Episode 5 Real Rescues

Today: huddling under a tent halfway up a mountain -

the walker whose ankle is so badly broken,

it's cut off the blood supply and she's in danger of losing her foot.

The foot felt cold, sort of clammy,

and we weren't really able to find a pulse.

And a stag's desperate struggle for survival,

trapped for hours in electric fencing.

Hello and welcome to Real Rescues.

If someone's hurt or sick and dials 999,

their call comes through to an ambulance control room like this one.

The team at South Central Ambulance

handle a complete range of medical emergencies.

They treat patients on the phone and talk them through

some of the worst experiences of their lives until help arrives.

Holly has already had a dramatic call here today.

You took a call from a mother. What was going on?

She rang up and her baby had gone blue and the baby wasn't breathing.

-Which is very concerning.

-Yeah.

-Was there somebody else in the house able to help?

-Her mother was there

and she was doing CPR on the baby as the mother was talking.

OK, so you started trying to calm the mother down?

Yeah, I mean, she was OK considering, but she was panicked.

By the time I got the address in, she'd calmed down a little bit.

-But she was quite upset.

-And what about the baby?

-About 30 seconds in, the baby started breathing again.

-Brilliant.

It was quite relieving, you could hear a baby crying.

-Everyone was a bit relieved.

-And where is the baby now?

-In hospital and doing well.

-It's doing OK?

-Yeah.

-That's great news.

Thank you, Holly.

A birthday trip to the Lake District has gone terribly wrong.

A walker has slipped on a steep descent

and her ankle is badly broken.

Cockermouth Mountain Rescue are on their way.

There's an emergency in the peaks of the Lake District.

2,000 feet up on a notoriously difficult mountain path

in Buttermere, a woman has fallen.

She's in serious trouble and, after a fine day,

the weather is now closing in.

Cockermouth Mountain Rescue are on their way.

Mike Park is leading a team of 20.

They reach the furthest point accessible by vehicle.

From here, they're on foot.

The rescuers are heading up High Crag.

Kathleen was on her way down when she fell.

She was on the scree slopes of Gamlin End,

one of the most difficult paths.

I didn't slip, trip, stumble.

I don't know why, I just felt as if I was putting one foot

in front of the other and then the left foot just went.

Immediately, it was painful, it just was throbbing and swelling.

The first rescuers reach her. It's taken an hour.

They immediately erect a tent around Kathleen.

There's 20 mountain rescuers that have been running up the hill

for half an hour, so let's use that resource,

let's get them into the tent as fast as possible with the casualty,

cos all that heat that's coming off these hot mountain rescuers

warms up this tent and warms up the casualty.

Kathleen's in excruciating pain, but she's thankful

she put on all her layers before she started the descent.

I don't think I could've coped with the pain

if I'd had to try to put the layers on afterwards.

Carefully, they examine her ankle

and can see it's very badly broken, as well as dislocated.

It was quite well deformed,

so we then went on to assess the circulation.

And the foot felt cold, sort of clammy

and we weren't really able to find a pulse.

So we were concerned, yeah.

It's the worst possible scenario.

Loss of circulation for a prolonged period could mean that

Kathleen will lose her foot.

They can't afford to wait until they've got her off the mountain.

They have to put the foot back in position.

Moving a fracture will be agonising.

What I'm going to do is take you off oxygen and give you some Entonox.

The mountain rescue team have already put Kathleen on gas and air,

but she needs the strongest pain killer, morphine,

to cope with this.

In these conditions, injecting directly into a vein is difficult.

The mountain rescuers are highly-skilled first-aiders,

but they do not have a doctor with them.

We have quite a strong pain-relief drug that we can give up the nose.

It's a very fine spray that coats the inside of the nose

and the drug's absorbed through the lining of the nose.

Because it's a lot simpler

and given the environment that we're working in - often wind,

rain, blowing tents, ice, snow - it just makes it a lot easier.

Manipulating Kathleen's ankle on the mountainside

is going to be a very painful business,

but we'll see later how the mountain rescue team

use an ingenious nasal spray to help Kathleen.

First, I want to talk to Antony, who has just come off a long call,

but not about something that happened here.

-Thankfully not.

-Something happened on your way home, you saw an accident.

-So you're never off duty, are you?

-That's right.

I'd finished a long shift here and was on my way home

and came across an accident that involved a motorcycle and a car.

And the motorcyclist wasn't in a very good way at all.

They'd come into collision together?

They'd come into collision at the front of the car

and the motorcyclist was actually thrown about 30 yards.

Gosh. He's very lucky that you arrived very quickly, presumably?

Well, yes, and luckily the ambulance was not too far behind as well,

so we were able to assess the patient correctly together

and left a crew with the patient

and I managed to get the equipment out of the car

and also the ambulance as well, and then managed to radio Control

to ensure that the police and fire were around as well.

-It's real teamwork, isn't it?

-Certainly, yes.

You didn't just get one helicopter, either, did you?

No, there were two ambulances.

Because of the situation report we gave to Control,

it was decided that the seriousness of the injuries warranted

a doctor as well, so we got two helicopters

and I was able to instruct the police to clear the local car park,

which was adjacent to the incident,

to make sure we could land the helicopters properly.

You work in search and rescue, that's why you were able to do that.

-Yes, some addition skills there.

-You really are amazing.

And tell us about the motorcyclist -

they performed an operation on the side of the road.

One of the reasons, with the situation report we gave them,

the doctor was obviously called upon

because he wasn't in a good way at all,

and they carried out a full surgical procedure on the roadside

in order to make him safe to go into the helicopter

and onto a hospital in London.

That sounds like one amazing rescue.

Is that the most dramatic one you've been involved with?

Um, probably one of the busiest ones I've been involved in.

-I'm glad for him that you were there. Thank you.

-Thank you.

Illegal immigrants trafficked into this country often face

the most appalling and dangerous conditions,

so when the police are called after people are spotted

escaping from the back of a lorry,

they're always concerned about what they might find.

The M40 Oxfordshire,

and police traffic officers Rob and Andy

are part of an operation to apprehend a suspicious lorry.

OK, we've had reports of a Polish lorry which has been seen

to have potentially males hanging out the back of the vehicle,

possibly illegal immigrants.

We're going to join Junction 9 of the M40,

we'll then escort the lorry up to a sterile area, which will be

the services at Junction 10,

where we'll then complete a search of the vehicle,

remove anybody that is in the truck

and deal with them appropriately.

It's not unusual for the police to be called out to cases like this.

Junction 10 services, just coming into the lorry park now.

As well as it being illegal to smuggle people into the country,

these would-be immigrants sometimes have to be

rescued from the appalling travelling conditions,

as criminal gangs seek to take advantage.

-Have you spoken to our driver, does he know you're here?

-Not yet.

In this instance, four motorists have reported seeing a group of men

poking their heads out of a narrow slit in the lorry's canopy.

They order the driver to open it up.

Several officers are on hand in case anybody makes a run for it.

It's full of sofas.

Andy has the uncomfortable job of searching deep inside

the tightly-packed trailer for anybody hiding in the spaces.

-Anyone in there, Andy?

-We've got evidence of someone being in here.

And it's not pleasant evidence.

-Are you alive in there?

-Right, there's no-one in here.

This is a bag of wee, so somebody's been in here

but there's no-one in here now.

Rob, can you take this from me, mate?

If I drop it, it'll explode and go all over your feet.

In the meantime, a fifth motorist has called in to say that earlier,

they saw somebody getting out of the back of this lorry on a slip road.

You let him out?

You undid that, let him out?

No, it wasn't.

-Have you got papers?

-OK.

The driver's version of what's happened is sketchy on the details.

-Nice.

-Your bag's down there.

-Thanks.

What I found in there is a blue bag

containing what I think is going to be urine.

It's certainly evidence that somebody's been in there.

Some of the boxes containing feet for the sofas have been opened up,

clear signs of disturbance.

Somebody's been in there.

And there's some non-visual evidence

that somebody's been in the other trailer as well.

That don't smell too fresh in there.

Even I'm not that thin to be able to slide under that roof.

You can smell it, can't you, as it comes out?

So somebody's clearly been urinating in there,

but I think they're long gone now, I'm afraid.

A quick call to Immigration Services later

and it's decided that the lorry driver will receive a lift

- in a police car.

You're under arrest. You're going to go to the police station.

The lorry will be secured

and Immigration Services told of its location.

Border Control will be given the lorry's details for further reference,

but what about the people anxiously awaiting their sofas?

We'll make a courtesy call to the company and let them know

their load has been delayed.

They can then make inquiries, if necessary,

to send another driver down to collect the load

and people can have their sofas.

And in the end, no charges were brought against the driver.

You can probably see and hear it's a pretty busy time

here in the control room and when they take a call,

it's not always immediately clear what exactly is going on.

I want to introduce you to someone called Ben.

-Ben, is it all right to talk to you?

-Yep.

Now, you took a phone call

from a woman who thought there'd been a fire.

Yeah, she initially just said she could smell burning.

he had a further look around the house and found her husband

basically shaking, with burns to the face and the arms.

Right, so she's walked around and found him in a pretty bad condition.

-What else did she find?

-Um, she just said, "The door's gone."

-Which I had to elaborate on...

-"The door's gone"?

Yeah, it seemed that the door had actually been blown off the hinges

and, yeah, she was obviously very shocked about that at the time.

Right, this is the door to the kitchen, door to the bedroom?

I believe it was the door to the bedroom, but we're not sure.

My goodness. So certainly, this story's evolving.

So you send the team round and what do they find?

The rapid response car got there and found that the actual window

had been blown out as well, and there was glass all over the road,

so it was a pretty massive house explosion.

-So she hadn't seen any of that when she walked in?

-I don't believe so.

She didn't mention it, so, yeah, not sure why she didn't say anything.

So she smells burning, her husband's in a bad state,

but she doesn't see the door blown off, the window smashed...?

No, not at all. I think she was in a state of shock, really.

I bet she was. How's the husband - OK?

Yeah, he got treated in hospital for facial burns and arm burns.

And do we know exactly what happened?

We believe it's something to do with the cooker.

Unsure actually why, but something to do with the cooker. Yeah.

So making a bacon sandwich, he's lit the oven and massive explosion.

-Yeah, it's all gone wrong.

-It's all gone wrong. Ben, thanks a lot.

No problem, thanks.

We often see on Real Rescues how wild animals

can get themselves into all kinds of scrapes and trouble.

Take this deer, marooned at the bottom of a cliff in Dorset.

An RNLI crew moved in to save it.

As the lifeboat got closer,

the terrified animal jumped into the sea.

The crew's only option was to drag it out of the water

and release it back on to dry land.

Animal rescue specialists were also called out

when another deer stranded itself on a frozen pond.

They used inflatable paths to reach it, a crook to grasp its neck,

then placed a towel over its head to stop it panicking.

After warming up, the deer was released into the wild.

Those rescues had one thing in common - the deer were female.

But it's best not to tangle with a stag with fully grown antlers.

This stag has been trapped by its own antlers.

They've become entangled in electrical-tape fencing

which has wrapped around a tree stump.

It's been struggling to break free for four hours.

There's no danger from electricity,

as there's no current running through the fence,

but there's no way the stag is going to free itself.

A walker out with their dog spotted the distressed animal

and called in the RSPCA

and Hampshire Fire Service's animal rescue team.

Even though it's trapped,

the stag could still cause injuries with its antlers,

so they have to approach very carefully, wearing body armour.

If they can get the covers over it, they can keep it still.

If the stag can't see, it'll stop struggling.

Once they have it, they can start to cut through the tight tape.

It's all right, he's cutting through it.

It's just finding where the best place to cut is.

Get it closer to his antlers and as long as we can get him free

and they're sitting on him, we can do the rest of it and get off him.

Just be mindful that it's fairly loose now, OK? So if it does buck...

I'm holding back this tree.

It takes less than three minutes to free the antlers

and the stag is off.

Well, despite the distress he was in, he got away safely.

Buster was there with the stag.

He really was in a bit of a state, wasn't he, when you first arrived?

Indeed. It's a wild animal, it doesn't want to be trapped

and it doesn't want humans around it,

so it was jumping around the tree,

endangering itself on the branches as well.

And when you deal with that kind of animal, you endanger yourselves.

I noticed you were wearing some kind of armour. What was that?

That's what we use predominantly for equine rescues.

It's kick protection that will prevent us

being damaged in the organ area of our body and we put that on

because we worried that the stag's antlers could damage us

and give us penetrating injuries.

And quite clever as well with putting the sheets over him,

that seemed to calm him down a lot.

What are they used for?

Well, the sheet is a large carry sheet that we would normally use

to carry an animal in, but because it's a wild animal, a deer,

it doesn't really want human contact.

-Not even you.

-Not even me!

So by covering it up, we're taking away the light

and that generally will calm a deer down.

We can also suppress the animal without endangering ourselves.

And actually, we could use that as well.

If there's a wild bird in the house, what would you do?

Just grab a cardigan and just throw it over a rabbit, a small animal.

Usually taking away the light, they go very quiet and still

and you can pick them up and let them go.

-But be mindful you don't get bitten.

-Exactly, that's a very good point.

And if you hadn't managed to get him out of that,

what would have had to happen to him?

Well, the RSPCA inspector was there, ready to euthanase the animal

if necessary, if the rescue couldn't be achieved,

but fortunately, it was able to be cut free.

-Buster, thank you very much.

-My pleasure.

Still to come on Real Rescues:

Taking no chances - little Keira's heading straight to hospital.

And another animal in a fix, this time a Labrador.

His ball game came to an abrupt end

when he found himself not ON the bench, but IN the bench.

Now, we've seen how walker Kathleen Kirby slipped and broke her ankle

whilst descending a Lake District path.

The mountain rescue team has noticed her foot is losing its pulse

and becoming cold and clammy.

That's a sign the break is cutting off her circulation

and she may lose it.

After 15 minutes, the morphine has taken effect.

They can gently pull her foot back into position.

What we're actually doing is parting,

pulling apart the break in the bone

so that they're parted away from each other,

and then you're gently moving it back into its normal position.

What you're not wanting is the two ends of the bone crunching together,

which is obviously going to cause you a lot of pain.

Despite the pain relief, it still hurts.

-KATHLEEN SQUEALS

-Well done.

Now the bones are realigned,

they can start preparing for the next stage of the rescue.

Kathleen is feeling the effects of the gas and air.

Her leg needs to be put in a splint

before they can get her in the stretcher.

The team have to negotiate very steep gradients with the stretcher.

Kathleen will be well protected and comfortable inside a casualty bag.

On this terrain, the team also have to guard against falling rocks.

The team has to carry her down

to a site suitable for the RAF rescue helicopter to land.

Wherever possible,

they put the stretcher down and slide it over the ground.

It's the steep side of the mountain,

so it was a case of let's use nature here

and let's use gravity to help us on this one.

The ground underfoot is slippery and full of sliding rocks.

One false move and they'll all be in trouble.

Safety is always a priority,

so a back rope is tied to the stretcher

and that is fixed around a boulder to secure it.

This process is repeated many times before they reach the bottom.

It was about 300-400 metres we had to lower her down,

because of the length of the rope, so you just keep setting up

this billet attached to boulders further down,

leapfrogging as we went down the mountain.

I couldn't believe how comfortable they kept me

during the whole of the process.

Mike's flares will guide in the RAF helicopter to the landing area.

Kathleen has been made very safe

in the hands of the mountain rescue team

and she's ready for the winch into the helicopter.

Kathleen was airlifted to hospital,

where the full extent of her injuries were discovered.

She knows that without the skills and dedication

of the mountain rescue volunteers, she could have lost her foot.

I don't know what would have happened if a mountain rescue team

hadn't been available, because I can't imagine the two of us

being able to get down the mountain from where that accident happened.

A huge, huge, huge thank you.

Kathleen broke eight bones in her foot, they needed pinning in surgery,

and it was ten months before she was back out fell walking.

It just shows you are a great job the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue team did.

Now mountain rescuers are not qualified

to inject pain relief intravenously,

so they used a technique called intranasal diamorphine

to ease Kathleen's pain.

Rob Isherwood is here to explain more about it.

-Basically, it's an injection up the nose, is it?

-Similar, yeah.

What it's doing is passing the fluid through a sponge,

which turns it into a fine mist, so instead of having an injection,

it goes out as a fine spray up the nose.

-You've got one there.

-I do indeed.

So you stick that up the nose and it's a fine spray.

Why would you then use that... Why don't you just use that all the time?

Why did you use that especially?

The mountain rescue environment,

obviously the person's very cold, so in trying to get a needle

into their vein, they'd have to expose them, undress them,

which obviously increases the cooling, which is not ideal.

The other point is when someone is very cold,

it's very difficult to get a vein, to find a vein

to put a needle into, because people move all of their blood

into their core to protect themselves.

-Protect the vital organs?

-Yeah, so because of that,

it's actually easier sometimes to

go down this route because it's quick, it's effective

and they'll get the pain killers they need.

I know a lot of adults who are scared of needles

-but I bet this is really useful with children.

-Yeah, really useful.

There are no needles involved

and when you've got an already scared child,

obviously this is brilliant to use. It's fantastic.

-Rob, thanks a lot.

-Thank you.

Now we're going to meet five-year-old Keira,

who's showing all the symptoms of meningitis.

Mum's concerned and paramedic Jane Peters is on her way.

A worried parent has dialled 999.

Paramedics Chris and Jane have been despatched.

If there's even the suspicion of meningitis,

then the Ambulance Service takes no chances.

It's a disease that can cause a child's condition

to deteriorate rapidly...

..and its most serious form can be fatal.

Arriving, they are greeted by another paramedic, Chris Tate,

who has been sent ahead in a smaller, faster rapid response car

and is with young Keira and anxious mum Jodie.

She's been unwell for about a week now. Sort of...

-Just generally unwell, really.

-Yeah.

-With a cough?

-Yes.

Was pretty good over the weekend, went to a party yesterday,

but this morning, about 6.30am, woke Mum up,

laid in the bathroom, complaining of severe headache.

OK.

About 7.30, they've noticed that Keira has a rash,

centre of her chest.

They've done the glass test. It doesn't appear to be disappearing.

If a rash doesn't go white under the pressure of a glass being rolled over it,

then it's a sign that it could be caused by meningitis.

Keira is also showing other possible symptoms - she's lethargic,

has a high temperature and a raised heartbeat

AND is feeling sensitive to bright light.

She was also complaining of some photophobia.

Do you want to have a look at this rash that she's got?

Is it purpley in colour or anything?

It's very, very small.

-Sorry, darling. We just need to show Jane this, OK?

-Oh, yes.

But, we'll do the glass test -

I'm going to stick this horrible cold glass on you again.

I do apologise.

That rash she's got on her chest - has that got any bigger

since you first noticed it?

-It's got redder, if that makes sense?

-More angry-looking.

-Yes.

-It hasn't increased in size?

-I'll have to have a look, to be honest.

Lift your T-shirt up again, darling, all right?

Um...

Jane is hopeful Keira's rash is down to something else.

I've actually seen a meningitis rash

and it's like a purpley colour.

It does look perhaps where she's had a temperature, but you know...

Hey, ho...

-Never know though, do you?

-Shall we go and see the nice nurses?

Make you all better, yeah?

Whatever the cause, Keira is definitely unwell.

-Will she be better with you carrying her?

-Mm. She's a mummy's girl.

-She is, is she?

-Yes.

She needs hospital attention.

Can I put this back on your finger?

No, no needle.

That's just a little light on your finger, all right?

No needles. We won't give you no needles.

Like many children, Keira is scared of injections,

so the team want to give her some of her painkiller by mouth.

KEIRA: I don't want...

No, it's medicine, it's not a needle.

I don't think it will taste too badly,

I think it's like having Calpol.

-Is that OK?

-Do you want to do it, Keira?

-Do you know how to use that?

-Yeah.

-You push that syringe in.

Eurgh.

-Is it not very nice?

-Quick, and then it's all done.

-That's it.

-Go on, go on, go on!

-Wahey!

-Lovely.

-Good girl.

-Well done. All right?

-No, no.

Good girl.

Thank you.

Self-medication complete,

Keira is taken to Portsmouth's Queen Alexandra Hospital.

She'll go straight to the children's ward where the paediatric specialist

will investigate and determine the exact nature of her illness.

Well, they ran tests at hospital and they discovered that Keira was in fact suffering from pneumonia.

I want to talk to Rob about that.

Particularly about meningitis, because as a parent,

it's a really concerning thing.

What sort of symptoms do we look out for?

The concerning thing about meningitis is it starts off like flu-like symptoms.

-Like any child would get?

-Yes. So you've got the runny nose,

the cough, the cold. Sometimes diarrhoea and vomiting go with that.

But the symptoms just don't get any better. That's the concerning thing.

If it starts off very simply and gets worse

and seems to be getting worse, then go and speak to your doctor.

Then it moves into other symptoms as well,

which are sensitivity to light, what else?

Sensitivity to light being one of them,

then there is the stiffness in the neck,

joint achiness and with children, coldness of the hands and feet

and obviously the last one, which doesn't always happen, is the rash.

That's the thing that people really need to watch out for.

Is not a simple rash - explain to us what it is.

It's actually where the blood vessels under the surface of the skin start to leak

and you're seeing blisters of blood under the skin.

That's why it's different from a normal rash.

-All those points, you'd get help before then.

-Definitely.

And the pneumonia - Keira had it and your daughter had it when she was eight weeks?

Yes, she did. I thought she had a very simple chest infection,

so we kept her at home and kept an eye on her, but things deteriorated

and I was working in the children's emergency department,

and got a phone call from my wife saying Izzy's not well at all,

and by the tone of her voice I knew something was really up,

so I went home and ended up straight back in the children's emergency department, but as a parent.

I know that it was really serious - she stopped breathing, didn't she?

Yes and ended up in intensive care for seven days.

-The good thing we should say - these are not normal events.

-No.

-That doesn't happen to everybody.

-No, it's very rare.

-Very small percentages.

-You just watch out to see if your child is steadily getting worse.

-And if you're worried at all, get help quickly.

-Call you.

-Call 999 if you're really worried.

-Yes.

-Thank you very much, Rob.

-Thank you.

Motorcyclists and scooter riders are the most vulnerable users

of the road as the man rescued next will testify.

He's been knocked off his scooter at a mini roundabout,

but he's still got open wounds from a similar collision only six weeks earlier.

SIRENS WAIL

Traffic cop Phil Robinson is heading out to a crash in a Portsmouth high street.

A taxi and a moped have collided, so there could be serious injuries.

The Ambulance Service has been called,

so they're also coming towards.

We've got no update for the state of the injuries

or exactly what happened, so we'll get there as quick as we can.

He soon spots 19-year-old Jackson Isaacs,

sitting in a chair by the side of the roundabout, where the crash happened.

He's surrounded by helpers.

And ambulance rapid responder Graham Leggett is already examining him.

Jackson's main injury seems to be his leg.

His helmet has saved him from a serious head trauma.

But he couldn't have crashed in a better place -

first aider Alan Morris was just behind the taxi on his bike.

I witnessed the...bang. I was behind the taxi.

Are we able to move you just off the roundabout? Yeah, is that all right?

< Is that better?

-Is that all right?

-Yeah, that's lovely.

Jackson's had a really lucky escape.

-He was on his lunch break when the crash happened.

-What happened?

I came around the roundabout, he came flying out,

tried to go straight across, obviously,

ripped me straight up in the air. I went flying.

It's not been a good year so far for Jackson and his moped.

-I fell off it before and cut a big old wound on my leg.

-Long ago?

February.

Graham has put a dressing on Jackson's leg wound

and the gas and air will keep his pain under control whilst they wait for the ambulance.

Phil needs to get statements from everyone involved.

-Fortunately, there are plenty of witnesses.

-Did you see it?

I just saw the motorcycle helmet moving up and then down.

Purely by chance,

Jackson's dad heard that a young man had been knocked off a motorbike.

He put two and two together and jumped to the right conclusion.

Dad's a taxi driver as well.

I was sitting over in North End on the taxi rank

and someone told me someone has been knocked off a motorbike.

I asked was a white one - yes, so I just come here and it's him.

SIREN WAILS

The arrival of Jackson's ambulance means they can get him off the road and onto a stretcher.

He'll be taken to A&E where they will X-ray his leg for any breaks.

-As for the other driver involved...

-He's been reported for summons, which will mean now

that the matter is put to the Crown Prosecution Service and will look at whether or not

he's prosecuted or given what's called a driver education course.

It's an alternative just to give him some more advice on how to drive

a little bit more safely and carefully, prevent him having another accident.

Well, I can tell you Jackson is back on his bike

and the taxi driver completed that driver awareness course.

Now, we read about it all the time in the newspapers,

about people wasting police, ambulance and fire services time

with unnecessary calls, so it begs the question, when should we call?

I've got Claire here, who can talk to me right now. Hi, Claire.

You had a call about an elderly gentleman - what happened?

Yes, I received a call from an elderly patient.

He was in the shower and slipped during a fit.

He actually suffered hip pain,

but decided to call for an ambulance a good few days later.

-It did turn out he had quite a badly injured hip.

-A few days later?

A good few days later, yes.

So he was quite sturdy and said, don't worry, I'll be fine.

-But he must've been in terrible pain?

-In a lot of pain, yes.

We receive lots of different calls.

We can receive a call with a patient with a cut finger,

a sliced toenail, and they will call straightaway

and expect an immediate response and then we also get patients like that

who wait a long time before they decide to call for an ambulance.

How frustrating is it for you and your colleagues to get inappropriate calls?

It can be quite frustrating, but obviously lots of people do decide

to just phone for an ambulance as soon as anything bad happens

and they think they need help, so they'll phone us.

Almost an impossible question to answer, but is there a checklist

that a person should go through before he or she calls 999?

I wouldn't say there's a checklist,

I think people need to weigh up if they really do need an ambulance.

But I do understand why people do it,

because they become worried and think they need some help.

-Bit of panic, I suppose.

-Definitely panic, yes.

But it's amazing how the elder generations don't call.

They're braver, or some would say foolish!

No, they are brave and I think the older generation do think

they're bothering us by ringing.

But they should phone if they're in pain, especially the elderly,

because they do need assistance.

-Especially with a dislocated hip.

-ESPECIALLY with a dislocated hip!

-Claire, thanks.

-No problem.

A motorist is in distress.

He's broken down on the main, busy London to Brighton Road.

On his way is the traffic officer Craig Broxton.

The vehicle is currently blocking the live carriageway.

According to the call, there's children inside the vehicle as well.

It's 70mph dual carriageway road leading into motorway,

so all the time the vehicle is sat in lane one,

vehicles are going to be coming up the dual carriageway itself at speed

and not realise that there's a broken-down vehicle in the way.

The car is marooned on a stretch of road with no hard shoulder.

After briefly checking in with the driver,

Craig quickly sets to work making the scene safe for everybody concerned.

We're just putting a lane one closure as unfortunately, the vehicle can't be driven

and it can't be removed off the carriageway.

So we can't leave it unprotected, either.

It's been a tense wait for Bernard and Nadia in the broken-down car.

They've had to remain inside as they have an autistic young man

in their care who is sitting in the back seat.

Any attempt to leave the car would have severely distressed him.

Coming back from Brighton back to our residential place

and we've actually just broken down, so we can't just move,

so we're waiting for the AA to come.

I'm not too scared myself, but I've got a service user in the back,

so we're scared more for him, because he gets agitated

sitting in the car for too long.

It's the beginning of rush-hour,

so Craig wants to know exactly how far away the vehicle repair man is.

Hello, have you got a rough timeframe for us, cos the vehicle is currently blocking lane one,

and we have lane one closure on. So if you'll be 30 minutes, fine.

Otherwise we'll arrange our own recovery.

Aware that the traffic is already starting to clog up, Craig has

come up with a plan that he hopes will clear the road more quickly.

What we're doing at the moment is waiting for a colleague of ours to come further up.

He'll stop the traffic further down at the bottom of this hill,

we can roll the vehicle down to the bottom in the lay-by,

hopefully get this traffic flowing again.

Nadia, for one, is becoming increasingly aware

of the temperamental traffic snake that is crawling slowly by.

It feels like we're going to be stuck here for ages

and I can understand when we're stuck behind someone else,

we're not saying nice words, so I'm just thinking of the queue that is behind us -

what are we going to do then?

And now it will temporarily come to a complete standstill

as Craig's colleague has arrived.

I'll move the police car over.

If you reverse all the way down,

just control your speed with the brake and pull into

the lay-by which you should be able to see with your inside mirror.

OK? Pull yourself into there, then you'll be nice and safe

and out of the way and the RAC can recover you from there.

All right?

Fortunately, it's all downhill from here for driver Bernard

and he can use natural momentum to coast back into the lay-by.

Job done.

So by stopping the traffic for five minutes,

we managed to remove the vehicle completely off the road

and hopefully, this traffic backlog should free itself up in the next two to three minutes

and everyone should be back to normal again.

Laid up in the lay-by, Bernard and Nadia hope that they can soon

join the throng that is homeward bound.

Buster Brown from Hampshire Fires Animal Rescue is back

because we've got a bit of an animal theme today.

You've got another story about a dog that got himself

well and truly stuck - up to his neck in it, you could say.

Woody, the chocolate Labrador has got himself into a spot of bother.

One minute, he was playing in the park with his owner Russell,

and the next, he's stuck fast with his head through a wooden bench.

There must have been something that smelt good on the other side.

Now, there's no budging him, so the emergency services

have been called in and it's Buster Brown to the rescue.

Keep looking at the camera - smile!

Woody is a very friendly dog, but there's no quick exit.

Buster needs to saw through one of the upright bars

to give him an escape route.

Buster is working close to Woody's throat,

but the dog is remaining calm.

Owner Russell is holding on to Woody's body, keeping him still

as Buster keep the dog's teeth at bay with one hand and saws with the other.

All right, mate.

Just one more wrench with a spanner and the bar should be out...

-Right.

-But no, it's going to take brute force.

WOODY GROWLS

All right, mate. All right.

There's still a bit of bench trapping Woody.

No, not forward - backwards, mate, normally!

Hurray!

Woody is free at last, and hopefully,

he's learned his lesson about park benches.

There you go, mate.

Well, he did escape, thanks to Buster.

Goodness me - how on earth did he get there, for starters?

I don't really know, I think he was running round the park off the lead

and the boys were playing either side of the bench and

somehow the dog managed to get his head stuck between the wooden slats!

Funny... I mean, I know you got him out, but how...

You couldn't manoeuvre him out, could you?

I did try to manipulate the dog out initially,

but he was a very fit and thick-headed animal

and it wouldn't allow me to push it back and they don't normally

go back - the jaws are a wedge shape, so it's very difficult.

I was left with the only way out - to cut the bench.

-He was really well behaved. You were lucky, weren't you?

-I was.

Had it been a more aggressive animal or I felt compromised,

I would have got a vet to sedate him.

He was a really nice-natured animal, so keeping it calm and keeping

the animal nice and friendly enabled me to rescue it easily.

What about the owners, were they panicking?

To be fair, they thought it was quite fun and quite amusing.

They understood the seriousness of what had happened,

but they were keeping relatively calm and keeping the animal happy.

So the dog got away OK. What about the bench?

-It was a memorial bench, wasn't it?

-It was.

I was a bit concerned about it,

especially having to cut a piece of wood off it.

I was able to put the wood back when we left

and the young lads were going to report it to the local council

to make sure it was repaired properly.

-And hopefully make a donation as well.

-I think they should!

Thanks, Buster.

Well, thank you very much, you two.

We had an e-mail from Woody - he says he's really embarrassed

and none of the other dogs in the pack will talk to him.

He did feel RUFF for a couple of weeks with a headache.

Oh, that's very good!

That's it for Real Rescues - we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

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