Episode 17 Real Rescues

Today, a teenage boy who suffers flash burns to almost a quarter of his body,

after pouring petrol onto a hot barbecue.

-How bad's your pain at the moment?

-On my chest and my arm.

Of course you can, my darling.

And a woman calls 999 after crashing her car down a five-metre ditch.

She is seriously injured, hidden from the road,

and has no idea where she is.

Hello. Welcome to Real Rescues.

We're in the Thames Valley Police control room in Abingdon.

They are responsible for 196 miles of motorway -

parts of the M4, the M40 and the M25.

That is more than any other British police force.

Later in the programme,

we'll hear how a wet motorway is a magnet for swans.

The trouble is, they crash-land and then they can't take off.

Petrol and barbecues don't mix.

It may sound obvious but in the heat of the moment,

when the coals won't light and you have a can of fuel to hand,

common sense goes out the window.

Louise has been to meet the Helimed team.

This is the air ambulance control desk and the paramedic here

decides which emergencies the helicopter gets sent out to.

And they don't come much more serious than this next rescue.

An explosion's happened, a child is hurt,

and he has burns to his face and body.

It's the start of the Easter weekend.

But Good Friday has turned out very bad for teenager Regan.

The air ambulance crew, including paramedic Lisa Brown

and Dr Graham Stiff, are on their way.

Regan's anxious parents have called 999

after he's been badly burnt in a terrible accident.

We were lying on my bed in our room and Regan was a bit bored.

He then said to me, "Mum, can I please go outside and play?"

I said, "Fine, that's not a problem."

It must have been about two minutes after that,

I heard the most almighty bang I've ever heard.

I sort of jumped up from the bed and I said to Amanda, you know,

"What the hell was that? What is it?"

And I ran downstairs and she came after me.

Regan was coming indoors just saying,

"I was burning, I was burning."

A fuel can exploded in the teenager's hand and set fire to him.

He suffered painful burns to 13% of his body,

including his face.

-RADIO: 'Pre-landing checks, please.'

-OK. Radar?

-'Yep.'

-Strobe?

-'Yep.'

-Security equipment?

-'Yep.'

RADIO MESSAGES OVERLAP

To get to the family's house quickly,

the air ambulance control desk has to alert Heathrow airport.

They're on the flight path and Air Traffic Control have to clear air space

for the pilot, Alf Gasparro, to fly through.

All this on a busy bank holiday.

Rapid-response paramedic Tim Goddard has been treating 13-year-old Regan's injuries,

and has him ready for the air crew.

That's all right, mate.

Bandaged and blanketed, Regan cuts an alarming figure.

Never play with fire!

But despite his pain, he is remarkably calm.

He had lit a barbecue with a can of highly flammable model-aircraft fuel.

He closed the lid on the barbecue and then attempted to pour

the rest of the fuel into the air...

Little air holes at the top of the barbecue.

And that is when the fumes ran up the line of the fuel,

and then the tank exploded in his hands.

I'm going to pop a seat belt over you, my darling, OK?

And you'll be fine. We'll look after you, so don't worry.

He was, like, brown - sort of...

His whole colour, like, was brown, like he had been burnt,

and his hair was all singed.

You'll be there before us, cos we've got to drive quite a long way.

But don't rush, though, Dad, OK? Just take it steady.

I promise we'll look after him. He's all right. He's in good hands.

I grabbed Regan, put him in a cold bath

and just kept on splashing him with the cold water.

Dr Stiff knows that without Mum's and Dad's swift actions to minimise the damage,

their son that would be even more badly burnt.

DR STIFF: The effects of burns do get worse over time.

Clearly, the damage is there to the surface

but it also heats up the tissues underneath, and...

if you don't cool that down as well,

you're going to continue to have ongoing damage to the tissues underneath the skin.

Of course you can, my darling.

What I want to do is have a look at the side,

and I want to borrow an arm if I can.

Regan is understandably suffering.

-How bad's your pain at the moment, sweetheart?

-On my chest and my arm.

DR STIFF: I think Regan dealt with his injuries incredibly well.

Think about how painful it is when you just touch a hot surface

or a fire, or something like that.

And in Regan's case, he had a burn affecting almost a quarter of his body.

What we're going to do in the meantime is give you gas and air. Mum might know about this.

-He likes the gas and air!

-You've had some gas and air?

Mum and Dad have put on a brave front for Reagan's sake.

You feel like you want to burst out crying.

You know, Dad did have a few tears.

But, er, he made sure Regan didn't see him.

But he's in the best possible hands now.

-REGAN:

-I love you, Mum.

-I love you. You're going to be good, OK?

Me and Dad, we're going to go, sharpish but safe,

and we'll see you there.

Gas and air will only do so much and before they fly to hospital Graham wants to give Regan ketamine,

a strong tranquilliser and fast-acting painkiller.

To give him the best chance of avoiding permanent disfigurement

Regan will be flown 25 miles to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Clearly he's a young guy and we're thinking about

what his long term effects might be

with scarring and that sort of thing.

Mum and dad have done the best they can, now all they can do is wait and hope their son is OK.

Regan's behaviour really touched the doctors that were helping him as we'll find out later.

Everybody who works on that helicopter also works here as well.

Paul, you're in charge. That's key, especially in a case like Regan's, isn't it?

It's really important that the staff on the desk

have the knowledge and understanding

of how the helicopter works on a daily basis.

If we use Regan's case as the example,

it's really important because Regan had burns

that affected his airway so for us to send a helicopter

was really important because we were able to then move Regan

to a specialist burns unit in Stoke Mandeville.

What would have happened if you haven't sent a helicopter,

would he have gone to a local hospital?

Absolutely. Because of where Regan lives, he lives in the Slough area

he'd have gone to Wrexham Park Hospital which is probably about 15 minutes by land,

whereas actually it's a ten-minute flight to Stoke Mandeville by the helicopter,

we can get straight to a regional centre of excellence that deals with burns and help him definitively.

I know Lee's going to help us here and show us the maps, because he lived in a key area

really close to Heathrow and you had to close the airspace, didn't you?

We close the airspace on a regular basis.

Terminal 5 is just here, Reagan lives in this area just here.

So we need to make sure that

the aircrafts on stack in this area are held off so we can land

in the area here.

Does it mean when we're going round on the airplanes

that there might be a really good reason why it's happening?

It could mean the aircraft's coming through the air space so it may be a five-minute delay

but actually someone's life could be being dealt with at the other end.

I will remember that. Thank you.

We mentioned at the top of the programme how swans

sometimes mistake roads for rivers.

I'm going to have a chat with Dawn Tainton here who is a call taker.

-You're not on a call?

-No.

-Jolly good.

Really? Swans actually think that roads are rivers?

Yeah, it's quite a common problem, they mistake the roads for water.

-Why?

-If it's been raining or if the sun is shining the tarmac goes shiny

so they think it's water.

-Is it a regular thing?

-It's quite common.

It's not every week, or every day, but it is quite a regular thing.

What happens when you do get reports of it? Because they're a fair size, these birds, aren't they?

Yeah, and they need a 30 yard minimum run up to be able to take off.

-So what do you do?

-We put on a rolling road block,

deploy police officers to put on a rolling roadblock to create a sterile area.

-And try and give them the hurry up to...

-To give them the space

and also we've got swan trained police officers.

Swan trained police officers?!

Yes, that are trained in how to pick up the swans and move them on.

Moving on, if I come across here,

PC Brigit Isted is one of those swan trained police officers, is that right?

I'm not actually trained but I have moved a swan off the motorway,

yes, I have removed one from lane one.

-They're vicious though, aren't they?

-No, this one was quite docile,

I got out of the vehicle, stuck my fluorescent jacket - black side down - over its head,

it just cowered down, scooped it up into the car and away.

-To where?

-We took it to the Swan rescue place at Eton.

-That would make sense.

-It lived quite happily on the Thames.

-It's a regular thing, is it?

-Yeah.

Aw, so don't panic if you see a swan coming in to land on the motorway,

just ring the police and they know what to do.

It's bad enough having a car accident at any time

but in this case the driver is on her own at night in an unfamiliar area.

It's dark, she's seriously injured and concussion means she doesn't know where she is.

This is her 999 call.

Lara is unaware just how bad things are.

Her car has ended up 15 feet down a ditch, buried in the undergrowth.

She's broken her neck, collarbone and hip.

The man you heard on the other end of the phone was Will East, who's here to talk us.

How do you go about finding somebody who has no idea where they are?

Initially officers were dispatched to her home address as an emergency

to see if anyone there knew where she was, or where she was going,

-or had been.

-Anyone there?

It turned out her son was there, but he had no idea where she was or where she was going.

-OK, Plan B?

-The next thing I did was ask her to hang up, although it sounded very strange.

Hang up? That business about asking to her to hang up

seems very odd, normally you'd try and keep the patient, or person,

on the line to get clues, wouldn't you?

Absolutely, but that way I could get some co-ordinates

which we put on our mapping system to indicate roughly an area where she may be.

-Who do you get these co-ordinates from?

-The BT operator.

-You can get some..?

So give us an example.

Once we put them into the system, it then pops up on the map there

and it came back to the area of Northleach on the A429, or possibly the A40.

OK, so it's not sat-nav accurate within six feet.

-It gives you an area.

-That's correct, yes.

So she could have been on the A40 or 429,

or potentially some of these backroads down here.

What other clues did she give you to say where she was?

She was saying she could see a lot of headlights, and it seemed a busy road.

-So we predominantly concentrated on the main road itself.

-Right, OK.

So she was in undergrowth. So she's in the countryside,

she's not anywhere near the big houses, but she's on quite a busy road,

-so you think A40 or the other one? And you start sending police out?

-That's correct.

All right, well, Will then needed to call Lara back

and keep her talking until she could be found.

So she thinks she sees flashing lights or lights flashing,

-which isn't the same thing.

-That's right.

The difficulty was because ambulance was on route,

it could have been them or it could have been the police vehicles.

What's your next plan of action in terms of trying to narrow it down,

-because you've got on that map, you've got people all the way round the area.

-That's correct.

You know she's somewhere there, so how do you narrow it down?

So, basically, as soon as she saw the blue lights,

the radio operator... I told the officers to stop where they were,

and individually they put their sirens on for her to listen out for.

And once she could start hearing things like that,

they all got out of their cars and started making on foot, and she started to shout.

And then, obviously, we just listened for her,

and we were able to find her that way.

Smashing. OK. Then, at last, some positive news for Lara.

Obviously emotional at that stage. You did an amazing job.

-Thank you.

-Amazing job. How long were you on the phone to her?

-I think it was about 40 minutes or so.

-About 40 minutes.

What an amazing job. We're pleased that people like you are around.

So, from Will, who lets go of the scene at that stage,

-we're going to move on to Mark Maisey, who was the first paramedic on was a scene.

-That's right.

We talked about the fact she was down a ditch, surrounded by undergrowth.

How difficult was it for you to find and get to her?

Very difficult. You couldn't see the car from the main road,

but luckily, there was a gateway so we could access a field,

and then we saw the lady's, sort of, car wedged under a tree.

And we had to scramble over a stone wall to actually get into the car to see the lady.

Here's the thing. With it wedged under the tree, normally you take the roof off

-and do the transfer from there, but you couldn't do that.

-No, it was a difficult extrication.

We had to take the side of the car out to get her out through the side and on the spinal board.

And very important that you were careful about that

-because her injuries were quite serious. Go through them again.

-Yes, initially when we got into the car

and used our primary survey, airway, breathing and circulation was fine,

but she was pale, and she was complaining of neck pain,

severe neck pain, radiating to her left shoulder and right hip pain.

-Turned out she actually had broken a bone in her neck.

-That's right.

-So a bad extrication could have actually paralysed her?

-Yes. Yes.

-So it had to be a rapid extrication but it had to be very controlled.

-How's she doing now?

She's very well. She's visited the police headquarters

and said thank you to them, and doing very well.

It's amazing what you guys do. I'm constantly in awe of the job you do.

-Thank you for coming in to talk to us.

-No problem at all.

Now, a rescue that might make you wince.

A man has fallen and badly broken his ankle.

He thinks it could cut off the blood supply to his foot.

So even before paramedics arrive, he uses brute force and straightens it.

Ambulance crew Danny Miller and Ollie Hunt

have been sent to the aid of an injured walker in Durlston Country Park.

The coastguard helicopter are on their way, too,

as the man has fallen on a cliff path and it will be difficult to move him.

For Danny and Ollie to get to the location,

they're going to need to do some serious off-road driving.

'I think the car park's there, then you might have to walk it over.'

Flagged down by a worried walker,

the rest of their journey will have to be completed on foot.

Do you want to bring the splints?

Is it a relative of you?

A group have been out for a hike when, just over the buffeting wind,

they could hear faint cries for help.

It led them to 66-year-old Bob.

He'd badly hurt his ankle.

And, not knowing when help would arrive,

he'd chosen to perform some amateur surgery.

When I slipped, my foot was at right angles to my ankle.

-Yep.

-And with the boot still on,

I moved it back into the normal position.

There was a lot of crunching. A lot of crunching noise.

And then when I looked at my ankle, I realised I was in trouble with the blood.

To ease his agony, they immediately put Bob on gas and air.

So, if you had to score that pain in your ankle at the moment,

ten being the worst pain you've ever felt,

zero being no pain whatsoever, how would you give it?

-Eightish.

-Eightish?

You're tougher than me.

Bob's ashen appearance suggests this could be a nasty break.

Going to pop a needle in his arm, going to give him some pain relief,

and then we're going to immobilise the fracture.

Can you feel your toes in your right leg?

-Yes.

-We're going to have a look at that a bit closer in a minute, OK?

Won't be a minute and I'll get morphine into you, OK?

-Bob?

-Yes.

Helicopter winchman Buck Rogers has arrived to help.

Keep sucking all the air in there.

-What was the pain score?

-We were going at eight.

-That's after about a minute or two on the Entonox.

-It was about 13 before.

HE LAUGHS

Good sense of humour. Good sense of humour!

Bob's raising of his pain makes sense when they look at his leg.

The ankle is clearly misshapen, with an open wound.

Let's get a bandage around it.

They keep checking in with Bob as they know, despite the brave face, he must be feeling it.

Bob, how's the pain?

Excellent, well done.

Well done, chum.

Are you all right, there, Bill? Bob, even!

-Don't call me Mary, for God's sake.

-All right, Mary?

-We'll get there in the end.

-That's a slapping offence, innit?

-Have you got any other pains at all?

-No.

-No? Right.

An experienced rambler, Bob's come well and truly unstuck this time.

-So you were sussing out a walk for the weekend, were you?

-Yes.

As my wife would often say, "There's no fool like an old fool."

With the laughing gas clearly raising Bob's spirits,

the team can get on with the business of placing his leg in a splint that will hold it firmly.

A badly misaligned ankle can cut off blood supply to the foot,

so Bob's stoicism in attempting to straighten it himself

may have actually helped his chances of avoiding permanent damage.

Can you feel this, Bob? Can you feel that?

-Toes are a bit cold, but you can feel it?

-Yeah.

Bob's circulation seems to be in order but they need to get him off this chilly hill

and into the warm.

Put your good leg into here, please.

On three. All right?

One, two, three.

He's got full feeling there, still.

The terrain is too rough to take him by land, so Bob will have to go to hospital by helicopter.

Draw us up 50 Cyclizine, is that all right?

Before take-off, Ollie dashes back to the ambulance to fetch an anti-sickness drug for Bob

that will make his flight more comfortable.

How's the pain now, Bob?

Creeping up a little bit.

Just now he's probably warming up a bit, it's beginning to hurt.

It'll only take minutes to transport Bob to Poole Hospital

where he will find out if he needs an emergency operation on his ankle.

Unable to move on such a filthy weather day,

Bob was fortunate to be found so quickly.

Thanks, guys.

-Lucky you guys heard him, really.

-Well, we heard him...

-It's cold, isn't it?

Come on, don't pick on the guy, he's broken his ankle!

You're hard!

'Job done, Danny and Ollie can get back on the bumpy road

'to civilisation.'

Bob, still with his sense of humour, is here with me. Hi there, Bob.

-You had the operation, didn't you?

-I did.

-How's it going now?

-It's going very well.

-The plaster cast is off.

-Yes.

-You're now in a boot.

-As you can see.

And I've got another three weeks left

-as everything sort of mends.

-All the ligaments and everything?

-The ligaments mend.

It turns out you were so brave that you'd done yourself a favour, hadn't you?

It appears that way. It was purely instinctive.

At the time, I realised looking down at my foot

that it was not only sort of dangling on the end of my leg,

but also it was at right angles to it.

-Yes.

-Something needed to be done.

And we can see an X-ray of how it was,

which, even I can see, looks pretty nasty.

So you managed to put it back into place. What have they done to it?

-They've put pins in, have they?

-They've put a pin in.

-As I was yanking it into place, it was grinding and crunching.

-Ooh!

That's making me feel a bit squeamish. But you weren't at all.

-You kept your sense of humour throughout, didn't you?

-I guess so, yes.

-Does your wife say to you often that there's no fool like an old fool?

-From time to time, yes.

-Does she?

-You were out looking for a ramblers' recce?

-Yes.

Did they go on the ramble?

A friend of mine actually took over the walk

and lead that walk as planned just over a week later.

And I understand your wife happens to have a spare mobility scooter. Have you been using it?

That's true and we have been seen, on Swanage Promenade, both of us,

trundling along like Darby and Joan.

-That's quite romantic, actually, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

We were married 47 years ago yesterday,

-so we've got something to celebrate.

-That's fantastic.

You're a serious swimmer, too, so I hope that you can get back swimming soon.

-Thank you for coming to see us.

-Thank you.

Still to come on Real Rescues, the horse called Mischief

'who's gone in at the deep end and needs rescuing from a swimming pool.'

He panicked. There's nothing you can do. The only thing we couldn't do

was get into the water with him, cos he was thrashing around so much.

And we'll be back with teenager Regan, as he is transferred to a specialist burns unit.

Regan's a 13-year-old lad. He was playing with some petrol,

it exploded in his face and on the right side of his body.

It was an instantaneous flash burn.

Now, an accident on a fast and busy main road.

A taxi has hit a tree, the driver and young passenger in the back are trapped.

It's going to take a team effort and careful manoeuvring to get both of them out of the car.

'An ambulance is heading out to a car that's crashed off a busy country road

'into a tree, a potentially serious accident.

'Danny Millam and Ollie Hunt are on board.'

We believe there's a 16-year-old involved.

We've got no real details other than that.

'It turns out the car is a taxi which was bringing the teenager home from school.

'He and the driver are still inside when the team arrive.'

-Have you got any pain in your neck?

-No... Ah!

-Don't move for a minute, OK.

-My forehead.

You've hurt your forehead? OK.

'Because of the heavy impact with the tree, the main concern is for neck and spinal injuries.

'Ollie climbs into the back to check on Daniel.

'He's bloodied but not complaining of any pain.

'The taxi driver, however, is suffering, so Ollie holds her head immobile.'

I need someone to secure the young guy's head, if that's all right.

And then until we get extra hands...

David, you just sit nice and still.

'Until another crew arrives, they enlist the help of the police to assist with David.

'Danny calls for back-up.'

Can we have a further ambulance and can we have the fire brigade, please, over?

-RADIO: Yeah, will do.

-'Due to the impact speed,'

we're going to immobilise them both, just to be safe rather than sorry.

Immobilise their necks via boards.

So we're waiting for another crew.

'The heavy impact has jammed David's door shut,

'meaning the crew can't get proper access to him until the fire service arrive.'

This is a quite fast road, OK, and because of what's happened to the car

and just to be safe rather than sorry,

we're going to immobilise your neck and back and put you on a board, OK?

If you had to score the pain out of one to ten,

ten being the worst pain you've ever felt, zero being no pain,

what would you give that at the moment?

-At the moment it's not hurting, except I can't breathe deeply.

-OK, all right.

The fire service arrive

and immediately concentrate on making the car safe to work on.

Neither of the airbags have gone off in the front,

I don't know if we have anything we can whack over that.

It's had a hell of a front-end whack, hasn't it?

-We'll get a spider on there.

-Lovely, thank you.

The spider is placed on the steering wheel to protect them

in case the airbag goes off.

Now that the second ambulance has arrived,

they can start to get neck collars on to both casualties.

While I'm doing this, just relax your head as it was.

OK, Ollie, it's in position, if I take the head now, can you do the rest?

-Are you on?

-Yeah, I'm on.

OK, just be very careful on her chest.

They don't build cars for this, do they?

In order to get the driver out of the car on a long board,

the fire service are going to have to take the roof off,

but it's a strange and very noisy experience for them both.

Paramedic Matt is monitoring David

and keeping him up-to-date about what's going to happen.

We'll get you onto a board, shortly and take you down to Dorchester Hospital,

so hopefully you'll get a clean bill of health.

David's mum and dad have now arrived.

They watch on as the professionals do their work.

Now the roof has been removed,

they can get David on to a long board and out.

It will give them better access to the driver.

Ready, steady, slide.

Ah, my foot's caught.

It's all right, all right.

-Everyone ready?

-Yeah.

How are you doing?

He's out, he's out, safe and sound, OK?

He's even got Wednesday's socks on on Tuesday,

that's no good, is it?

Now it's the driver's turn.

I know it's sore.

Just be aware of the right shoulder, guys, if we can.

One, two, three, slide...

How was that?

Well, that's what we're doing.

Once on board the ambulance, Danny can start to do more checks,

but their patient is anxious that they let her husband know what's going on.

I'm Danny, a paramedic with South Western Ambulance.

The accident's severe enough for us to take her to the hospital.

Hopefully you'll be able to go straight round and see her, all right?

Okey-doke, no problem, bye-bye.

They reach Dorchester Hospital, where her husband is waiting.

To help keep her mind off the pain,

the crew have been keeping her spirits high with lots of friendly chat,

and they haven't forgotten she's a taxi driver.

There you go, my love, that's Dorchester Hospital, £23.50, please.

Yeah, right!

Cheeky rascals, those paramedics.

David, the passenger, was treated for whiplash,

and released later that day.

The driver has made a full recovery.

13-year-old Regan has been burnt by an exploding fuel can.

Earlier, we heard how his parents did all they could at home

and placed him in a cool water bath,

but he's now being flown to a specialist burns unit for urgent medical treatment.

-I can hear you, can you hear me?

-Yeah.

OK, close your eyes and just relax, we're going to take off now.

The flight will last 10 minutes.

Throughout, paramedic Lisa and Graham the doctor

closely monitor their young patient's condition.

Just give him another one of these.

The doctor's just put some fluid into you.

Where you've been burnt, you can lose a lot of fluid.

You can feel it going in?

It feels a bit cold, doesn't it?

Regan has been remarkably calm, considering the torment

of having painful burns to a large part of his body.

It hasn't stopped his natural curiosity about the aircraft.

How many feet?

-Probably...

-500.

About 500.

-You want to go back to sleep again?

-You want to go back to sleep?

To sedate Regan and make life more comfortable for him,

Graham gives him another dose of the fast-acting sedative.

So far he's had 60 milligrams.

-He said he wanted to be asleep.

-I know he did, yeah.

Yeah, he's gone.

They land at a playing field near to the hospital.

-Hello.

-Hi, there.

Are we here?

-We're here now, my darling, that was all right, wasn't it?

-Well done.

The team will travel with Regan the rest of the way in a land ambulance.

He's a very, very polite, very friendly little boy, isn't he?

Lovely.

Open your eyes.

That's it, have a little look around, what can you see?

-Faces.

-Faces.

Well done.

Good lad.

-His eyes are fine, aren't they?

-Yeah.

It's caught on the eyelashes, though.

-Yeah, his eyebrows, as well.

-And the hair at the front.

I think it must have been a very sharp, sudden bang.

At Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a special burns team are ready to receive Regan.

Regan's a 13-year-old lad who was involved in a petrol burn

about an hour and 10 minutes ago.

He was playing with some petrol, it exploded in his face

and on the right side of his body.

It was an instantaneous flash burn,

so he's suffering from burns on the right side of his body, chest and face.

He's got some evidence of nasal hair burns,

nothing inside the mouth at the time when we picked him up,

so it's mostly on the outside, I wasn't worried about airway at scene.

Earlier, a paramedic used clingfilm to cover his burns,

as it's sterile and helps prevent infection.

The burns look quite nasty, certainly very painful,

but with a bit of luck they're going to be superficial

and won't cause him too many problems, so he's in the right place.

Regan's grace under pressure has impressed everyone involved in his care.

The first thing he said when we arrived on scene

was to thank us for coming, one of the politest kids.

Just brought a tear to your eye, actually.

Certainly choked me a bit when we first met him.

So, with a bit of luck, he'll be OK.

That's how special he is.

It takes a lot to move seasoned medical professionals, and everyone had taken to Regan,

who's joined us here now to have a chat about what he went through,

and mum Amanda and dad Darren are also here to join in the chat.

So, what a day that was.

Yeah, it was quite a big day for me, as well.

Yeah, how are you feeling at the moment?

I'm feeling all right, nothing really hurts, it's going all right.

-So, no pain left any more?

-No.

And how are you healing up, you're looking good on your face?

Yes, just a few little red marks, but they'll go in a few months.

-They said in a few months you'll be back to normal?

-Yeah.

You looked very calm, why weren't you freaking out?

I was in my mind, but I just thought, it's not going to help me getting more angry, is it?

So I just thought, calm yourself down, and just did what I had to do.

And when you were burnt, how did...

It's a terrible question to ask,

but is it like when you burn your finger or something on a stove?

It's like, if you can imagine when you get chips out of the oven

and you touch the little metal thing on the top that's really hot,

you go, "Ouch!" - imagine that all over my body.

All my arms, my face, everywhere.

Guys, you must have been in bits at this stage,

when he was all bandaged up and strapped,

you must have been in a terrible state.

Yes, obviously it was mostly shock, so just instinct takes over,

and I think afterwards, after he'd been taken away, the whole thing sinks in,

but at the time I think it's just... everything is just instinctual and you just go with it.

When he was actually at the hospital, you weren't there, because you couldn't... What happened?

Because you were supposed to be following, but what happened?

We actually got lost on the way,

and halfway there I got a call from the doctors saying,

"We're very worried about Regan's breathing,"

and of course you can imagine as a mum driving knowing what's happened to your child

and they phone you with this news, so I just went numb,

I said to them, "Do whatever it takes,

"I'll sign whatever needs to be signed when I get to the hospital."

But by that point I couldn't feel my legs any more.

I'm not surprised.

Have you got any advice for other kids?

I just want to say, because I'm feeling a bit sad for other people,

there are probably kids doing the same thing now,

and they're probably going through the same as I went through,

and I want to say, it's not what it turns out to be, I thought it was cool, I was being a big man,

so I could tell people I did this and that,

but it's not as good as it turns out, it's nothing like it.

So, don't mess around about barbecues and fires and things,

because you don't know how big it's going to be.

How are you feeling now overall?

I'm all right, I'm in no pain at all, as I said.

The first time I had my bandages I wasn't allowed to take a bath

for like a week, so I stunk a bit.

Do you know what, a kid of your age,

I think that's pretty much standard.

Amazing story, thank you very much for coming in and chatting to us.

Thank you also for having us, thank you.

Emergency control rooms are used to dealing with the unusual.

This is the 999 call that came through to Hampshire Fire and Rescue Control one Sunday morning

about a horse called Mischief.

This is a job for the animal rescue specialists.

It turns out the horse has escaped from its field,

walked onto the tarpaulin covering the swimming-pool,

thinking it was solid ground. He's gone under three times.

The fire service filmed how they got him out.

Mischief the horse is stranded in the shallow end of the swimming-pool

in the garden next to his field.

Vet Luke Gamble is calming him as the owner Sarah watches on.

She's relieved his head's out of the water and he's free from the tarpaulin.

'The weight of him just went through half of it,'

but unfortunately he was over the reinforced part by that stage,

which then caught up in his back legs.

'As he panicked, it became tighter. There's nothing you can do.

'The only thing we knew we couldn't do was get into the water with him'

because he was thrashing around so much.

Before they can start the rescue, vet Luke Gamble needs to sedate Mischief

to reduce the danger to the horse and the firefighters.

Getting the dosage absolutely right is critical.

'If I used too much of the drug,'

although I want a heavy sedation, the last thing I wanted was for him to go under the water.

There's a huge risk then. He's a dead weight, at the bottom of the pool,

he can potentially drown or inhale water,

and we've got a whole different world of problems to deal with.

'Likewise, if I don't use enough first time, I've got another crisis,

'because he's then a risk to everyone who's working around him.'

Leaping about, he's not going to put up with straps.

If we pull him out and he kicks someone, even though he's not particularly big,

getting kicked by a horse in the head...potentially fatal.

The tranquilliser is doing its job. Mischief remains calm

whilst animal rescue specialist Jim Green gets the straps around him.

'We needed to lift the animal slightly

'and then spill it over the side of the pool.

'The barrel configuration is perfect for coming up and over the side of the pool,'

but if you were to pull it for any length of time,

what it tends to do is role the animal.

That rolling effect can stimulate it to want to stand.

Luke takes charge of the horse's head.

'What we wanted was a good strong head collar,

'that we could really hold on to, that wasn't going to break or snap.'

It gave us a bit of a handle on him.

The whole weight of a horse, really, all the movement, is in the head.

Keeping control of the head is everything.

While the firefighters get into position,

Luke is twitching the end of Mischief's nose.

It sounds harsh, but in fact it's a common method of calming a horse.

'Horses really do respond to having the end of their nose pinched,'

or sometimes you can use an ear twitch, which is a much more extreme form of twitch.

But even sometimes a shoulder pinch also works.

And it just does, in horses, release endorphins, which relaxes them.

Everything's in place.

One big heave...

..and Mischief is out of the pool...

..and on his feet.

'I tried to delay things for a few seconds

'by placing my knee just behind his head,

'because that just gave everyone a moment to get away.

'At one point, he does stumble a bit

'but again, that is just the drug kicking in. He's had a huge dose.'

That goes to show that, although he did seem quite calm,

he was indeed quite stressed, as I think any animal would be

when it's nearly drowned.

And when he's checked him over, miraculously,

he has hardly any injuries.

'The only thing he got from the rescue was a tiny little cut on his fetlock.'

He was not even lame. He was not stiff or anything. It was wonderful.

It's been a textbook rescue.

'This rescue went to plan and, at the end of the day,

'firefighters and the public were safe,'

the pony was uninjured and we had a good result.

'Mischief was calm,'

he was just wonderfully treated.

'We certainly couldn't have got him out ourselves.

'We could possibly in time have managed to build a ramp

'but I don't know how we'd have built the ramp out of the swimming pool,'

and he'd have undoubtedly got hurt coming out.

We've had some charming people on this programme, particularly Regan, who wants to be a cameraman.

And your Bob. Love is sharing the mobility scooter, it seems.

-You see, there is love out there.

-See you next time on Real Rescues.

Goodbye.

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