Episode 3 Real Rescues

Today, a 999 call alerts the fire service to an emergency at a block of flats.

Firefighters arrive to find a high walkway has collapsed.

Families are trapped and they can smell gas.

There's only a flimsy tree root between him and a fall on to rocks,

but this caller hangs on to his sense of humour.

He might be making a joke, but he is in real danger.

And a woman who ended up trapped in her car, hanging over a river, miles from help.

It was quite scary for her and daunting for us, looking at the river below, thinking, "Oh, my God!"

Hello and welcome to Real Rescues.

This police control room near Southampton is one of the busiest

and largest in the UK. Each area here has different responsibilities.

This is the motorway desk. You can see the screens behind me.

There's the command desk. Everything serious goes through there.

Where Nick is, that's Eastleigh. They're in charge of the airports.

At the back of the room is the new forensics desk.

Later on, we'll talk to a forensic investigator about their work.

Before we get started, I want to have a walk round.

At the moment, we have a shift change.

Bob, who's in charge, is handing over to Russ.

We'll have a quick word with Russ and find out what's going on. What have you got for us today?

At the moment, we're looking at a couple of incidents of note.

One is a group of lads with guns,

although it turns out it would appear to be BB guns.

And we're also looking at a suspect package that has been delivered to the Isle of Wight

which is taking up quite a few resources at the moment.

-That's interesting. You said kids were running around... I presume a BB gun is like an air gun?

-Yeah.

They think it's a bit of a laugh, but for the people around them...

It's quite a concern, of course.

Who's been called in on the suspect package?

The suspect package... Several people have been informed on that one.

-We always notify Special Branch if we have an incident such as a suspect package.

-Right.

And also we've got a specialist dog unit who can identify what the suspect...what substance it is.

-OK.

-If it's a white substance.

But also we have the fire brigade and the ambulance crews which are also involved.

OK, we'll keep up with that a bit later on, but quickly, I want to chat to Bob.

You've got people coming in through the ports. Your area has two major ports in it.

We have a group of people who seem to have entered the country illegally.

We're searching for a group who have gone missing from the Dock Gate area.

It appears that a group have come in in a lorry.

Some have been detained and the UK Border Agency and Immigration are currently dealing with them.

I'll come back to you later,

but first, an emergency that's more common in earthquake zones than in the city centre.

A man has just called 999, struggling to believe what he has seen and heard.

Part of a block of flats has collapsed. This is how the call came in.

And the caller wasn't kidding. It's an unbelievable sight.

A large section of this block of flats has inexplicably collapsed.

Crews from the Hightown Fire Station are dispatched to the scene.

They've been told two families are trapped inside their flats.

Their courtyard garden and the paths to the front doors have fallen away.

Trying to get out would involve a dangerous drop on to unstable ground.

There's also an ominous smell of gas in the air and a real fear of further explosion or collapse.

Incident commander Mark Raven sets up an exclusion zone.

My initial worries were I didn't understand

whether this was a gas explosion

or a collapse which had caused a gas leak, which was quite worrying.

There was a huge amount of gas on the site.

Our first action was to warn the families not to switch on or switch off anything electrical,

then I detailed the crews to start effecting the rescues.

They've set up on the side of the building away from the debris.

There's a family of five trapped in one flat and six in the other.

Firefighter Mark Caplen carefully takes little Harry out from the left-hand flat first.

It's a parent's natural instinct

to give you their children before they put themselves out for rescue.

Harry was a little bit hysterical cos he was leaving his mum's arms. He didn't want to be with a stranger.

I tried to reassure Harry that he would be fine.

HARRY CRIES Harry, Harry, Harry...

Look up there! You see your sister? Your sister's coming down now.

Your sister's coming now. Harry, we'll go down there and see the nice policeman. You come with me.

While Mark leads a reassured Harry away to safety, Steve Graham brings down his sister Rosina.

It's always harder with children on the ladders. As they're quite small,

you don't have a correct handling of the ladder, so you do the best you can whilst coming down.

Mummy will be coming in a minute.

As they continue to evacuate the family from the left-hand flat,

another fire crew is preparing to rescue their neighbours -

Diane and her four children who are waiting anxiously for their turn.

I'm calming the children down, saying, "Don't worry, we'll just get ourselves ready,"

trying to let them know we're going to be OK.

"Just keep to the middle in case anything else shakes or moves.

"If we all stay huddled up like in a circle, we'll be OK."

Getting them out of this flat will be made more precarious

as the drop is deeper and over a flight of steps.

There's also a problem with the window.

I know our windows don't open fully

because I put them on a tilt and locked it,

so that the children couldn't lean through the windows because there was a big drop at the front.

I just put the keys well away,

not thinking that something like this could happen and it would be our escape route.

While Diane searches frantically for the key,

next door, Michael, who made the original 999 call, is the last person to be removed.

He will join the rest of his family at the local church hall

which is providing shelter for the evacuated residents.

They're all relieved to have escaped unharmed from such a devastating scene.

There was a big bang and a shake. I thought my son had fallen out of bed.

It wasn't that. My wife thought it was thunder.

I looked outside my bedroom window and my whole courtyard's just gone. It fell down to the ground.

But all I was worried about was people underneath. It was terrible, absolutely terrible.

-There was a smell of strong gas.

-Yeah, smell of gas.

I thought the whole house was going to cave in.

The balcony had gone. I was so shaken up. I just wanted to get out and couldn't.

But at least they are out.

Diane hasn't been able to locate the window key, so the firefighters will have to break in.

But it's not going to be easy.

The irony in all this is that the building itself was fitted with safety glass on the outside pane

and it was preventing us from getting in in a timely fashion.

Take the single pane out. You'll never get that out.

Normally, we'd use an electrical appliance to cut the glass.

However, I couldn't introduce anything electrical into the scene because of the gas leak,

so we had to go to hand tools and the best hand tool that we've got for this was a fireman's axe.

With the cause of this destruction unknown, the fear of an explosion or further collapse is a real concern.

The fire crew need to get this family out to safety as fast as they can.

The next little girl they have to bring down is terrified

and it gives the fire crews a problem as we'll see when we return to that rescue a bit later.

John Bird here has quite a story.

He lost his footing on a cliff walk and he ended up... It's impossible to explain. Show me.

When I fell, I landed about 10 or 12 feet down.

I was horizontal to the path above

and I noticed there was a twig two feet long just a short way away

and I inched my way along, got my leg over it and was holding the twig through my leg to keep myself still.

-Not particularly comfortable?

-Not at all, but better than falling.

When that happened, he didn't lose his cool, his sense of humour or his manners

as he called the Coastguard for help.

How were you making that phone call and holding on to the branch at the same time...

-You called Margorie, your wife, first?

-I did. I keep my mobile phone on the hip,

so while I was holding the twig like that, I could use the phone on my other hand to make the call.

-Margorie, what did you think?

-As soon as I received the call, I thought he was joking.

-He is a bit of a joker.

-Yes, he is a wicked joker.

And as soon as I received the call, when he said, "I need help," I knew then it was a genuine call,

so I alerted the emergency services and waited for them.

-You realised if you could call Margorie, you could call the Coastguard?

-That's right.

Let's see what happened when they were trying to locate you.

At the end of that, you sound really concerned. You realise you'll have to wait a longer time.

Yes, I realised that anybody coming out from Clevedon would take 20, 25 minutes to walk to me.

They told me a helicopter was coming from Portland which would take the best part of half an hour.

-You could hear the helicopter?

-Yes, and I could see the helicopter circling above the water in the bay.

And that was the most distressing part of it all because I thought he had gone.

I was trying to contact him on the telephone. I didn't realise it was engaged with the Coastguard.

-Did you think you were going to lose him?

-Yes, I did.

-Oh, how horrible for you!

-Very distressed.

-Absolutely. Absolutely. You must have been...

There was no-one around who I could talk to.

At that time, I was in the car park on my own.

So the emergency services, of course, arrived and they were very reassuring.

And really sincere thanks to them all.

I know you haven't seen these photos, Margorie, and we've got footage of the helicopter as well

which will give you a sense of what was going on.

What was going through your mind? You would have known that she was worried as well.

I was. I asked the Coastguard at Swansea to contact her by mobile phone and thanks to them for that.

So here you were at this point halfway down the cliff.

-It wasn't a cliff rescue. They came over the cliff to get you, didn't they?

-That's correct.

One of the lads came over with the sling. Once we were both in it, then obviously, they pulled us up.

Margorie, you were really upset at the time and you were concerned that you hadn't said goodbye to him.

That's right.

-I thought that he was in the water. And I didn't have a chance to say goodbye...

-Aw!

-But he's all right.

-He's all right? He's better than that.

-He's still a wicked joker, isn't he?

-Yes, he hasn't changed one bit.

He's still walking along there several times a week.

-But being more careful.

-Is he being more careful?

-Yes, he is.

-Slightly more careful.

It's been a pleasure to speak to you. I'm glad you're safe and well and that you still joke! Nick?

Before we leave John, I think that's the most polite victim I've ever heard.

"I'm terribly sorry, I think I might fall to my death. I don't want to disturb anyone."

How did you manage to stay so polite? I'd be screaming.

My main thought all the time was, "Keep calm, keep calm, there's a big drop down there!"

And right at the beginning, you say, "The name's Bird, B-I-R-D." And you were in a bush.

-Did no-one say to you, "Bird in a bush?"

-I've had the mickey taken out of me, a poem written about me.

-I'll never live it down.

-Lovely talking to you. Thanks, Louise.

From useful twigs to useful trees. Hit a tree normally and you're in trouble in a car.

However, in the next rescue, it prevented a far worse accident.

A New Forest road has been closed

as all three emergency services are working to free a woman driver who has hit ice.

Her sports car has spun out of control at the base of a hill,

crashed into a tree and has come to rest on its side, hanging over a river.

Driver Linda is conscious, but trapped in her seat.

Paramedic Shaun Prewitt has clambered in to keep her still and safe.

Seeing the car in the precarious situation it was in

and the damage to the car, we were expecting worse, but the patient was conscious. It was very reassuring.

It became obvious that she was pinned in the car by means of the door intrusion

which had trapped her legs against the centre console. She was pinned in that position.

The fire crew's first job was securing the car, so it won't slip down into the water.

But the only way to get Linda out is to pull the car back.

It's an unusual decision to move a vehicle when a patient may have spinal injuries,

but the medics have agreed it's safe to go ahead.

Crew manager Steve Evans is in charge of the MRV -

that's a multi-role vehicle.

We're going to tow it up on to the road,

so the position is the easiest to get her out and the safest for her.

They've got to ensure the move is as smooth as possible.

When they take the tension up on the winch, we remove the one off the back

and we need to secure it on the front somewhere, so we do the front with this Tirfor

and the winch will take the back of the vehicle.

Shaun has noticed that the front airbag is intact.

If it was set off now, it would make matters far worse for Linda.

Had the airbag gone off, we would have been concerned about any damage to the C-spine for the patient,

so they tied ropes around it to the front of the vehicle, just to make it more secure.

The MRV gets into place, ready to start winching the car back.

With careful teamwork, the car begins to move.

We wanted the hand-operated Tirfor winch to ensure that the front of the vehicle stayed in line.

There was a bit of concern when things started to move, the noise and the creaks.

But Linda coped very well. I was in close communication with a firefighter on the outside.

Any time that I would have said to stop the action, then that would have happened.

-Rest there.

-They can now get access to both sides of the car.

The damage to the roof shows what a massive impact the car and Linda have suffered.

It's crushed right down close to her head.

Very cramped situation. There's a lot of intrusion from the roof and the driver's door.

Do we think we can get a ram in on that roof to take it away from her head?

Tim O'Donnell gets the ram or hydraulic jack into place.

OK, that's it. Leave it there.

Now they can start to take off the door. It means using the powerful hydraulic spreaders next to Linda.

Just watch for intrusion on the door there. That's the only thing.

'The spreaders can manipulate metal effortlessly under complete control.'

OK, the door should be released now.

Linda's husband Paul has arrived at the scene.

He watches on as the firefighters carefully and gently cut his wife out from the car.

We need people either side to support the roof.

'When it came to the roof having to be cut off,

'that needed to be explained to Linda because there would be a lot of strange noises.

'Grinding, cutting, glass that hasn't broken needs to be broken.'

It also gets very dark in there because there's a lot of protection for the patient and myself.

But she coped with it very well. Very calm.

Now the roof is off, the team can see how best to get her out.

Paramedic Mike Gregory has a plan.

So if we were to put a KED there, that would be more supportive.

A KED is an extrication device that's used primarily to lift people out of confined spaces.

It's like a corset that goes around the patient, strapped to go round.

It supports the head and C-spine and keeps everything in line.

We'll need to support and help with the manual handling, all right?

Linda's ready to be manoeuvred on to the long board.

We'll just feed it hand over hand to 'em.

She was in very good spirits for the time that she was sat in the car.

It must have been scary for her to be sat there that length of time with those people milling around her

and looking at the river, thinking, "Oh, my God!"

It was quite scary for her and daunting for us,

having this limited work space to try and get her out of the car.

At last, Paul can get close to comfort his wife.

Linda will be taken to A&E for X-rays to find out just what her injuries are.

But things could have been a lot worse if the tree hadn't brought the car to a standstill.

It was possible, had the tree not been there, that the lady may have ended up upside down in the river

in a position where most people wouldn't have seen it from the road.

And there's a word of warning for other motorists.

In areas like this remote forest area, expect the unexpected.

In the hollow, you can have a cold spot like we had here this morning

where the roads on the tops were dry and clear,

but in the hollow where the sun takes that much longer to get into,

any ice or snow that may have formed overnight will take that much longer to dissipate.

Linda suffered extensive and very painful bruising, but she's recovering well.

I've wandered over to this side of the office to chat with Bob.

When we came in, we were talking about the immigration issue.

You must get a lot of people coming through the ports and people escaping and illegal immigrants.

Yes, it's a common occurrence.

We've got two major ports in Southampton and Portsmouth on the mainland.

Today, we've got an incident where people appear to have come in on a lorry

and cut their way through the curtain side of that lorry and tried to escape on to the mainland.

-You've managed to pick up... Two were held...

-Two were held initially at the border...

immediately in the dock, then within the dock area, a further six were detained,

but we're still looking for others.

-You say they cut into the side of the lorry, so the lorry driver might not necessarily be involved.

-No.

Clearly, we've got to look into the circumstances of how they've got in

and potentially, is the driver involved in this?

-But it appears that they've cut their way out of the side of the lorry.

-Interesting. Thank you very much.

Still to come on Real Rescues, teenager Sophie comes a cropper for the umpteenth time.

She's been thrown from her horse and dragged along with her foot in the stirrup.

-So, is it hurting round here?

-Oh, yeah. Aagh!

That's no problem. You may have just put a little crack in it. OK?

And car crash forensics - how a crack on a windscreen can reveal just how an accident happens.

Now we return to that extraordinary collapse at a block of flats.

It's left families trapped and worried that more of the building will fall down.

With the heavy smell of gas in the air and the real worry of further collapse,

firefighter Keith Burton has finally broken into the flat

where Diane and her four children have been waiting to be rescued.

The children were a little bit shaken and scared.

The smell of the gas and what had happened was in their mind.

Diane was doing a good job of keeping everybody calm. They just all wanted to get out as quickly as they could.

Keith decides to get the youngest, five-year-old Tegan, out first, but she's not going to come easily.

You'll be all right. Paul will look after you.

Both Keith and her mum are trying to reassure her, but it's just all too frightening.

Keith tries a different approach.

We decided to try and turn Tegan around,

so that her back was facing the other firefighter on the ladder.

That seemed to work. It took her mind off of just looking around.

She had to concentrate on where she was placing her feet and her hands.

She calmed down pretty quickly.

Look how high you are! It's good, innit? You can see everything, all those fire engines there for you.

Right, hold on tight then. Hold on to this. That's it. Well done.

Diane knows that for her little girl, it must seem like a very long way down.

She's impressed how the firefighters have got her to go down the ladder so calmly.

The firefighters were lovely. From how they were talking to the children, it made me feel better.

-That's it. Good girl.

-'They made them feel comfortable and everything

'and I was just so proud of the children.'

The firefighters were just adorable.

We'll see if we can get them a bit warm for you. We'll put you over this way now, OK? Good girl.

Tegan's much calmer now she's in the arms of Andrew Stinton.

Shall we wait here for your mum and dad to come down? Is that your sister coming?

-Remarkably, Mia is finding the whole experience a lot more fun.

-Step together.

Are you enjoying this?

-Step together.

-Whee!

-Are you all right? There you go.

Put your feet down. Come this side.

Whee!

-That's two of you. How many more people are there in there?

-Three.

-Three more to come down?

The rest of the family are quickly brought out with Diane the last to leave.

Well, almost the last to leave.

There you go.

But Buddy the lovebird isn't the only animal that needs rescuing.

These bunnies were sitting happily in their hutches on the raised courtyard garden

when the ground gave way beneath them. They belong to Mark who earlier had to be rescued himself.

I've got 13 rabbits. They were on the courtyard, all bouncing around.

I don't know how many's left. I did have 13 rabbits, but we'll have to wait and see what's left.

Fortunately, it seems all of the rabbits have miraculously survived.

In fact, most appear happily oblivious as to how lucky they've been.

But retrieving the rabbits will have to wait.

There's still a heavy gas leak somewhere and with the causes unknown,

the firefighters need everybody to stay away until the building is inspected by experts.

We're waiting to find out whether the gas has caused the collapse

or whether it is just a structural problem and it's then ruptured a gas pipe of some sort.

The residents cannot return to their homes for a while,

but given the size and location of this collapse, it's amazing that nobody has been hurt.

We're lucky that this has happened in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

It is a busy walkway and it could have injured a lot of people,

so fate has it that it's happened at a quiet time.

What had happened was that walkway collapsed after a brick support pillar had given way.

Absolutely. Once all the people were safe, the firefighters gathered up the rabbits.

There they go. He's on a rope for his own safety. The rabbits...

It looks so uncomfortable when they carry them like that.

13 of them - can you imagine trying to find them all hopping round that Wendy house?

You say 13. There were 20 by the time they'd rescued them all(!)

All the families have been re-housed and so have all the rabbits.

-Shall we move on from rabbits to horses?

-Go on.

15-year-old Sophie has been riding horses since she was a tot,

but her 13 years on horseback have not been accident-free.

SIREN WAILS

We've got a 15-year-old that's come off a horse.

The information we've been given is that she's not in the road, she's in the woods nearby.

It'll give us some access problems, depending on how easy it is to get into the woods.

They get the ambulance as close as possible, but the accident has happened a little way from the road.

I'll go and have a quick look.

Some local boys seem to think it was a bad fall.

-When we found her, she was unconscious.

-Is she talking to you now?

-Yeah.

-That's good.

-She's sat, is she?

-Yeah.

-Her collarbone hurts.

-Her collarbone hurts, OK. Do we know her name?

-Sophie.

-Sophie.

200 metres down the track, they find a very distressed Sophie being comforted by Sue, a family friend,

and mum Amanda.

-Can you tell me what's happened?

-I think I just came off.

-You just came off.

A few things we want to just find out. When you breathe in and out, does it hurt?

-No. My collarbone really hurts.

-Which side?

-This side.

-On this side here.

OK, let's have a look at it. I'll have a quick look the best I can.

-So, is it hurting round here?

-Oh, yeah. Aagh!

You may have just put a little crack in it.

-OK? You weren't knocked out, were you?

-Well, they reckoned she was.

-Who took your helmet off?

-She didn't have one.

-You weren't wearing one.

Although Sophie has an obvious and painful injury to her collarbone,

the fact that she wasn't wearing a helmet means paramedic Dave Palmer is worried

there may be a more serious, but hidden injury to her head and neck.

-Any pains anywhere down your back?

-No.

-None at all?

-No.

Sophie had suffered a distracting injury.

What we mean by that

is I'm asking her when I look at areas down her back and neck.

'Unfortunately, she is focusing very much on the collarbone.'

-Up here on your neck, does that hurt?

-No. My collarbone's really hurting.

-Your collarbone's hurting.

It can seem unusual for the patient

because in their mind, they're very much, "I have a pain here, why are you not dealing with it?"

But we have to immediately go to the things that either threaten their life or their lifestyle.

Sophie was riding with Sue's granddaughter Paige who is also upset by the accident.

-Come here.

-It's my fault.

-No, it's not. It's nobody's fault.

-I should have listened to you though.

One of these days, somebody will listen to me.

Paige tells them that as well as falling off the horse, Sophie was dragged along the path

with her foot caught in the stirrups.

-Was she unconscious?

-Yeah, she was making noises.

Sophie's behaviour after her fall gives Dave even more reason to be concerned about a head injury.

-You felt a little bit dizzy?

-I still do.

-You still do.

If a person is not wearing a riding helmet, they have a greater risk of damage to the outside of the head

and it increases the likelihood of them having a brain injury.

-How high is the horse that you've come off?

-14.2.

-Can you put that into English for me?

-She's only little.

-About the same height as you?

-A bit smaller than me.

Head injuries can be very unpredictable. A person can appear to have no injuries at all,

then suddenly become quite unwell, which is why we're monitoring very closely her level of consciousness.

Sophie, open your eyes. Keep talking to me, my dear.

-I feel really dizzy.

-You feel really dizzy.

You have had quite a bang. I'll have a quick look at your head and see if I can see anything obvious.

Twig in forest!

There's no obvious bleeding. Let's have a look in your eyes.

Having checked as much as he can, Dave needs to get Sophie into hospital as soon as possible.

And this hospital trip is a pretty regular one for Sophie as we'll be finding out.

I want to talk to Mark about a really lucky escape.

-Look at this picture! I can see a car went into a house.

-Yeah.

A bit of a nasty one. We had a call from an ambulance.

They had had a call advising of a two-vehicle accident that had happened on the road.

We didn't know anything else and the extent of injuries, so our units arrived on the scene and found this.

-That's their sitting room where they could have been watching TV.

-Yeah, it was a bit of a lucky escape.

The person that owned this house was in London.

No-one was injured, not even the person driving the vehicle.

-The house has got a bit of repair work to do.

-Just a little bit(!)

That's a brilliant story. Thank you very much.

Rescuing and freeing people trapped and hurt in road accidents is one aspect of police work.

An accident can become a scene of crime and that work is handled by a special unit.

Nick is with one of their investigators.

I'm just chatting here to Tony Johnson who is from the...?

The Hampshire Constabulary's Forensic Collision Investigation Unit.

The easiest way to do this is for me to give you a couple of scenarios.

If I do that like that... We have a crash incident, we have a victim, we have a car driver.

The car driver says the person ran at speed out from the side.

The victim says, "I was standing still when he cleaned me up." What do you learn by looking at the car?

We've got a nice, clear mark across the bonnet made as the pedestrian went across the bonnet.

It is at an angle of about 45 degrees from the driver's side corner towards the passenger side.

This is indicative of a reasonably quick movement by the pedestrian travelling from the driver's side...

So you'd be more inclined to believe him that the pedestrian's run out?

Yes. Had the pedestrian been stationary, the mark would have been more in line with the vehicle.

Cracked windscreens, we talked about. There's damage on the bonnet, through the windscreen.

And there's damage across the roof. The driver says he's doing under 30mph when they collided.

-True or false?

-Unlikely to be true.

If you get significant damage on to the roof,

that is more indicative of a higher speed collision,

which is usually more than 30mph.

So, instantly, you pick information out from the marks. A polished car is a nightmare for you.

It is difficult. There are techniques we can use which sometimes pick the marks up -

the lighting techniques or using fingerprint dust, but a dirty car is a lot easier.

One thing you said was when you're driving near articulated lorries, you have to be particularly careful.

You've been to hundreds of crashes. In fact, Tony's been involved in a crash with an articulated lorry.

What's your advice as somebody who's been to so many accidents?

On motorways and dual carriageways, don't sit next to an artic.

If you can't overtake and get in front of it, you're better to sit just behind it.

On the offside of artics, there are a number of blind spots

and if you start to go past it and the artic moves to the right,

then you've got 38, 40 tonnes of lorry coming into your lane.

The same advice goes for cyclists going up the inside, so keep yourself away from artics.

It's nice to know there are people around who might find the truth

when two people don't have the same story on what's gone on. Back to you, Louise.

Let's take you back to Sophie. She's fallen from her horse and she's been dragged along the ground.

The ambulance crew are taking her to hospital and not for the first time after riding accidents.

Sophie has almost certainly broken her collarbone and that is causing her the most pain,

but the force of her fall means paramedic Dave Palmer is also concerned about the possibility

of other injuries to her head and neck.

We'll get her vertical, get the collar on her,

put the scoop in either side and we'll lay her back on to the scoop.

Sophie has other worries on her mind.

-I'm scared.

-Why are you scared?

-Because I don't like injections.

-Who's mentioned an injection?

-Hospitals usually do.

-Hospitals do.

Sophie, look at me.

I'm going to check a few things on you. I need yeses and I need noes.

You need to tell me what's going on.

Paige, a young friend, has taken Sophie's pony back home.

Getting the injured rider out of the woods will be more complicated.

If we get the collar on her while I'm in that position...

Sophie's neck and spine need to be kept as straight as possible to avoid aggravating any damage.

They fit a collar to keep her neck steady.

Mum Amanda is at her side.

What's hurting? Your collarbone? I'm just really scared.

She's got a pain threshold of about zero.

Sophie, listen to me.

There's no need for you to be scared.

They ease her gently down on to a stretcher.

-We'll give you some pain relief.

-It's not an injection?

-No, it'll be a gas.

On three. One, two, three...

Sophie's spirits have been raised by the arrival of her dad.

Her parents are having to get used to their daughter needing treatment.

This is her third horse-related injury in just six weeks.

-Are you sure he's your dad?

-LAUGHTER

-He's being nasty to you.

-< No, he'd know!

-Have you broken your collarbone, sir?

-Yeah, amongst many other things.

-You're a regular client of the NHS?

-I was until I stopped riding bikes.

-There you go.

She'll stay flat on her back until she can be fully examined at hospital.

Thanks very much, guys.

In the ambulance, Dave follows Sophie's "no injections" request

and gives her some gas and air to ease the pain. She finally seems to be responding more normally.

-Any questions?

-No, but my head and collarbone's killing me.

That's the first time in 13 years I've ridden without a hat.

I'm afraid I'm not a fan of horses myself.

Anything you can't put a handbrake on and leave at the side of the road, I've got problems with.

OK, Sophie. Open your eyes.

Sophie is taken to Portsmouth's Queen Alexandra Hospital. She is no stranger to this place

or to Dr Fiona Bintcliffe who treated Sophie for one of her previous horse-related injuries.

Hello, Sophie. I'm Fiona, one of the doctors. Yeah, I've met you before.

Your ankle last time.

-You're a bit accident-prone?

-You're working your way up, are you, kid?

Did you fall off your horse last time?

I was stood on by a horse.

Sophie gets frequent flyer miles.

The medical team carefully turn Sophie over,

so that Fiona can press down her spine to see if there is any pain or loss of sensation.

Is that all right down there?

Sophie still has serious pain in her shoulder, but there seems to be no other injury.

She'll be going for X-rays to see if she's broken her collarbone,

though after such a heavy fall, everybody is just relieved it wasn't any worse.

Sophie is here, also her mum Amanda.

-Sophie, how are you? Did you break your collarbone?

-I fractured it and I tore the muscles down here.

-And I understand you had another accident yesterday?

-Yes.

Launching myself over my horse's... the field, the fencing...

I launched myself over it, got my foot caught

and went flying into a lot of bushes.

-How many accidents have you had with the horse?

-Five this year so far.

-Five this year?!

-Is she accident-prone? What's going on?

-Yes, she is. Most of the family are.

She's just taking after her father.

-How many accidents has he had?

-Absolutely countless.

-He's broken most of the bones in his body.

-Are you going to take more care? Will that make any difference?

I don't think so. I'm quite cautious, but it doesn't work.

-You're a good rider. You've just passed an exam. What did you do?

-I did GCSE Showjumping.

-I had to jump a course of three-foot.

-How did you do?

-I'm the first person in Hampshire to get full marks.

-Fantastic.

Presumably, riding is something you want to do seriously.

-Are you going to give it up even if you've had accidents like this?

-No.

When I was doing my GCSE Riding, I came off and broke two ribs,

but I got straight back on and finished the course.

-Would you like her to give it up?

-Not at all. It keeps her away from the boys.

-That is really key! Thank you, both. It's lovely seeing you're OK for the moment.

-Yes. Thank you.

Fascinating, isn't it? What an extraordinary mix of calls we've had in here today!

The lads that were running around with the BB gun, the police have caught them,

told them they're scaring people and sent them off with a flea in their ear - verbal.

You're not allowed to flick a flea in the ear any more(!) They're still looking for the immigrants.

What else have we had? There she is. Louise has just come to join me.

We've had the investigation unit. It's fascinating what they get up to.

-All of this is going in through this room. It's amazing the amount of stuff that comes in here.

-It is.

The response they have is fantastic. And the teamwork...

Anything serious goes straight to the command desk.

-We'll have more of it for you tomorrow.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2010

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