Episode 5 Real Rescues

Whether in the air, on the sea or on the roads, the emergency services are all trained for the same thing -

to save lives. It can mean working in the most difficult conditions.

Tonight, we see how tough it can get. This is Real Rescues.

Tonight, a cargo ship is listing dangerously in the Channel.

Twenty crew need to be airlifted to safety through a forest of masts in a near gale.

As hazards go, quite substantial.

Gary's the winchman, and he could have become impaled, become trapped in there.

A car crashes into a tree.

Paramedics have to work fast to save the driver, who suffered horrific leg injuries.

I was worried that suddenly we were going to have quite a catastrophic haemorrhage

and Ian would then go into shock from it.

And 93-year-old Lily, the retired dinner lady, spills the beans

about the TV star who wouldn't eat up.

He was a little horror.

When it came to greens, "No, thank you," he said.

The first rescue we're featuring on tonight's programme

is among the most daring the air-sea rescue services have carried out.

It's the story of the cargo ship the Ice Prince, its crew of 20, and what happened off the south coast,

when severe gale force winds and high seas shifted its cargo of timber.

It's growing dark. The wind's getting up and the seas are looking stormy on the south coast.

Just the kind of conditions to make a coastguard's heart sink.

The shift's only just changed at the Brixham control room, when the emergency channel comes to life.

Pan-Pan is a distress call used by ships.

Thirty nine miles off the south Devon coast, the Greek-registered Ice Prince is listing badly.

Its 5,000-ton timber cargo has shifted, forcing the ship dangerously off balance.

Weather conditions on that night were force six to seven winds.

The worst case scenario is obviously that the list will increase,

and the vessel is in danger of capsizing and turning turtle.

I would imagine that the men would have been quite scared.

I know I would have been.

The 20-strong crew can be seen here huddling at the highest point of the 328 ft vessel.

The Coastguard in Brixham know a ship can recover from a 25 degree list.

But with a heavy load of timber, that's not easy.

So they're preparing for the worst.

The first job is getting a precise location.

They found the ship. But there's no time to waste, as there are reports already of injuries.

We heard one of the crewmen had sustained what the master thought was a broken leg.

There was no question then. That casualty needed to come off straight away.

The air and sea rescue services respond immediately.

Lifeboats head out from Torbay and Salcombe to the ship, now listing at 40 degrees.

Coastguard helicopter India Juliet is scrambled from its base in Portland. Wincher Pat is on board.

En route, obviously the weather conditions were such they were, we were listening to the radios

and could pick up the fact that things were going downhill and the situation was worsening.

As soon as we got visual of the left hand of the ship, its upper deck

was actually underwater then, so she was listing all the way over.

It would be very hazardous for anybody to move on the deck due to the angle on the deck.

So we raised the subject of removing all non-essential personnel.

It's a lot easier to take persons off in a controlled situation,

as opposed to when it becomes real dire need.

Churning seas, crosswinds and a listing ship is every sailor's worst nightmare.

Will the team manage to bring it to an end?

We'll be back to find out.

An emergency call has come in requesting more police back-up at a serious road accident.

PC Nick Lacey has to leave his desk and get out on the road as quickly as possible.

Fire and ambulance crews are already working at the scene,

but the call has been made for a police escort for the ambulance.

That only happens when the injuries are very serious.

As he speeds to the scene, Nick's receiving regular updates.

Time is ticking by. Nick knows the area well.

It's not far now, but the roads are not the easiest to navigate at speed.

Just at the bottom of the hill here there are a series of S-bends.

-He negotiates the bends and he's there.

-There it is.

-Three-zero, state six.

-The road ahead is completely crammed with emergency vehicles.

He's made it in time to see the seriously injured man being carried into the ambulance.

Doc... Do you need an escort?

Yes.

Only one car is involved in the accident, a silver people carrier.

It appears to have careered off the road and into a tree.

The damage to the front of the car is extensive.

A woman from the nearby village was driving behind.

She pulled over and immediately went to help the driver, Ian Encke.

Two men were on their mobile phones, calling the emergency services,

I assumed. Another lady as well.

But as Ian was on his own in the car, I thought that I should go and see to him. He didn't look too good.

There was quite a lot of blood on his face and hands and arms.

I was concerned that he was going to go to sleep, because he was so grey.

He was losing all his colour.

I was asking him where he lived and what he did for a living.,

and what he'd been doing earlier on in the day.

I suppose I was just wanting to keep him awake and keep things

as normal as possible in the circumstances.

Beccy kept Ian company until the emergency services arrived.

Once there, they worked quickly and efficiently to get him into the ambulance.

The sooner Ian gets treatment, the better his outcome.

The ambulance is ready to go, so Nick sets off again at speed through the countryside.

Get over.

Basically trying to clear a bit, like a ship - clear your way through the water,

and leave something a little bit calm behind you.

It's probably less than a mile now.

The essence of doing an ambulance run is generally they want a smooth,

controlled run, where they don't have to do too much heavy braking or acceleration.

It's really all about planning.

It's not so much about being a really great driver.

A professional job well done. The emergency services have freed Ian

from the wreckage of his car and got him to hospital in under 10 minutes.

Now it's up to the medics to do their work.

The police can only wait and see what kind of investigation this will turn out to be.

In the turbulent waters of the English Channel, the crew

of the stricken Ice Prince are desperately huddled on the ship's deck, awaiting rescue.

Coastguard helicopter India Juliet is on scene.

Winchman Gary Mitchell is about to be dropped a staggering 130ft

down to the listing deck.

And that'll be no easy task. Between India Juliet and the deck there's a forest of masts.

As hazards go,

it was quite substantial. If the winch had caught on those,

it could have parted them. But Gary as the winchman,

if he'd swung into them, he could have impaled himself, become trapped in there.

If he'd still been attached to the end of the wire, he would have been pulled in both directions.

Gary successfully made it onto the slippery deck.

With enormous skill he's navigated the masts of the pitching ship.

The tremendous winds forced Gary to move men down to a lower deck,

much nearer to the crashing waves.

Terrifying as this is,

it's the best way to avoid the line becoming tangled in the masts.

It probably would be a scary place - one minute they're looking at

black sky, the next minute they're looking at foam and water.

Gary, he actually physically had to brace himself in there to prevent himself falling out.

The harness is dropped down the guideline.

And two by two, 12 of the men are laboriously lifted from the listing deck.

They are suspended on the end of the wire for a reasonable period of time.

Obviously with the black ocean beneath them, I can imagine it would be quite terrifying for them.

They were getting some wide eyes. But once we got them inside the aircraft,

they were very appreciative of the fact that they were safe.

-They were quite relieved.

-Then, a problem.

Hovering in these conditions for a long time is using up a lot of fuel.

India Juliet is now running dangerously low.

The crew need to be sure they've got enough to get back to base.

But heading back now would mean leaving eight terrified crewmen behind.

It's a tough call.

It's really got to be thought about carefully, and it will always be the last option.

On that night the safety of the majority definitely outweighed leaving the guys behind.

Plus the fact they had lifeboats alongside anyway, so there was always

the option for them to actually carry on and perform the rescue themselves.

So, the lifeboat does take on the rescue.

Over an hour and three quarters they make 50 approaches to the ship, and get the eight men onto the lifeboat.

A rescue that's to earn the coxon a silver award for gallantry.

In the early hours of the next day, the Torbay lifeboat

arrives back at port, its cargo of men exhausted but safe.

Talking to some of the lifeboat crew this morning,

they say the weather conditions were the worst they've ever faced during a rescue in 35 years.

Just look at the damage done to the bow, to give you some idea of

what was going on last night during that incredibly successful rescue of 20 sailors in gale force winds.

It's been a traumatic night for the crew.

They're all relieved and thankful.

They take me by helicopter. They rescue me.

When you saw the helicopter, what were your thoughts?

Erm...

Pleased to see them?

It's a night that will remain etched on the minds of these men for a long time to come.

But they're onshore and safe.

The plight of their ship is still in the balance.

Her load is becoming more precarious, and the list of the ship is steadily increasing.

As we'll be seeing, she's now in the hands of the salvage teams.

But they can't work without the emergency services.

It's 6am, and the day has not yet broken.

Jane Peters is on duty with a colleague in the ambulance.

They're rushing to an elderly woman's home.

We're going to a 93-year-old female that's fallen.

It appears that police have had to break in.

That's all the information we've got so far.

There's not a lot of traffic so early in the day, and they're on the scene quickly.

Hello?

Rapid response paramedic Henry Gill is already there when they arrive.

-Lily?

-Yes, dear?

-Hello.

-It's the ambulance.

-Oh yes, dear.

-Can you see me all right?

-Yes, dear.

-You can, can you?

-Yes, thank you.

Henry briefs Jane on what he's managed to find out so far.

She's fallen back on this.

She managed to drag herself there.

She thought she'd only been there for a few hours, but she's been there all night. She's quite cold.

Very bruised in this area.

-What, in the middle?

-Yeah, right in the middle.

Jane takes over, but she has to speak up because her patient, Lily Hunt, is hard of hearing.

Is it just your back that hurts?

Yes. I fell on my back.

Did you? Oh, dear.

No wonder Lily's cold.

She's been lying there the whole night and only pressed her emergency alarm this morning.

We need to get you out of here to take you for a check-up.

-Oh, all right.

-OK?

-Yes.

I'm quite sure that once they've checked you over, they'll send you back home again.

Oh, that is lovely, dear.

Because you're only a young lady, aren't you?

-Eh?

-You're only a young lady, aren't you?

Hopefully!

Jane's sure Lily has no significant injuries.

However, after a night on the floor she'll still feel stiff and achey.

So getting her up won't be easy.

Right Lil, give me this arm.

I know it's going to be a bit sore, darling.

One, two, three...

-Let me sit up.

-There's a chair.

There's a chair there, darling.

-Now, with Lily more comfortable, they can take her to the ambulance.

-You're going up in the world.

But she's still very cold from her night on the floor.

So you don't normally shake like this then?

No, I don't.

Here...

If I thought I was going to have this, I'd have had a perm.

-Oh, we should have brushed your hair for you, shouldn't we?

-Eh?

We should have brushed your hair for you, shouldn't we?

-Oh, dear.

-You look lovely though.

Lily was a Cockney lady that lived in London.

She obviously had a lot of history

behind her, being 93 years of age.

She was just... I could have dealt with her all day long.

-Let's feel your hands. Are they any warmer?

-Yeah.

Not shaking so much now?

No.

When she fell, Lily bruised her back.

But now she's feeling a new pain in her chest.

-Oh...

-Is your back sore, is it?

-It's sore, here.

-Is it?

-Oh...

Do you suffer with your chest, then?

-No. No.

-Is it a pain or is it just...?

-It's a pain.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

Jane decides to hook Lily up to the ECG monitor in case her pain's an indication of a heart problem.

Do you want to cover your arms up, darling, keep warm.

-OK. Thank you.

-There.

-That's not too bad at all, Lily, actually.

-Isn't it?

-No.

-No. Oh, good.

-All the squiggly lines are doing what they should be doing.

-Yeah.

Now Lily's feeling better she's got a few stories she wants to share with Jane,

including the time she worked as a school dinner lady.

And you know who was in my class, Noel Edmonds.

I was going to say to you when you did...

Noel Edmonds.

-He was a little horror.

-Was he?

-When it came to greens...

-Yeah.

"No thank you," he says.

I used to say to him, "Yes, please."

In the finish he got away with it,

he never ate his greens. Never ate his greens.

They were lovely days, I thoroughly enjoyed it with the children.

I was just amazed by her. For 93 years of age,

a really lovely old lady.

They arrive at the hospital and Lily can be given a thorough check-up.

We'll find out later how she gets on.

Back in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, a new day has dawned on the stricken Ice Prince.

All 20 crew have been rescued but the ship's still adrift,

40 miles off the coast of Devon.

She's listing at a perilous 45-degree angle.

What happens next is up to the salvage experts.

What do you think the chances are of a successful salvage mission?

Considering the weather, 50-50.

-So...

-Good luck.

-Thank you very much, OK.

Coastguard helicopter India Juliet is back in action again

as the salvage teams head out to try to get on board the stricken ship.

The idea is to assess the list and determine if it's safe enough to get a line on her from a tug boat.

So you'd want to put a man down on the deck

to receive a line from the tug, is that right?

Yes.

They lower a man onto the stricken ship, no easy task in the strong winds.

Now he has to clamber up the slippery, sloping deck.

He makes it to the top but signals to the salvage experts

on board the helicopter that it's too dangerous to risk a tow line.

An attempt was made by a salvage tug to get a line on board so they could take the vessel in tow.

This failed and the vessel continue to drift in a north-easterly direction.

Not only that, the inevitable has happened - all the ship's cargo of timber has been lost to sea.

Because of the direction of the wind,

it was obvious it was going to end up on the beaches of the south coast.

It's transformed the landscape.

Every beach along a ten-mile stretch of coast is covered in huge wood piles.

Meanwhile, out in the English Channel, the battle's over.

The Ice Prince has given herself up to the sea.

The cargo ship that got into difficulties along the south-west coast on Sunday night has sunk.

The Ice Prince went down in very rough weather around 26 miles south-east of Portland Bill.

It may be the end for the Ice Prince but its lost cargo of timber is going to present more problems.

This time for the fire service.

Nick Lacey is at the scene of a terrible road accident where this car smashed into a tree.

It was being driven by a local man, Ian Encke, who's now in hospital

with what's feared to be life-threatening injuries.

It's the only vehicle involved.

Nobody knows why it happened.

What you're looking for is freshly disturbed earth, things like tyre marks.

If we look that way you can see quite a nice, tidy tyre mark going over the verge.

-He's not gone left, he's just carried straight on.

-That's right, absolutely.

Whatever the cause of the accident, all thoughts are with the driver.

Then the call comes through to Sergeant Wayne Voller.

I've just had an update.

The injuries that we initially thought were life-threatening are no longer life-threatening.

They're serious, very serious. He's got a badly broken leg and ankle

but he's not going to die.

So there's going to be no potential investigation for the coroner, so we're just going to clear it up now.

His life is out of danger but the driver has suffered terrible injuries.

Paramedic Frank Minchell was the first to him.

It was very obvious at the time that he was trapped in the vehicle.

He was having a great deal of pain from his legs.

That can be quite a positive sign, initially, because if you're

getting pain, you're getting feeling down there but the longer it goes on, the more toxins and clots that are

building up in the bloodstream, the more danger to the patient.

If the initial injuries don't kill you outright,

it's purely preventable things that can then do it afterwards.

So it's us as a medical service to try to lessen the extent

of further damage going on.

Ian could also recall most of the horror of the accident.

I was driving home from work, and, erm...

Perfectly normal, a little bit tired, not very.

As I came towards home, a few bends away from the village,

I blanked out.

I had a vague recollection I felt woozy - and a feeling of being on a rollercoaster.

Then suddenly I came to and about six foot in front of me was a tree.

Both legs were completely trapped.

My left leg was trapped by the steering column which had moved across to the left.

My right leg was trapped against the steering column by the side of the car

and both legs were pushed up with my knees almost against my chest.

As we him, Ian says something like, "Oh, hell, my heel's detached."

When I felt down there you could see that his heel was hanging in two pieces right down to his foot.

The floor of the van had cut through my heel bone and cut right the way down to the instep.

I saw that falling away. It's amazing what you do under the circumstances.

I said, "My foot's falling off." I reached down and held it on.

I was worried that suddenly we were going to have a catastrophic

haemorrhage in there and Ian would then go into shock from it.

So I quickly grabbed a pressure dressing to pull the pieces

back together to ensure there was no sudden blood being freed.

The basics doctor was there to assist and then transferred to hospital as quickly as possible.

Ian fractured his left leg as well as suffering the horrific injuries to his right foot.

In hospital, his condition worsens before it gets better.

I had a pulmonary embolism and a clot on the lung

within two days of arriving in hospital.

That prevented them doing the next stage of the operation, going in to see what to do to fix the foot.

If the blood supply didn't recover then there was a risk of losing the foot.

So, it was great to be alive, but it was a scary prognosis.

It takes four weeks of intensive hospital treatment to save Ian's foot.

During that time the doctors also discover what caused the accident.

One of the things they discovered when I was in hospital

was I was severely anaemic and had been so for over six months.

In hindsight, I can see some of the evidence for that and that is almost definitely the reason I passed out.

Forty miles off the Devon coast,

the coastguard and RNLI have saved 20 sailors from the doomed Ice Prince.

Its timber load has become salvage, washed up on the beaches of West Sussex,

but the ill-fated ship and its lost cargo has one more challenge for the emergency services.

It's 1am on a Sunday morning in February,

a month after the mid-Channel rescue, and West Sussex Fire Service

are called out to an out-of-control bonfire on Worthing beach.

On the morning of the call we weren't totally surprised, we knew roughly

what we were going to, and as we approached the call we could see

it was as we thought and it was going to be a huge bonfire on the beach.

One of the giant wood piles is now alight.

The wood may be wet but not so wet it wouldn't ignite.

There was nothing spontaneous about this fire.

Someone deliberately set fire to enable that fire to start.

Once it starts going, once the heat builds up,

then even wet wood burns quickly

and it self-perpetuates until we get to a stage where we have a huge fire,

flames licking up into the sky.

Initially our first thoughts were - was anyone involved in the fire itself,

because you get people that will be down there, sleeping or whatever.

We checked - there was nobody there.

Our next priority was for the beach huts and so forth

because you never know quite what's in these beach huts. There could be people's possessions, gas cylinders.

But the wind is in their favour and is blowing the flames towards

the sea, stopping the fire from spreading.

If the wind had been coming from the prevailing south-westerly

as it normally does, the rest of the piles would have been involved as well.

It's not just the wind which is helping the firefighters -

a digger nearby had been used in clearing the beach of timber.

Having that on site was a great assistance to us

being able to move the unburnt timber so we could finally get to the timber that was burning.

By using the digger to remove the wood from the path of the fire,

the firefighters are beginning to win the battle.

This fire could not have started on its own.

An arsonist will never consider their actions.

They would consider the fact that somebody else, somewhere, may be suffering because of their actions.

In total the fire needed eight pumps to bring it under control and kept firefighters busy for 12 hours.

The emergency services worked very well.

Along with the local emergency planning authorities, the beach is

now clear and everything's been moved and a satisfactory outcome achieved.

So it's finally over, more than a month after it began.

During that time, the RNLI and coastguard saved 20 crew from a listing ship in a Force 9 storm.

The ship was lost to the sea

and a wood slick washed up on the beaches of the south coast.

It was left to the Sussex fire crews to play out the last act

of the Ice Prince drama on the beaches of Worthing.

All part of the service provided by the men and women of our rescue teams.

Let's catch up with some of the other people who featured in tonight's programme.

Lily Hunt, the 93-year-old woman who spent the night on the floor after falling, escaped with a few bruises.

She's now living closer to her daughter in a residential home where she's recovering well.

She's had flowers from Noel Edmonds and a note saying he now eats his sprouts.

Ian Encke, the driver of the car which hit a tree, is back on his feet, but only just.

He owes his life to the emergency services

and is also very grateful to Beccy Ward for helping him directly after the accident happened.

I wasn't the only person there, it's important to say that.

There were lots of other people in the background

and people making sure the emergency services were on their way.

I just dealt with it in a way that anybody would, really.

I'm sure he would do exactly the same for me in those circumstances.

I was incredibly grateful for what she did.

It's only when something like this happens that you realise how good people are.

But Beccy particularly because she was there at the beginning

and made it a lot easier for me to handle the time it took for the emergency services.

I'm sure it would have seemed a lot longer without somebody there,

talking to me and checking I was OK, and saying, "You look all right",

even if I didn't.

Every time you see a blue light or hear a siren the emergency services are on their way

to help someone in distress.

Join me again when we go out on call for more Real Rescues.

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