Episode 20 Real Rescues

On Real Rescues, firefighters from across a county are called to tackle a fire

racing through a commercial laundry.

A stack of clean washing has set alight spontaneously.

That's got quite a developed fire in there

threatening the other units.

When a driver is trapped in an overturned car by a collapsed wall,

even the police are surprised when they learn just how close to home this accident had happened.

-Oh, she's next door?

-Yeah!

And it was a pleasure walking up the hill,

coming down's proving just a little harder.

So are you ready for a rest?

OK, ready, raise, lower.

Hello, and welcome to the Sussex police control room in Lewis.

40 staff are on duty dealing with

almost 1,500 calls a day and many turn into full-scale emergencies.

When fire traps you in your house,

the advice is to get the family into another room,

shut the door, put blankets against it to stop the fumes coming in.

One mum kept her head and saved her two young daughters

by going one step further. This is the call she made.

SHE COUGHS

Any fire in the house is serious

but from the information Abbi was giving me

the fact that she couldn't see and she had difficulty breathing,

I know the fire had taken real hold and she was in real danger.

Suddenly, after an uncontrollable fit of coughing... silence.

When Abbi stopped talking to me, that was really the worst part of the call.

It was the uncertainty, the not knowing

what had actually happened to her.

And, I did actually think the worst at some point.

I kept calling her in the hope that she was near the telephone

and she could actually hear me but she didn't answer.

At the other end of the call, unbeknown to John,

Abbi Mann has left the relative safety of her bedroom

to reach her two-year-old daughter in the other bedroom,

taking her older daughter with her.

Despite the choking smoke, Abbi manages to grab her youngest daughter from the other room.

The family are now hiding in the bathroom

where Abbi is quick thinking enough to soak a blanket with water.

Crouching over her children, she covers them all with a blanket.

It's now a waiting game.

I got to the point where I thought if I took one more breath

that would be it.

I honestly didn't know how many more breaths I could take of it.

And at that point, the firefighters arrive.

I didn't hear any sirens or anything like that.

The first thing I heard was a fireman's voice saying,

"They're in here. They're here. They're all here."

At that point, I blacked out and the next thing I know

is I'm outside being given mouth-to-mouth.

Against all the odds, Abbi and both of her children were safe.

There's no way I could leave a child.

You can't choose between your children.

At which point, was a snap decision to go and grab Poppy, as well.

As I went to go and get Poppy, Ellie stuck to me.

She was by my side. She did exactly as I asked her to do.

I'd taken the cover with me that had covered me and Ellie

and as I grabbed Poppy, and put them on the floor,

I wet it in the bath and put that over the girls.

Then just covered them up, basically.

Ellie put herself almost on top of her sister, as well,

to look after her baby sister.

For five years old, she was absolutely incredible.

She listened to everything. She stayed calm.

They both did exactly, at two and five, exactly what I asked them to do.

After 12 hours on oxygen and a short stay in hospital,

Abbi and her girls were allowed out to stay with relatives.

By getting both children under the wet blanket,

Abbi played a big part in saving their lives.

To look at my little girls now, you know, running about, playing,

Ellie's back at school, it is just a miracle.

It's an absolute miracle that we all survived.

If Abbi's smoke alarm hadn't woken her,

it could of been a very different story.

She knows that the call taker, John Dunkley

and the firefighters also had a big part to play.

If it wasn't for them then...

Yeah, they're absolutely amazing.

They really are my heroes.

I want to have a quick chat with Janice

-about a lady who phoned up concerned for some jewellery, wasn't she?

-Yeah, absolutely.

She had had a burglary earlier and she'd had some jewellery stolen

and she really wanted these items back.

They were treasured items, you know.

So, she went around to the local pawnbrokers and jewellers...

-And described to them what it was like?

-Absolutely!

To see if anybody was coming in to try and sell them any jewellery that fitted the description.

We had another call into the contact centre from a pawnbrokers

to say that somebody had been in with the items, or what looked like the items

and, quick thinking on their part,

they gave them, the jewellers gave them half the money

and asked them to come back a little bit later on

-for the rest of the money for the jewellery.

-Then called you?

Then called us to let us know what was going on.

We then advised them, when the people came into the shop to get the rest of the money,

to give us a call on 999, obviously discreetly,

and we would get officers there. That's exactly what happened.

Officers arrived and arrested the persons

and got all the jewellery back for the lady.

So thanks to them, as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Quick thinking on the jeweller's part.

-What an excellent story.

-Brilliant. Thank you. No problem.

Brilliant stuff!

I have just discovered my favourite story of the day so far.

Natalie is about to tell me. It involves a squirrel going nuts,

in a toilet, what was going on?

We received a call from a very distressed female

who said she had gone into her bathroom

and found a squirrel down the toilet, which was still alive,

-so she was quite upset.

-So scrambling, making a bit of a mess, trying to get out?

Trying to get out, bit of panic, itself.

She was quite scared so we advised her to get a towel, wet it,

drape it around the toilet and then have the towel going out the window, which is what she did.

She closed the door, left it for a few minutes,

went back in and the squirrel had escaped.

-Fantastic! So it had climbed up the old wet towel?

-It certainly did, yes.

Is that in part of your training? Is that part of the manual, page 3?

"If there is any squirrel stuck in the toilet, get a towel wet."

That's the one, yeah. It is in the manual, yes.

Amazing, I must get a copy of that. Natalie, thank you very much.

You're more than welcome, thank you.

Accidents can and do happen on the shortest of journeys

and in the next rescue a woman is trapped in an overturned car,

only a few feet from her own front door.

Littlehampton, all the emergency services including traffic officer, Bob Blair,

have been sent to a road accident.

SIRENS

We just had a call to a report of a vehicle which has overturned.

It's a residential area.

The lady driver of the car is still trapped within the vehicle.

We are a few minutes away and the first units

are just arriving on scene by the sound of it.

A quiet road has been taken over by a fleet of emergency vehicles,

all responding to this.

The overturned vehicle, a mobility car, lies near a smashed garden wall.

Fully conscious, the woman trapped inside has been communicating

with ambulance staff and fire crews.

We have the details of this lady.

-She hit the wall and ended up at the side of the vehicle.

-Right.

-There's no witnesses.

-OK.

Bob and his colleagues need to try and piece together what's happened

when no other person, or vehicle, appears to have been involved.

-Who's the unfortunate wall owner?

-Me.

That's you, is it? Right.

I looked out of my kitchen window and I saw something move.

At least you weren't doing your garden at the time.

It's a good job I wasn't!

That young lad was just coming around the corner on his bike

and he saw the bricks and when I came out, he was on his mobile.

-I said, "are you ringing the emergency services?" He said, "Yes."

-Are you OK?

-No, I'm a little bit shook up.

-You're shocked.

-Especially seeing her.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-And she's a next-door neighbour, as well.

-Oh, she's next-door?!

Yeah. Number one.

-Oh, right. OK.

-Didn't you know?

-No, wow!

Crumpled against the left-hand door of her car, that's lying on the road,

Lorraine is trapped in an uncomfortable position

after falling across from the driver's seat.

She hasn't been able to answer yet as to how

she managed to travel from her driveway, via neighbour, Christine's wall,

to end up in this position.

But she does have a favour to ask of Bob.

Lorraine was only heading out for a moment,

so she asked Bob if he can fetch her a change of clothes for hospital.

She needs some bottoms from the house, would you be happy to come with me to the house?

-Yeah, but the front door's locked.

-Apparently the back one's open.

It might be more suitable for you to go through her drawers.

Firefighters have removed the back seats of the car for access.

As she hasn't complained of any neck or back pain,

the medical team are happy that she can be gently lifted and eased out

to the waiting stretcher.

But Lorraine does have some nasty cuts to her right arm

and shoulder. They definitely will need some further medical attention.

Bob brings her a change of clothes.

The house is completely insecure.

Christine agrees to watch over her neighbour's property

until Lorraine's husband can come back to lock up properly.

Lorraine will be patched up at Worthing Hospital.

Christine's wondering who will now patch up her wall?

-Will the fireman clear all this?

-We'll make it safe.

Otherwise I'll have to come out and do it, you see.

As Lorraine was driving a brand-new automatic car,

Bob's suspects that after reversing out of her drive

she may have made a common mistake of hitting the accelerator

rather than the brake when she started to move forward.

It's an automatic vehicle, so whether she's accidentally

pressed the accelerator instead of the brake.

Literary, she's come from the house next door

and within a space of 20 yards managed to turn the vehicle over.

We're not sure exactly what happened but we'll make some enquiries and work it out.

Lorraine's got off lightly considering

to topple the wall and tip over suggests

she must have accelerated at some speed.

In the meantime, the operation to clean up the neighbourhood continues.

-So new it hasn't even had time to get dirty yet!

-No.

Back on its wheels, Lorraine's mobility car will now be

delivered to the recovery yard where it will wait until

she can get back on her feet.

Lorraine needed several stitches in her arm. Her car was a write-off.

Now, a little bit earlier on we heard from Liz who was promising us

she was going to tell us about how she helped a man in a house stuck in the bath.

I want some more details. How did it all start?

We took a call from a GP

who had been contacted by the man's neighbours.

They'd been trying to contact him for a couple of days,

knocking on the door.

Although, he'd been speaking to them, they couldn't get him to actually open the door.

He was saying to let themselves in and he was in the bath.

The GP attended the address and contacted us

because she was getting the same response from him

and wanted to access the property and check on his welfare.

It sounds as if the elderly man was confused, maybe injured.

What did you do? You sent the boys in, did you?

We assigned it for a unit to attend the address.

The officers went.

They also spoke to him, could speak to him through the door

but couldn't get him to come and open the door.

We contacted the Fire Brigade and asked them to assist us for gaining entry to the address.

-They attended and entry was gained through the kitchen window.

-Right.

Once they were in the property, they did find the man.

Unfortunately, he was in the bath.

He had a fall and had a laceration to his head.

He had head injuries. How long had he been there?

-They think he was there for at least a day, probably more.

-Oh, poor man.

And so the paramedics went in?

The paramedics attended and fortunately, because of the neighbours' concern,

we were able to get there and assist him and the paramedics were able to look after him.

It just shows you if the neighbour hadn't been concerned,

-he could have been there for days, couldn't he?

-Yeah.

The neighbours realised that it was out of character for him,

the way that he was responding when they were knocking on the door

and from our point of view, if there is that kind of concern,

we would rather someone let us know and we checked it out.

We can do as we did in this situation and help someone.

Well done you, and well done the neighbours.

It's late on a weekday evening when police officer on patrol

spots smoke pouring out of a commercial laundry.

The fire is so big crews are called in from several stations.

There are no signs of arson or any other obvious cause.

The firefighters are tackling a fire that appears to have started itself.

SIRENS

It's the early hours of the morning.

Southampton's Green Watch have been called across the city

to tackle a large fire on an industrial estate.

We're going on what's called eight pumping appliances

and water tenders already in attendance.

The fire service are taking no chances.

When Green Watch arrive there are ten appliances in all

with 60 firefighters.

They'll work in relay to knock back the fire.

It's in a large commercial laundry,

washing hotel linen as well as heavy duty industrial overalls.

Plenty of material to feed the flames

which are threatening the units next door.

Green Watch manager, Sean, signs his crew in with control.

3BA, suited and booted in your sector. Ready to go.

-OK, as they all down there?

-They're down there, yeah.

OK, thanks very much.

With so many fire crews on site,

this has to be a highly organised attack on the flames.

The position of every firefighter recorded.

The first crews arrived to find the building locked up,

allowing the flames to super heat the inside.

When we turned up, the building was all sealed up.

Our initial actions were to try make a forced entry.

We've removed the roller shutter door to gain access into the loading bay.

With a new supply of oxygen, through the opening,

the fire surged and flames soon breached the roof.

But it also provided an escape for the super heated gases,

making it easier for the firefighters to work.

An aerial ladder platform's in place

to pour thousands of gallons of water through the holes in the roof.

Dan Tasker is in charge of the operation.

That's got quite a developed fire in there

which is threatening the other two units.

For that reason we've got a lot of crews deployed in there,

just basically holding the fire in check.

We've got an aerial ladder platform that's also keeping the fire in check from above,

just stopping it from spreading through the rest of the building.

We've got crews in the other buildings, just checking there's nobody inside.

Making sure that's clear and there's no fire spread.

At the moment, it seems to be going quite well.

We've got the fire in check.

We're making good progress on that.

All things being good, we should be able to get a fire surround message quite soon.

Fire surround means they've contained the fire,

stopping it in its tracks.

The next job is extinguishing the remaining flames

but it's not going to be easy.

There's masses of laundry materials.

There's clothing, textiles, that sort of thing. That's what we got to fight at the moment.

Quite awkward as far as extinguishing it

because there's a lot of it and it's quite tightly bundled.

We're going to be here a little while, I think.

Anxiously watching the drama unfold is the laundry manager, Scott.

He was the first to tell his boss, David, his business was on fire.

When I first got the call about the fire,

the first thing that goes through your mind is,

this is not going to be a small fire.

You don't have a small fire in a laundry, not in the middle of the night.

In a funny way, I was prepared when I got there.

I knew what I was going to see.

Still smoke coming out.

A lot of laundry smoking outside on the yard

and on the cages that we keep the laundry in.

Spreading it out on the floor, dousing it down,

making sure there was no chance of further fire.

I was rather sad.

David's company prides itself on cleanliness and safety.

It's tough to watch the stock in such a state

but everything must be damped down.

This is very difficult to get into, without pulling it all out

and going through it all. It does create a lot of mess.

It's now 3am, there's still the odd flare-up,

but the fire is mostly out.

Rich Green and Adam Bundle have finished their stint inside.

Yet, just loads of cages of laundry, mate.

There was fire on the ground floor

and then there was a mezzanine floor, as well.

That was well alight.

We just started up front and worked our way to the back and put it out.

Incident commander, Dan, is pleased with the way things have gone.

We've made a really good stop on the fire.

The good news is we've had no injuries to firefighters.

There's no other further damage to the other two units,

or the surrounding environment.

Hopefully, come tomorrow morning, business continuity will resume

for all the other units in this area.

Now the fire's dealt with,

they can begin their investigation into how it started.

Their findings are not conclusive but all evidence suggests the fire started itself.

We believe they've ruled out arson.

They've ruled out electrical, they've ruled out chemical.

There was nobody on site.

Therefore, the only conclusion we've reached at the moment is what they call spontaneous combustion.

Which given the right degree of contamination in garments,

and the right degree of heat and the inability of the garments easily dissipate the heat,

can give rise to what they call self heating.

In the sense a garment can not just get cooler

but it can get hotter, until it may reach a point of charring

and then more oxygen being drawn in, it can eventually ignite.

The fire has destroyed £250,000 of machinery.

That'll be covered by insurance

but David's main concern was his customers.

Thanks to the firefighters swift action, not all was lost.

Raking through what the firemen had pulled out,

we rescued about 70 to 75%

of customer stock and customer garments.

I think their response, and the speed that the fire crews got out

and the number of vehicles they had available to them, was amazing.

It appears this fire started itself. A case of spontaneous ignition.

Last series, we heard how this church was gutted by fire

after a rag soaked with linseed oil was left in a rubbish bin.

Well, we've got Mark Hobbs, an expert I should say

-in linseed oil fires, no fire and rescue service.

-If you say so, Chris.

I'm not a scientist, I don't quite understand the details

but how does this happen?

I'm not a scientist either, Chris. In technical terms, it's oxidation.

It's a reaction with oxygen in the atmosphere all around.

Certain oils, in particular linseed oil, is particularly prone,

will react with oxygen in the air

and the way it dries itself out as a by-product, it creates heat.

If you use the product on a rag, and you don't lay it out for the heat to get away, dissipate,

there's a chance that it can create so much heat it can cause a fire.

Which must surprise a lot of people at home.

What I don't understand, in this laundry, the clothes, the materials were clean.

Even after washing, in a washing machine,

there will be a residue of oil.

I'm not sure what was on these clothes in this particular case,

it could have been linseed oil, it could have been vegetable oil or any other oil.

There will, invariably, be some sort of residue left.

Once they've been cleaned, presumably they're put into a tumble dryer

and that will create heat and if they take them out of the tumble dryer and stack them tightly,

that heat can't escape, it could cause a situation where a fire could occur.

I'm panicking now because I've oiled my cricket bat with my linseed oil rag.

I'm thinking, I might have knocked up a whole load of vegetable oil

that I spilt in the kitchen and I just throw it in the bin, should I be worried?

With linseed oil, you need to take precautions

and if you read the back of the bottle when you next use it,

you'll find there is a warning on the quite clearly,

which tells you how to safely dispose of the rags.

With the vegetable oil, it's not such a product to the same extent as linseed oil

but it's not so likely to cause a fire.

And generally, in my experience in the fire service experience with vegetable oil in laundries,

its commercial laundries where you've got large amounts of tea towels

which are stacked tightly together.

In your own home environment, you're not going have a large pile of tea towels, no doubt.

What people should be aware of in their home, as well as commercial laundries,

you should always leave your tumble dryer to complete its cycle.

At the end of the cycle it goes through a cooling stage.

If you turn it off before it gets to that stage,

and leave the items in there, they're at a temperature where,

if there is a product like linseed oil on the clothing,

it could be a risk.

Brilliant, OK, I can get some advice from your website?

Some time ago we set up a website, it's www.blackmuseum.info.

Your viewers are quite welcome to go in there

and there's a number of cases on there to do with the causes of fire

but linseed oil and spontaneous combustion is on there.

There's also a section on there which we would be really interested to get their own stories

because we typically only attend 20% of fires in the country

and 80% are unreported to us.

That would be really useful for them to visit the site,

see some of these cases and also if they can give us information.

OK, Mark, thank you very much indeed.

I'm just going to call my mum, Lou, because I've left the rags from my linseed oil bat in the bin.

Go call her.

SIREN BLARES

Ashdown Forest, Sussex. It's just after 6pm, and PC Shelley Marder

has been called to an accident on a country road.

We've had a report of a car that's lost control and...

..has rolled in the road.

-POLICE RADIO:

-A member of the public says the driver appears drunk and is staggering all over the place.

SIREN BLARES

PC Marder arrives to find the car has come to rest on its roof.

-PC Marder, is this your vehicle?

-It is my mum's.

-OK. Were you driver at the time of the crash?

-Yes.

The driver appears to have escaped completely unharmed.

-You're on the insurance to drive the vehicle?

-Yes, obviously.

OK, I'm only just asking.

He's blaming the accident on an animal dashing out into the road.

..a fox. Shoots out in the middle the road, I make a quick swerve,

and then it just hits it, then I tried to correct it and it just...

-OK, sir. Have you had anything to drink this evening?

-No.

-Nothing at all?

-No. Give me a breathalyser.

-I will do.

The driver's not bothered about taking a breath test,

however, he's refusing medical attention, and not very graciously.

-..OK?

-I don't want nothing to do with them.

-OK, if he's refusing, that's fine.

-Cause you was RUDE to me!

-I wasn't.

-BLEEP

-was!

Er, language, please. I don't want to hear that sort of language.

Don't go anywhere.

Shelley's getting suspicious, as the driver is trying to get something out of the car.

He says he wants a smoke,

but Shelley thinks he has something in there he doesn't want her to see.

Right, let's leave your tobacco. I'll get that out for you in the minute.

Shelley is convinced the breathalyser will go some way

-to explaining this accident.

-OK.

Come and stand here, I'm talking to you.

OK, nice deep breath and blow into the machine till I tell you to stop.

BREATHALYSER BEEPS

That's it, brilliant. Stop.

Pop that in your bag for you.

The result comes as a surprise to PC Marder, but not to the driver.

Zero, OK?

Magic.

That's fine, everyone involved in the collision is always breathalysed.

Passing the breathalyser hasn't made him many more cooperative.

Has he signed it?

Don't worry about it, and go away.

Have you contacted your mum?

Shelley needs to check out every detail of the driver's story.

Yes, please, I was wondering whether you could do a check, please?

Is the male on the insurance to drive the vehicle?

-RADIO RESPONSE:

-Yes.

Although the story about the car has checked out, his erratic behaviour

is suspicious, especially his aggression towards the paramedics.

He was really, really aggressive.

-Yeah,

-"BLEEP

-don't want your help," and we're like, look...

Shelley suspects the driver may be under the influence of drugs, but,

because of his volatile nature, is unwilling to search him until backup arrives.

In the meantime, she needs to get the traffic moving.

Where's the bus driver? Ah, there you are.

Do you think you can fit through there?

Pardon? Not with the trees?

Trees and the bend. No, no, seriously.

OK, all right. I'll get these lot down here then.

One, two, three, go.

That's it.

First priority is to get the paramedics away to their next call.

Our ambulance is standing down to go to a RTC in Edenbridge.

Have we had it through yet? Back! Go back!

SIRENS BLARE I didn't say "Come through!"

The unwanted ambulance heads off to another accident

and police back-up arrives in the form of PC Alan Williams.

Shelley shares her concerns.

I don't want to search him on my own, because he's been quite aggressive to people.

-OK.

-So would you be able to help me?

-Yeah, of course I will.

-That's fine.

PC Williams immediately notices

signs of possible drug use.

So, what I'm saying to you, mate, is - you're pupils look very dilated,

-OK...?

-I just had a

-BLEEP

-accident!

Stop swearing at me, right?

-Have you got anything on you you shouldn't have, sir?

-No.

The driver was seen throwing something over the fence

after the accident. Shelley found a bag

of items related to drug use.

There's now enough reason to arrest him.

You're under arrest on suspicion of possession

of a controlled substance - you do not have to say anything,

but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned

something which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

Do you understand?

-Of course I understand.

-That's fine.

As the driver's pockets are searched, Shelley continues

to scan the area he was seen throwing packages.

I've found some more drugs, the same place I found the other bag.

And from the description of what the members of the public told me,

I've just found a large quantity of, erm,

cocaine and cannabis.

The recovery vehicle has arrived. It will right the car,

enabling the police to have a better look inside.

There's nothing fallen out that I can see.

A cursory search reveals no more drugs.

The car will be searched by a specialist dog unit later.

He was proper having a search underneath there...

At the police station later, the driver tested positive for drugs.

He pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs.

Mobile phones give us all a sense of security.

If anything happens while we're off the beaten track,

we're almost certain to be able to get help.

But it's not always as easy as that - the most scenic spots

are often the hardest for emergency services to reach.

Paramedic Sam Mason is heading out on an emergency call to a man

who has fallen and landed badly on his ankle.

It's happened on a hill popular with walkers and inaccessible to vehicles.

The local ambulance crew

has had to call the Hazardous Area Emergency Team in

to help get him out.

We're almost at scene - are you bringing the Polaris?

Polaris is an all-terrain vehicle

used to carry casualties across very rough terrain.

But when paramedic Sam Mason reaches St Catherine's Hill,

she can see they won't be able to use it here.

It's not going to be a Polaris job

because of the kissing gate, to get up the hill.

The only way onto the hill is through a gate - on foot.

It's a steep climb, and Sam needs some directions from her colleague -

already with the injured man.

Hi, Simon - it's Sam from the HART team. Where the road

forks off to its left and right, which way are you?

Okey-dokey.

She finds them - Simon has already carried out

basic health checks on the man.

He was quite happily walking up,

got a bit of a pearler - did your ankle go underneath you

or did it go away from you?

There is little doubt that the man's ankle is broken -

he heard it crack as he fell.

..a previous compound fracture,

so he's got a plate, and it sounds like

-it's just below the plate level.

-OK.

So, the problem is, we can either get the helicopter to the top

or someone to the bottom.

Clare McGonagall is a team leader of the Hazardous Area Response Team.

She radios for more help, as Simon continues to monitor the casualty.

The ambulance crews are going to have to carry the injured man

down the hill - it's a sunny day,

but muddy and very slippery under foot.

The grass each side of it is not too bad at all.

-It's just the muddy bit.

-It's just the muddy centre of it.

It's more... many hands make light work.

The reinforcements have brought with them a special body splint,

which unfolds to be used as a stretcher.

But before they can move him, his leg must be immobilised.

This splint - we're going to form it round your right leg,

and then, by a process of suction and magic,

-suck all the air out of it, make it hard.

-OK.

Once that's holding your leg really still, we're quite optimistic

it's going to take your pain away.

Once the splint is on, they're ready to start moving him.

If my colleagues hold your bad leg, you help with your good leg,

we'll support you, and we just want to sit you back onto the...

-sit your bum back, so if you...

-Straight back.

-That's it.

-Well done.

-A little bit more. OK.

The flexible stretcher will be moulded around his body

once he's securely strapped in.

These straps need to be a bit tight,

unfortunately, just so you're safe going down the hill,

-but we'll try...

-Oh!

-Where's that... Is that your leg that's hurting?

Is that helping at all? Yeah? OK.

It wears off quite quickly, so you can just keep taking it,

-just nice, long, deep breaths.

-Ready?

Ready, set, lift.

Six paramedics are needed to lift the injured man safely.

-INJURED MAN:

-Oh! Oh!

The path down is dangerously muddy,

and every move is painful.

-FEMALE PARAMEDIC:

-I've got morphine in my pocket.

With the pain under control, they can set off once again down the hill.

Ready, brace, lift.

Oop!

Ooh!

Got no traction at all.

Progress is slow.

-Is everybody ready for a rest?

-OK - ready, brace,

lower!

-Change sides?

-Can do.

Lift. Ready, steady, lift.

-FEMALE PARAMEDIC:

-It's still quite slippery here.

I know this from the three recces I've done of it!

They finally reach the car park at the bottom.

-There we go, that's it now.

-'The injured man is then taken'

in a comfortable ambulance to Winchester A&E,

where his ankle will be X-rayed to assess

the full extent of the damage.

It's interesting being in here, because actually, it's quite quiet.

People are talking, but of course they're taking calls,

different types of calls all the time, from people

who are often in distress.

I'm going to talk to Tom if he's OK to talk... Tom, are you OK?

-Are you busy?!

-Hello, yep.

You took a call from an elderly lady, didn't you,

-who was really worried about something.

-Yeah.

She was 92 years old living on her own,

she got washed and went to bed,

then she heard some noises downstairs which she thought sounded like

-foreign gentlemen that were down there.

-Mm-hmm.

And so she called 999. So, I'd got the address of where she was,

telephone number, and I sent it down as a Grade 1 call.

-Then I told her to...

-Because you thought it was a burglary going on.

Yes, you can only take it on what people's word is,

you've got to go on that.

So, anyway, what I did, I told her to er,

get a chair, stick it up against the door handle so nobody could get in,

go back, sit in the bed, and I would talk to her on the phone.

So I kept her talking on the phone, making sure she was all right,

if she was hearing anything downstairs.

By the time I put it back down, within 10 minutes,

the police were there. The back door was open, so they got into the house.

-Mm-hmm.

-They came upstairs, and I could tell by looking at the log

that they were in the house, and it was OK,

so I told her to take the chair away and open the door for the police.

Then the police came on and said that she'd gone to bed and left the TV on,

-and there was a foreign film on the TV.

-So, she was in her bed,

and hearing the voices on the television,

-and it was foreign voices because it was a foreign film.

-Yes.

Aw! Was she reassured, though?

Oh, yeah, as soon as the police were there,

-everything was OK.

-How long had it taken them to get there?

Less than 10 minutes, I'd say between 8-9 minutes, which is pretty good,

because it wasn't an urban situation, it was quite a rural place.

It may be the car was there at the time, but it was quick.

-Do you think next time she'll turn the telly off?

-I think she might do!

-Thanks, Tom.

-OK, that's great.

Every year, 17,000 cyclists are killed or injured on our roads.

However, not all accidents involve other vehicles.

AMBULANCE SIREN SOUNDS

It's daybreak. The rush hour hasn't started yet,

but a commuter has already been hurt on the road.

Paramedic Helen and emergency care assistant Paul

-are on their way.

-We're going to Cosham Police station, just outside.

Apparently it's a push bike versus a motor vehicle.

We don't know how many people are involved yet.

They arrive at the police station, where the cyclist is recovering.

He was helped by two officers who called for an ambulance.

Helen can see straightaway, his face

has taken the brunt of the impact.

Are you able to tell me what's happened?

Well, I was coming round that roundabout,

pulled out the other side, and suddenly the bike just went...

-Right, OK. You've obviously hit the floor.

-Yeah.

-Do you think you've lost consciousness at all?

-No.

-No?

-So you remember everything?

-Yeah...

It turns out Roy didn't collide with a car - just the Tarmac.

Helen checks for any possible head injury.

Luckily, the iris of each eye is responding naturally.

-I can see you've hurt your face - have you hurt anywhere else?

-No...

Roy rides to work daily.

He was wearing a helmet, but he flew over the handlebars,

-landing face-first?

-Your knees are OK?

-Well, that one, gone through there.

-Yeah?

Have you cut it? Let's have a look.

-Grazed it.

-Yeah, just taken the skin off there.

-What about your hands and your wrists?

-No, they're fine.

-Yeah? Shoulders all OK?

-Yeah.

-Right. You don't feel dizzy or anything, disorientated?

-No.

If we take you in the ambulance, get you cleaned up, and have a look.

Right...

If you want to jump up there and pop yourself in that front seat.

I think basically I've...cracked me 'ead!

Right.

Yeah, that's going to need a stitch.

Roy's face is blackened and bloodied.

Helen wants to check that he has no other hidden

and potentially more serious injuries.

-You haven't got any neck pain or anything?

-No.

-No?

-No. Sure?

-Nearly swallowed my sweet!

-Oh, God!

Roy clearly feels he's had a lucky escape.

Have a look at your teeth...

-They're falsies.

-OK, you've not... Don't feel loose or anything?

-No.

His face is black from the dirt on the road.

Soon, it will turn blue from bruising.

Looks like you've fallen in an oil patch!

I think that was where my head's hit the road!

Like I say, one minute I'm up,

next minute, whack!

Helen's thorough examination

reveals the injuries are confined to his face.

As well as the cut on his eyebrow, Roy has grazed his nose,

and has a swelling below his eye.

-You are going to need a couple of stitches in that eyebrow.

-OK.

I think the rest of it is all the blood, where it's dripped down.

His helmet has protected him from a potentially serious head injury.

-That bit there.

-Yeah, got a bit of a graze there.

But that's on the wrong... That's on the right side, yeah. Yeah.

It's obviously saved you, anyway.

Roy will need to have the cut above his eye stitched

at the hospital emergency department -

it's his first accident after years using his bike on the road.

I think I've been going down these roads, what,

15, 16 years, same roundabout.

And...whether it's damp,

and all the bus...

has dropped another load of diesel on it,

and you just slide on the diesel.

It's all right on four wheels,

but two wheels, it just goes straight away from you.

Well, Roy did indeed turn from black to blue.

His eye was stitched, and he has since made a full recovery.

I want to tell you about something a bit different. Behind me,

everybody is taking calls, but this is the help desk,

-and you can e-mail police here, can't you, Sarah?

-Yes.

Tell me what the point is of having this different type of desk.

It's just an alternative way of making contact with us.

It's 24/7 again, erm...

-So people can text you, e-mail...?

-Yep.

Or they can contact us through our website, they can fill out forms

to report crimes or antisocial behaviour.

What sort of things do they tend to report in that way?

Very varied. Sometimes crimes,

sometimes things such as sheep loose in the road,

er, people going into early labour, all sorts.

-And you read every single text and e-mail that comes in.

-Yes.

I suppose it's a different way of communicating.

I was talking about an old lady who was distressed on a phone call,

-but on an e-mail, you can't really tell.

-No.

You have to read between the lines, check to see if there's any history,

if that person's contacted us before

to see if there's any issues we need to be aware of.

-But if it's urgent, should people be e-mailing you?

-No.

-What should they do?

-If there's a crime in progress,

they need to phone 999 - or, if in doubt, they need to phone us,

-rather than e-mail.

-OK. Very good advice. Sarah, thank you.

No problem, thanks.

-That's it from us on Real Rescues.

-Yes. See you next time.

Bye-bye.

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