Episode 6 Real Rescues

Today, the 999 call taken desperately trying to help a man

who's cornered by fire in his flat.

The line goes dead. He's jumped out of a fourth-floor window.

Only brambles are holding a man onto a cliff 500 feet up.

I'll be speaking to the crew of Coastguard Rescue 106

about one of their most demanding rescues.

"Can you confirm you do require them down there?"

Hello and welcome to Real Rescues.

We're in South Western Ambulance control.

The people behind me are taking 999 calls.

They're reacting to all manner of emergencies,

dispatching crews and saving lives.

It's a 24-hour-a-day operation where the drama never stops.

And it's been really busy since I've been here today.

I want to talk to Sarah about a call she took a couple of days ago.

-She's on the dispatch desk. Hi, there, Sarah.

-Hi.

A little girl was having great fun at a gymkhana on her pony

until something bad happened. What happened?

She was going along, and apparently she fell off the pony,

rolled over. The pony she went into then kicked her in the stomach

and left a nasty horseshoe print actually on her stomach.

And she was diagnosed with...

She had liver damage,

damage to her bowel,

-and also a query ruptured spleen.

-Oh, gosh. But the last you heard,

-she was sitting up in hospital and smiling.

-That's right.

Thank goodness for that! Thank you. Nick.

Now a dramatic and dangerous rescue 500 feet up a precarious cliff face.

This is Golden Cap near Lyme Regis in Dorset.

It's a situation with risks for everybody -

the victim and the helicopter rescue team,

and demands inch-perfect precision. Louise met the crew involved.

This is home to Coastguard Rescue 106.

We've got aircraft captain here, Darren Manser.

We've also got winch-operator Tony Campbell

and Buck Rogers, who is the winch man,

and, crucially, a paramedic as well.

What we're about to see is a rescue on a high cliff,

one of the highest here on the south coast.

Buck, tell us about conditions when you got there.

Yeah. We were called out late afternoon,

in failing light conditions,

to a chap who'd fallen approximately 100 feet

down a cliff called Golden Cap just to the west of here.

On arrival, it was obvious that he was only being held in place

by the brambles that he'd fallen into,

and that he was in a pretty precarious sort of situation, really.

On a really steep gradient, as well.

Yeah. That part of that cliff is around about sort of 60 degrees.

OK. The reason we're able to see pictures of this rescue

is because the helicopter has a special camera.

It's called a FLIR, or forward-looking infrared.

HELICOPTER ROTORS ROAR

These dark figures on the cliff face are Buck and the casualty.

Buck's been lowered to a point 500 feet above sea level.

He's now detached from the winch wire,

and fighting to save a man's life in the most inhospitable conditions.

The 600-foot Golden Cap is the highest point on the south coast.

The man has fallen from the top straight down, almost 100 feet.

He has terrible injuries.

As well as training the thermal-imaging camera on Buck,

the helicopter crew have lit the area with a spotlight

and keep communicating with him via their radio.

Are you happy with the light that you've got?

Yeah. If you can keep that on me,

and if you can keep two strops ready to go, in case he deteriorates.

-Ready.

-OK. Ready to go.

He's in a bit of a state, this bloke.

There's no way we can stretcher this,

-from where he is.

-I'm sure Buck will let us know.

If it hadn't been for a passing dog walker,

the man may never have been found.

The helicopter was first on the scene.

It's a difficult spot to reach by car,

but, at the cliff top, the local coastguard-rescue team

is arriving. This rescue is going to take precise choreography

between the air crew, Buck and the cliff top.

The volunteers radio in from the ground for their instructions.

-106. Go ahead.

-Is your winch man going to take him up

on the helicopter, or are we going over? Over.

106. At the moment we're just waiting for some feedback

from the winch man. Our assessment of it from the aircraft

would be that we would probably double-strop the casualty,

lift him to the aircraft. However, if you could set yourselves up

a few yards to the east of where the casualty is,

that would be a good place to go. Bit further.

-Stop there. That's it.

-Thanks.

It's not long before Buck confirms he needs help moving the man.

Buck, 106. Go ahead.

Any word on when the cliff-rescue team are likely to get down here?

Can you confirm you do require them down there?

I just want a bit of a hand to make sure we've got everything sorted.

Buck, cliff team is on the top of the cliff.

They reckon about another 15 minutes before they can get down to you.

Copy.

Buck has a very difficult job on his hands.

The man is very seriously hurt, and is facing down the cliff.

The ground is unstable as well as steep.

What's really clear, looking at those pictures,

is that you're in a really tricky situation.

Tell us about his injuries. How badly had he been hurt?

He'd fallen a long way, and certainly when I first got to him,

-he was incredibly scratched, believe it or not...

-Right.

..with a very real possibility of damage to his spine and neck.

-He'd actually broken both of his arms, as well.

-Oh, gosh.

And all the time you're on this gradient, but it's not just that.

-You were beginning to slip down.

-Yeah. As I'm working around him

and with him, what's happening is, the ground was getting trodden down,

and so we're removing the net that's holding us in place.

And I know he had his head down, so you had to get him back up again.

Let's just have a little look how you actually managed to do that.

Bit by bit, Buck manages to pull the man upright.

Do you think you could send me down the KED board? The KED board?

Buck's asked for the KED,

a special device that straps to the casualty's back

to protect the spine from further injury.

If you want to start moving forward...

OK. Winching now.

I'm going to stay at this height.

OK. I'm happy with you at this height.

Winch-operator Tony Campbell directs captain Darren Manser

to manoeuvre the helicopter very precisely

over the casualty's position.

Forward six and right. Forward six only. Forward five.

From a height of 150 feet,

Tony winches down the KED right into Buck's arms.

Contact.

Steady. Steady. Left one.

Empty hook. Winching in.

While Buck starts to fit the KED, volunteers at the top of the cliff

are finishing setting up their equipment.

They're almost ready to send someone down to help.

Working well down there, is Buck.

Very well. Pretty difficult getting him into a KED on your own.

The cliff man is now going over the cliff. Over.

-He's quite sprightly, isn't he?

-Yep.

The cliff man makes short work of getting down to them.

Buck's been with the injured man for almost an hour on the steep slope.

He's now ready for the airlift.

Do you want to prepare the stretcher for me and the casualty

with the back support on?

The intention is to use the highline to stop any spin. Over.

So at this stage you've been working on the casualty for about an hour

on that steep cliff. How are you doing?

At that stage of the game, he's to all intents and purposes

about as packaged as I can get him in that environment,

and we're sort of getting ready now to be winched up to the aircraft.

Tony, from your point of view as a winch operator,

they're not out of danger yet.

One of the big problems we have on cliff rescues,

especially when you're winching somebody out on a stretcher

or a hypothermic lift is that you get a lot of spin on it, as well.

We actually had to put a highline down

to the coastguard on the cliff, or to Buck and the coastguard.

The coastguard managed the end of the highline, the piece of rope,

while we winched Buck up, which took away any chance of spin.

Let's see how it works, shall we?

They've delivered the highline successfully.

Now they stay hovering above for Tony to winch down the hook.

OK. Winching out.

OK, Buck. Got the hook in. You're now to clear to start using that

once you give the slack.

We're just descending, Buck, so it's less flight for you.

Captain Manser steadily lowers the aircraft to 40 feet.

Once we're down at a safe height, we'll then move right three.

Tony simultaneously winches in to take up the slack on the wire.

OK. And steady. Steady. Back and right two.

Back and right one. Winching in. We're clear.

They're in the air, and there's no spinning. The highline is working.

They safely get into the helicopter.

Captain Manser heads straight for Dorchester Hospital.

The man's injuries are life-threatening.

Within minutes, Rescue 106 will get him to the doctors

for the surgery he so vitally needs.

So, he was on his way to hospital then,

but as aircraft captain, it was quite a tricky rescue, wasn't it?

It's dark. You're very close to the cliff. How do you stay safe?

We don't have sensors on the aircraft

to keep us clear of the cliff, so really it's a team effort

and we're all looking out to maintain that clearance

from the cliff side, and at times during that rescue,

we were within three or four feet of the cliff edge.

We have lights, and we do our best to illuminate the area.

I'm also looking at references to hold as stable a hover as I can

just to allow Tony to extract Buck and the casualty to safety.

But it's the Mark 1 Eyeball, I'm afraid.

We're just looking and maintaining our clearance visually.

-Thank you for showing me around.

-Pleasure.

A remarkable rescue - 500 feet up and slipping down inch by inch

the whole time. Later on we'll hear from the injured man himself.

Now, a choice none of us would ever want to make.

You're trapped by a raging fire, and your only escape

is jumping 40 feet from a fourth-floor window.

That's the dilemma facing Sam Smith when a fire broke out in his flat.

He was lying in bed, and suddenly smelled smoke.

He opened his bedroom door and was knocked back by the heat.

This is his call to the emergency services.

HE COUGHS

HE GASPS AND COUGHS

HE CHOKES AND COUGHS

Argh!

Hello?

The people you could hear on the phone there were Sam and Theresa,

who are next to me here, I'm very pleased to say.

Um, where had you gone?

I jumped out of the four-storey building

to my next-door neighbour's garden, because I had no other choice.

That's extraordinary. And yet you're here, looking...

-Yeah! Still standing.

-So what happened to you when you landed?

When I landed I bent my knees and rolled.

I don't know what made me do that but I knew I had to do that,

otherwise I could break my legs and break my back even more,

and I could be in a wheelchair or not even be here.

I'm extremely lucky to be here, let alone walking.

One minute you're chatting away to him and the next he's gone.

-What was going through your mind?

-Worst-case scenario,

I was worried that he'd collapsed on the floor in the bedroom.

I didn't know whether he'd gone somewhere else in the property,

whether he'd left his phone in the room,

whether he was collapsed on the floor and couldn't respond to me,

so I was panicking on his behalf, really,

-cos I didn't know where he was.

-You didn't sound panicking.

You sounded very calm. But then he spoke again.

He did. I kept trying to rouse him. Like I said,

I didn't know where he was, so I was saying, "Hello, caller."

-"Can you hear me? What's your name?"

-Let's just have a look,

whilst you're telling us this. This is the jump that he made.

And it's extraordinary, when you look at it,

-that he managed it. Did you jump with the phone in your hand?

-Yeah.

I dropped the phone halfway through the flight.

How come you managed to get back on the phone, then?

When I landed, I saw the glimmer of light

in the hedges, and I thought it was my phone,

so I went over and grabbed it, and it was.

-You must have been glad to hear him.

-Extremely pleased to hear him!

I was a bit shocked to hear that he'd jumped,

but I was extremely pleased to hear he was OK.

Well, we know Sam was safe, but the story's far from over.

HE GASPS AND PANTS

HE SOBS OTHER VOICES, INDISTINCT

MAN SPEAKING

It turns out at this point that Sam's sister Laura, who's here,

is still inside the flat when the first firefighters arrive at the scene.

When did you first know there was a problem?

As soon as I woke up.

-By which stage the fire had taken hold in the whole house.

-Yeah.

-Why were you so late waking up?

-I had a few drinks before, so...

-The night before?

-Yes.

-Right. OK.

What sort of state was the place in when you woke up?

The fire brigade was already there.

I'm assuming Simon had already jumped out,

and my door was on fire, so the whole place was lit apart from my room.

So what do you do? You realise the door to your room is on fire.

-What do you do then?

-I checked my window. I saw the fire brigade.

I opened the window for some air, but I got knocked back, so I...

-By what?

-The flames.

-Were flames coming from below the window?

-Underneath, yeah.

-What did you do then?

I heard the firemen, so I got back into my bed and waited there.

-Under the duvet?

-Yes.

Right. Let's check with John, who was one of the firemen at the scene.

Hiding under the duvet as a way to deal with a fire?

It's different, but... The fact that she closed the door -

-That's the key thing, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-So the door's closed.

She opened the window but got knocked back. Is that good or bad?

She did the right thing. We tell people to close the door,

open a window. Unfortunately for Laura, there was a fire below her.

-Were you in the room by then?

-We'd got to the top of the stairs

-and we could hear her.

-What did you hear?

She was calling out to us. We couldn't see her,

but we could hear her behind the door.

Did you think they were going to make it to you?

-Um, yeah.

-You were convinced?

-I could hear them outside, yeah.

So why is there a delay? You're outside,

but not coming in. You know she's there.

We knew the hot gases and flames, as soon as we opened the door,

would enter the room she was in, so we were preparing ourselves to make a quick exit with her.

-So when you went in...

-Everything goes in with us, yeah.

-So you've only got a short time to get her out.

-Yeah.

What was it like when they appeared through the door?

Everything just went dark. As soon as I heard that bang,

and the door opened, everything went pitch black.

-Because of the smoke?

-Because of the fire, as well.

-Could you see...

-I couldn't see a thing.

So what happened when you grabbed hold of a fireman or vice versa?

Yeah, yeah. He just grabbed me and ran.

-Hung on for grim life, didn't you?

-Yeah!

I understand that at your stage your suits were so hot...

She was calling out to us, "You're hot, you're hot!"

-This is the outer suit.

-They're hot, yeah.

How bad was this fire, by comparison with others you've seen?

It was very severe. For both of them to come out, they're extremely lucky.

-Really? Would he have made it if he hadn't jumped?

-No.

-He wouldn't have?

-I very much doubt he'd have made it.

-And how much longer did she have before...

-One minute.

-A minute?

-Yeah. The door to the room was burning through.

-Wow! Just out of interest, did you have a smoke alarm?

-Yeah.

-Did it work?

-No.

There's a lesson for you, isn't it?

I'm really amazed. Can I just point out...

I know we're running out of time on this, but look at his belt here.

Bought by his dad. I'm not at all surprised.

That is amazing. What a fantastic and extraordinary story!

What an amazing job you do! Thank you for coming in and chatting.

Gosh, terrifying! Now, what sort of activities can distract a driver

at the wheel? Changing a CD, putting on your lipstick,

using your mobile phone - but what about eating a boiled sweet?

It seems that could have near-fatal consequences too.

"31 eastbound. A lorry off the road."

-"Over."

-Yeah. We're on the northbound, George.

It's the morning rush hour when the call comes through

about an accident on a busy main road

which cuts through the middle of the New Forest.

SIREN WAILS

Traffic cop Ken Venning has to fight his way through the traffic

to get there. A lot of people are going to be late for work this morning.

Just coming up to the incident now on our left.

You'll see fire and rescue have arrived.

Got the lorry, which is safely off the carriageway.

Try and get a closer look.

The fully loaded lorry was en route from Cornwall to Southampton

when it careered across two lanes of traffic,

took out the fence and ploughed into the undergrowth.

However, somehow the artic stayed upright.

Inside the ambulance is the driver, Lewis.

He's had a lucky escape.

It turns out his sweet tooth was to blame.

Choked on a sweet, to be honest.

Once I choked, I sort of blotted out for a minute or two.

That was all that happened. Really choked.

With no-one at the controls,

the tracks show how the lorry came off the road

and just kept on going.

By sheer chance it happened as the carriageway curved to the right,

sending the artic off the road.

At any other place, it could have ploughed into oncoming traffic.

I remember sliding, and then a sudden halt.

That's probably when the sweet jumped out.

Embarrassing, isn't it, really?

It's left Lewis with a red face and a few grazes,

but no serious injuries.

The only thing, just a scratch on the elbow.

I think it's only a scratch. I can't see it.

Probably some rough bit on the door, probably.

It was all padded out fairly well. Seat belt's on.

You can't go wrong without that seat belt, really.

It's little short of a miracle that no other vehicles were involved.

PC Duncan Innes now has to organise retrieving the lorry

and its load.

She's going to get someone to come out and we'll recover the product

sooner rather than later, then we'll try and get recovered

-during the quiet hours.

-Sure. yeah.

The next job is to prevent any further accidents.

The New Forest is home to wild ponies and cattle.

The fence is down and there's a risk the animals could stray onto the road.

Over 100 metres of fence has gone.

Representatives of the Highways Agency are on the scene

and get the repair work underway immediately.

How you doing? You all right? What's your name?

-Ashley.

-Ken.

He's come from lane two. Gentleman's driving along.

He's coughed on his cough sweet. He's managed to avoid any traffic

in lane one. Our concern is at the moment

in relation to the wildlife in the forest and making this more secure.

Recovery's going to be this afternoon, this evening.

Most important thing is making this area safe and sterile

to prevent anything leaving onto the carriageway, causing more problems.

If you let us know what will be happening, that will be wonderful.

But there's an additional problem.

As a result of the accident, the fuel tank on the articulated lorry,

or cab unit, has ruptured. It's got two tanks. Only one's been ruptured.

Approximately 200 litres of diesel have gone into the ground.

That's an environmental issue we are concerned about.

It's a lot of fuel, but firefighters are satisfied

that there's no danger of it polluting the local water supply.

There's no fuel left in the tank.

The trailer-unit tank is safe. That hasn't been punctured.

But there's nothing we can do about diesel

that's run into the forest. That's already soaked into the ground.

It's not near any water courses, so we're not too concerned.

The driver is going to have a thorough examination at hospital.

On the road, the morning traffic's flowing freely again.

It's just down to the recovery guys to work out how to move the lorry

out of the forest. However, the disruption caused by this accident

is not over yet. Just think what would have happened

if the bend in the road had turned the other way.

I'll demonstrate. Imagine this car is oncoming traffic,

and I'm the lorry. So we're going round a right-hand bend,

and as we're going round the bend, I lose control,

and I run off over here out into the countryside.

But if he'd been going the other way when he lost attention

and he loses control... Bang! Straight into the oncoming traffic.

It was just a matter of pure luck that no-one was hurt.

Brilliant demonstration, Nick. Still to come on Real Rescues,

we meet the man who fell 100 feet down this crumbling cliff face,

and find out why a nose with five million receptions,

a bit like this one,

can't match up to the 220 million on this medical-alert dog

that can detect cancer.

I can sniff out a good story, though, can't I?

Yes. A rescue that starts in the early morning. Here's one.

Mel is asleep in bed, unaware that she's slipping into a life-threatening coma.

But her dog realises there's something wrong,

and manages to raise the alarm.

It's seven in the morning, and in a downstairs bedroom

at a house in Berkshire, a woman disabled by osteoporosis

is in danger of falling into a diabetic coma.

Two ambulance crews are desperately trying to bring her round.

Paramedic John Pocock has just arrived,

and is struggling to find a vein in Mel's hand

to give her lifesaving glucose.

-Have you had a go in here?

-Yeah. I don't think I was anywhere near.

Mel's husband John is also trying to rouse her.

Mel!

Mel, come on!

Her blood-sugar levels have fallen so low,

she's very close to a coma.

It happened in the early hours. John was in another room,

and if it hadn't been for Penny the retriever,

he would never have known.

'Penny come up and started nudging me, quite severe.'

Once I acknowledged her, she started to nudge again,

which made me think, "Ah."

John dialled 999. The first crew arrived at 5:00 AM.

They've given her a drug which makes the liver release glucose,

but if they get it into a vein, it'll be much faster-acting.

If you hold the hand like that for me...

John tries to find a vein by bending back Mel's wrist.

Sharp scratch.

Fasten it there. See what happens.

John appears to be making progress, but it's not working.

Not going in, is it?

They're going to have to try somewhere else.

Mel, another sharp scratch coming up, darling.

Before he gets the needle in, Mel starts to come to.

Hello!

Mel!

Thirsty? I'm not surprised, sweetheart.

-Mel, we've got a drink here for you.

-Mel!

John tests her blood-sugar levels.

Sharp scratch.

3.8. We need to get her something to eat, really.

Despite the treatment, Mel's levels are still below the healthy range

of between four and eight.

She needs to get some food.

You all right there, darling? Open your eyes.

Right. Mel, can you talk to me at all?

Can you give us a smile?

As Mel's husband prepares the porridge,

John tries to get her to take some glucose gel.

OK. Open up, then. Swallow it for me.

-Ugh!

-I know it doesn't taste very nice.

He's happy enough with her progress to send the night crew home.

-If you guys are all packed up and want to go...

-Thank you.

Come here. Come on, then. Come on, baby. Leave the shoe.

Penny's instincts tell her that her mistress is in good hands.

She's not just a pet. She's trained to help disabled people like Mel

around the house.

'If Mel drops something, Penny will come along and pick it up.'

She's there to help her get dressed, undressed,

put the lights on and off.

'They're just basic push-pull tasks.'

Almost there. Three spoonfuls, then Penny can have the rest.

It's not the first time Penny's raised the alarm.

She's proved to have an amazing instinct

about the state of Mel's health.

'Penny picks up on something. I've no idea what it is.'

It could be her breathing. It's just very, very strange.

Now she comes up and she just nudges me,

nudges me. I think she probably did this the first time,

but I wasn't responding in any way.

So she actually jumped up onto the bed

and started sitting on me, nudging me,

till eventually I thought, "This is something..."

"This isn't quite normal."

Now Mel is a bit brighter, John tells her how Penny saved her life.

-She woke me up again!

-You good girl.

She's a very good girl. If she wasn't,

then, you probably wouldn't be...

..wouldn't be here.

Thankfully, the combination of food, drugs and glucose

soon start to take effect.

6.9.

-That's a bit better, isn't it?

-Yeah.

With that reading, John's happy that Mel doesn't need to go to hospital.

Just give the diabetic clinic a ring and just see what they say.

If her blood sugar's all over the place,

it's probably best that they keep an eye on her.

Right. Take care!

Mel's been suffering more frequent attacks like this,

so she'll need to be monitored carefully

as her blood-sugar levels are very unstable.

As for Penny, she may be officially retired,

but no-one will be able to stop her keeping an eye on Mel.

'The bad news is, they've taken her away from Mel.'

The good news is, she's my dog.

So they've actually signed her over to me.

She's now a family pet,

but I am going to be the last person in the world

to tell her not to do it.

She's retired. Just keep on doing it, please,

for Mel and for myself.

Now, Penny's training as a disability dog

didn't train her to spot a diabetic attack.

That is something she managed to train herself to do.

These two dogs are trained, though. They're medical-alert dogs.

We've got Tangle and Daisy here.

Claire, you are with the charity that trains them.

What are these dogs trained to do?

Well, when we have changes in our health,

we have changes in odour,

and we can train dogs to detect these changes in odour.

When useful, the dogs can give a warning.

So we train cancer-detection dogs.

And this is what these two specialise in?

Absolutely. They detect cancer volatiles in urine samples.

These aren't given to people as assistance dogs,

but we also train assistance dogs, and the main dogs we train

-are blood-sugar detection dogs.

-What kind of things do they help with?

-If people have diabetes...

-That's right.

If people have brittle type-1 diabetes,

and are unable to notice when their blood-sugar levels are dangerously low,

the dogs can give a warning in plenty of time,

and we've got a dog placed with a seven-year-old girl

whose parents were having terrible concerns about her because she was going into comas

because of these massive fluctuations, and this dog now attends primary school with her.

So before anybody knows, or she knows, the dog gives a warning.

Yes. Our dogs are trained to lick and nudge and paw

if they don't get an answer - a bit like this, but I'm not...

That's just affection, is it, from Daisy?

That's just affection. But with the dogs that work with young children,

not only do they warn the child, but they go and warn an adult,

so during the night, Shirley goes to Rebecca's bedroom and wakes up Mum.

And you've seen occasions when dogs like these

-literally save people's lives?

-All the time.

The people we work with were having regular paramedic callouts,

regular hospital admissions, and since the placement of the dogs,

none of our clients have had hospital admissions or paramedic callouts.

-Makes a huge difference.

-Absolutely amazing.

Thank you, Daisy. You're very sweet, and Tangle's quite laid-back.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

Thank you, Louise. I'm just looking here at dispatch.

This is the dispatch area, where they send out ambulances

and fast-response vehicles and all kinds of different things.

They had a helicopter out only yesterday

for a woman who fell off a horse on the beach,

and it's fascinating listening to them talking to people

and finding out who they need to get there.

-I wanted to chat to Jackie here. Have you got a moment?

-Yes.

You're not on a call? Lovely. About ponds!

People say ponds are dangerous. My dad would never have one,

because he said a pond was a dangerous thing to have in a garden.

-Very dangerous, yeah.

-You think so too?

-After taking the call, yes.

-Tell us about this call.

Well, I took a call from a 15 year old,

a young lady. She was the daughter. A young lad had fallen in the pond.

Dad was bringing the boy out of the pond.

He was not breathing, and she was the only one that wasn't panicking.

And I came through and I said to her, "Where is he?"

She said, "Dad's carrying him out the pond now."

-How old was the child?

-He was 15 months old,

and he'd fallen into two foot of water.

-Breathing?

-No. Not breathing. No, no.

-That's got to make your blood run cold.

-It did.

It was the first call I'd ever taken like that, I must admit.

-So what do you do next?

-I said to her straight away,

"Put him down flat on his back and tilt his head back,"

which then opens up their airways, which is the first thing you do with anybody who's not breathing.

And they did that. She relayed the instructions,

and after they tilted his head back, the lad started to cough and cry

and came round without us doing CPR on him.

-You saved the baby's life.

-I don't think of it like that.

-You did, though, didn't you?

-Yeah, I suppose.

-Do you have the shakes after a call like that?

-No.

I think I'd be shaking at the thought of what had just happened.

We're coming up to the summer holidays now,

a lot of children playing around the sea and swimming pools.

If you find a child in that situation,

that's fallen into the water and stopped breathing,

-what do you do?

-Lie him on his back and tilt his head back.

Look in their mouths and make sure there's nothing

that could be blocking. You tilt their head back.

That opens up the airways, and hopefully that will get them breathing again

-before you have to think about doing CPR.

-OK.

But you wouldn't have a pond in your back garden?

In actual fact I have, but then I haven't got young children.

That's the key. Some kind of grille over it, I suppose, is the way.

-Or fill it in.

-All right. Lovely. Thank you very much.

Fascinating, don't you think? Now back to the New Forest

and that articulated lorry. Four hours after it careered off the road

into surrounding countryside, it's still there.

Now there's more trouble - another accident on the same stretch of road.

It's a case of deja vu for traffic cop Ken Venning.

There's been another accident, and it looks like it might have been caused

by drivers being distracted by the sight of the lorry

being pulled out of the New Forest.

En route to a three-vehicle RTI road-traffic incident,

believed collision. It's an incident that happened earlier on today

whereby a lorry's gone off the carriageway,

so I'm not sure if someone's been looking at something else and it's happened as a result of that.

Four cars are involved. This time, however,

the occupants are lucky. There are no injuries,

and the damage is relatively minor.

On the opposite side of the road, a massive recovery truck has arrived

to rescue the stranded lorry. There's a lot of activity.

Impressive it may be, but will it be strong enough

to drag this 44-ton truck and its cargo out of the bushes?

Well, hopefully we're going to try and pull it back

to pull it all in line, then take it up there.

We don't know whether that'll happen yet.

At first I thought pull it up there, but there's too much in the way,

so we're going to give this a go.

As it turns out, the recovery truck is specially built

for this kind of job, and it has no trouble

pulling the stricken lorry back up the hill.

PC Duncan Innes is checking out the cab's equivalent of a black box.

It will tell him how fast the lorry was going.

He also finds some other valuable evidence.

Mr Pascoe tells us that he choked on a boiled sweet.

As you can see, in the passenger-door handle,

we've actually got an exhibit of the boiled sweet,

so I think everything Mr Pascoe's told us is probably quite factual.

And, unbelievably, the only victims of this crash

are some forest vegetation and 30 tons of defrosted food.

I have to admit that I was a little bit nervous

when I went up in that helicopter with the coastguard rescue.

Sharon's got a story about somebody who was also a bit nervous.

-I have.

-She'd hurt herself, and what happened, this lady?

A lady had fallen on the cliffs when she was out walking,

and so it was really hard to access her.

We couldn't get the ambulance down over the cliffs to get to her.

She'd injured her ankle and was unable to walk.

-Right.

-We asked the helicopter to attend,

to try and airlift her out, but once the helicopter had got there,

she decided there was no way she was going to get onto it.

She didn't like to fly, so she turned the helicopter away.

You wouldn't believe that that was going to happen.

-No.

-She was adamant.

-It didn't matter how much pain she was in,

-she wasn't going on the helicopter.

-So she was taken away by...

-How did you get her off?

-The coastguard actually assisted

with a 4x4, and they got her back up the trackway

to the car park for the ambulance crew to take her to hospital.

But it was lucky she didn't get into the helicopter.

It was. Shortly after she declined the helicopter,

the helicopter had started to lift to go back to its base,

and we received a phone call from a gentleman who was panicking.

His son had been bitten by an adder.

He wanted to know where the nearest hospital was to drive him there.

So we'd asked him where he was, and figured out, "He's on that road,"

and thought, "The helicopter's only a couple of minutes away,"

so we spoke to the gentleman and said, "We need you to pull over."

"There's a helicopter in the area. They can land in a field

-and take your son to hospital."

-And the key being there

-that he was on holiday, so...

-He had no idea where he was.

So the helicopter went down and guided him?

The helicopter flew along the road and caught up to him,

and the gentleman saw the helicopter, helicopter landed in a field

next to a roundabout, and they were able to get to the child

and get the child taken to hospital.

And this little boy had been bitten by the adder, hadn't he?

-Was he in quite a bad way?

-He was really poorly.

He had a bad reaction to the bite, and the leg had started to go black

-around the area of the bite.

-And is that normal

-or some kind of allergic reaction?

-It's an allergic reaction he had,

but that was a severe reaction in that particular case.

So if the lady had been on board the helicopter,

what would have happened to that little boy?

We would have been able to advise the father where to drive,

and endeavour to get an ambulance to him,

but it was just absolutely key at that point

that we were able to get the helicopter to him

-and his son that quickly.

-An extraordinary decision by her,

-and the little boy was OK.

-Yeah. It was all luck.

What a fantastic story! What a fantastic story that is,

don't you think? And I should say, because I'm an animal lover myself,

that more people are hurt by wasps each year than hurt by adders,

so don't get frightened in the countryside.

Earlier we watched Buck Rogers and the Portland Coastguard team

attempt the dangerous rescue of a man 500 feet up a cliff face.

OK, and steady. Once again...

Coming clear.

Approaching the step.

It was a success, and Rescue 106 rushed the injured man, Graham Dover

to Dorchester Hospital for lifesaving surgery.

He talked to us about it, and is recovering.

Graham underwent 15 hours of surgery at Dorchester Hospital.

Apart from a few hazy flashbacks,

he doesn't remember the accident at all.

The first thing he knew was waking up in intensive care

a day and a half later.

My injuries were... I had collapsed lungs,

which they inserted some pipes and reinflated,

and most of my injuries - I was fortunate - was to my arms.

It wasn't to the main trunk of my body.

I had two breaks in my ulna on this side,

and then on this side I shattered my elbow,

and they've had to put a replacement ceramic elbow back in this side,

and also I'd broken and dislocated my wrist,

which now has got a metal plate which has got to stay in permanently

on that side. But everything's well on the way to recovery now.

Graham realises he owes his survival to so many people,

from William the dog-walker, who first heard his cries,

to the helicopter crew and the medical staff.

A big thank-you, obviously, to the chap that went to get help for me,

and to kick everything into life from the rest of the people

that were all involved - not just the winch man and helicopter people

and those people who acted so fantastically on that night,

but also everybody that cared for me for the best part of a month

while I was in hospital, all those people.

If it wasn't for their professionalism

and their dedication to it all,

I certainly wouldn't be as happy as I am now, would I?

Remember I was saying about the lady who'd fallen off the horse.

It occurred to me, I wondered how often that sort of thing happened.

-If you come over here to Sharon... She's not on a call.

-I'm not.

People falling off horses and injuring themselves

-is quite a regular thing.

-It is. Dorset's a very rural county,

and we've got a lot of beaches as well,

so the increase, especially in the summer,

with people falling off of horses and general outdoor-activity accidents,

-is very high.

-But horses in particular?

This is interesting. To show you how often this happens,

-two within the last 24 hours?

-That's right, two.

-Where?

-We've had one in woodland and one on a beach.

Both of which... How serious?

Both needed to go in the helicopter.

We used the helicopter to extricate from the beach.

It was a difficult access. And the one in woodland,

to stabilise the patient and get them into hospital quicker.

Thank you very much. Interesting, that.

You wouldn't assume that riding horses is so dangerous.

I thought your dogs, by the way, were fascinating.

Weren't they lovely? There are only 20 of those medical-alert dogs

from that charity in the country, and if you want one,

-it's a three-year waiting list.

-But they'll grow that, won't they?

I imagine they will. That little girl takes her dog to school,

-which is incredible.

-It makes sense. And by the way,

the last thing we learn from this programme,

-please check your smoke alarm in your house.

-Have you?

Yeah. I am going to go home and do that straight away.

That's all from us today. Join us next time for more Real Rescues.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

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