

So far, no-one has been able to contact them.

Although no-one's been seen or heard inside the house,

three cars are parked outside and no-one knows where the owners are.

By now, the house has been so devastated by fire

that there's little chance of anyone inside being alive.

Firefighters are still attacking the blaze from all sides,

and indoors they are searching for any signs of the family,

but conditions are hazardous.

As the minutes go by, all hope of saving anyone fades.

The ambulance manager keeps everyone updated.

But there's still some risk to the firefighters.

One of the firefighters is already being treated for burns to his hand.

Although they're on top of the fire, it will be several hours

before they finish damping down to make sure it doesn't reignite.

Thankfully, there's good news about the occupants.

It turns out that two of the family were away on holiday

and the other was out at work.

This time, the impressive medical resources of the air ambulance

and the Hazardous Area Team were not needed,

but they're more than happy there are no lives lost

and everyone's safe.

It's another day and paramedics Jason and Sally are back on shift

on the ambulance.

Their first call has come through -

a woman with a long history of epilepsy is having convulsions.

Did you actually see her fitting?

The patient's carers tell Jason the fit went on

for at least a minute.

First thing is just let her recover for a second, have a little snooze.

They're told it was the woman's second fit of the day.

This time, she'd bitten into her tongue.

We waited until she recovered to a point

that they were comfortable with,

and that point was that she was able to smile

and part of her demeanour is to hug men.

One of the signs that said that she was back to normal, really,

was that she made a beeline for me.

The ladies do. Well, you know...

Within minutes, they're directed to their next patient.

The call has come from a GP surgery -

a 63-year-old man is having a severe reaction to a wasp sting.

He's fighting for breath.

The man has been stabilised by the GP,

but it's all very worrying for his wife.

If you just give us a couple of minutes... Yeah.

..we'll just get your husband settled.

Some people react so badly to stings,

they go into anaphylactic shock, which can be fatal.

Difficulty breathing and swelling in the throat are common symptoms.

Thomas was stung in his back garden.

Half an hour later, he felt dizzy

and a rash appeared over his whole body.

I can't remember where I put the leads.

His doctor wasted no time in giving him adrenaline and hydrocortisone

and calling the ambulance.

How are you feeling? A bit of a headache. Bit of a headache? Yes.

Adrenaline sometimes triggers headaches.

Thomas will be monitored throughout the quick trip to hospital.

We'll get it to take the blood pressure

and all sorts of things while we're on the move.

The hydrocortisone reduces Thomas' inflammation

and his lowered blood oxygen levels will be helped by adrenaline,

which speeds up the heart.

Just cos of the adrenaline, that's all.

Thanks to his speedy treatment, Thomas' breathing is easier

and the alarming rash is starting to go.

Actually, if you notice your feet, they've...

I don't know if...you can't see. I don't have my glasses, no.

But the redness is gone.

Let's have a look at the rest of it.

So it is subsiding. They've done a good job there.

And Thomas' vital signs are looking much better too.

The blood pressure is good. 145 now, so that's shot back up now.

Going to sit you over there. Right, thank you.

But he'll still need to be checked out at hospital.

Wife Rosemary is going too.

It's certainly a lot better.

It's a shame we didn't get a before and after picture.

I can get stung again if you want.

Now that everything's calmed down, Sally is back in the driving seat.

Jason stays with Thomas in case he takes a turn for the worse.

He's feeling well enough now to tell Jason a little more

about how he got stung.

Do you think it got stuck in some clothing or did it just...?

45 minutes later, he knew something wasn't right

and went to his doctor's.

What sort of state were you in when you got into the GP's?

I felt faint...

and hot.

The drugs do their work

and by the time they get to A,

Thomas' rash has almost gone.

11 o'clock at night

and Sally and Jason are nearing the end of their shift.

SAT-NAV: 'You have arrived at your destination.'

A woman has had a fall at home and cut her head.

She's conscious and breathing,

but they're taking no chances with the head injury.

They want her to be checked over in hospital.

How long ago was it when you banged your head?

The lady has a gash on her forehead

that will need to be cleaned and dressed.

Have you got a handbag or something you want to take with you?

If you grab that yellow bar on your way up.

That's it, well done.

And we'll just get you sat down, just there.

The woman is admitted to the hospital

just to be sure there are no lasting effects from her head injury.

As for Jason and Sally, their shift is finally over.

At hospital, the little girl who was knocked down

after running into the path of a car was X-rayed.

She had a broken leg.

It was put in a plaster cast

and she is recovering well.

The woman who fell over in the

garden was found to have suffered

three fractures to her arm.

She had to have an operation and has now made a full recovery.

Ian's fall from a scaffold tower

left him with severe injuries.

Scans revealed a compound fracture in his left shoulder,

a broken hip and a broken wrist.

Back at home, five weeks later, Ian recalls the fateful day.

I could see my wrist was pointing

in the wrong direction,

so, initially, I thought I'd just broken my wrist

and my leg had gone into a cramp, cos sometimes it does

from a previous injury I had.

I tried to move it to alleviate the pain

and it just wouldn't go,

there was just something that was really, you know, bad about it.

But then, the pain in the shoulder was also quite bad

and I couldn't move that either.

Ian and his wife Janet are extremely grateful to the ambulance crews

who came out to help them.

You don't realise how lucky we are.

On the end of that one phone call

comes so much help, it's unbelievable.

Ian's had surgery on both hip and wrist,

but it will be 18 months before he's back to normal.

But he knows it could have been far worse.

If I had landed on my head,

well, I don't think I would have been here now.

And I certainly, if I had damaged my back,

I could have, you know, been in a wheelchair constantly.

So, really, I am quite lucky.

But no more tree cutting, I think.

I think we'll leave that to the professionals in future.

Just another day in the office for the extraordinary men and women

of our emergency services. That's it for today's Real Rescues.

See you next time.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd