Episode 19 Helicopter Heroes

When you're with someone that's seriously injured,

every minute you wait for medical aid feels like an hour,

so a helicopter can be one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

This is the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and their business is saving lives.

From the dales to the big cities of Leeds and Sheffield,

patients in the UK's biggest county are ten minutes from a hospital, thanks to this 150mph life-saver.

And every day brings a new life or death emergency for its paramedics.

Two helicopters, four paramedics, five million patients!

Today on Helicopter Heroes, a sports car takes off and hits a roadside building.

-Now two people are trapped.

-She's very cold.

Three motorcyclists badly need help high in the dales.

Several motorcycles went into the wagon as they went round the corner.

-There's an accident with a saw and a man loses his hand.

-It's taken most of his fingers off.

Can surgeons sew it back on?

And Daz saves a woman in a diabetic coma with an old-fashioned remedy.

Can you get me some jam and bread?

This is the type of transport I'd like to have if I could afford the tax disc,

but a high-performance vehicle like this has its dangers, as one couple found out near Bradford.

On one of West Yorkshire's busiest motorways, an open-top sports car has had a huge accident.

It's the M606 that goes from Bradford down to the M62. It's a Ferrari or it could be a Porsche.

In minutes, Helimed 98 are in the air and will soon be at the scene.

Bradford is only three minutes away.

This is a bad one. The Porsche has hit the side of a factory building and landed upside down.

The two people inside are trapped and can't get out.

It's off the road.

The crew are quickly overhead. Their response time is so quick,

the police haven't had time to shut the motorway

for the chopper to land, so Plan B is to land in the nearby industrial estate.

-In the middle of the car park?

-Come down like that, you're fine.

Paramedic Paul Bradbury knows that when a car comes off a motorway,

it usually means serious injuries and he sprints towards the scene,

but he's about to find a big obstacle between him and his patients.

Or a ladder. The motorway's not been closed down yet,

so we couldn't land. The nearest place was this warehousing complex.

Unfortunately, we've got a lock on the metal gate.

The fire service will get the bolt croppers and we'll get through.

It's hugely frustrating. Paul's stuck behind the metal gates, but his patients could be deteriorating.

It's not good news. The two people inside the car are still trapped.

Paul decides he can't wait for the fire crews and finds his own way over the fence.

He has found a way to the scene of the accident, but now Paul must find a way to free the couple.

The problem is that where that is, we're working on the theory of getting some big winches over.

But we're gonna have to hold it there while we get 'em out.

Helen Rowley and Paul Williamson are trapped between their seats and a muddy drainage channel.

The soft top was ripped off and although both seem to have escaped serious injury,

they are in a dangerous situation.

The car has a full fuel tank and rain water is draining into the space where they're pinned.

The fire service have got a special tender and they can winch this car from where it is up on its side.

Obviously, it's in a precarious position.

The plan is to pull the car up, so paramedic Paul can get under the car to treat the couple.

And they need to be quick.

She's starting to feel dizzy. She's very cold.

We'll try and get her a space blanket.

I'll throw it. Can you reach it if I throw it?

-Got a blanket round Helen yet?

-Just doing it now.

This is a very dangerous situation.

A fireman has crawled underneath the front of the car to talk to Helen and Paul.

Fire crews are hastily attaching the winch to lift the car up.

There may be concerned faces outside the car, but inside, Helen and Paul are keeping remarkably calm.

Are you still talking, you two?

-I've got bad cramp.

-Helen's got a head injury and you've got cramp!

Eh? That's a typical bloke, that is, Helen!

-I tell you! His cramp will be worse than your head injury!

-Like man flu!

The feet are both on the ground. They're on this itself.

So what if you start taking it up? They're not gonna go anywhere?

Helen and Paul have been trapped inside their upturned Porsche for over half an hour

and although they both seem OK, Paul is worried they could go into shock.

The only way to free Helen and Paul is to lift the car up and with them still trapped underneath,

that is a risky manoeuvre.

We're just gonna take the tension in these wires.

We don't want the car to fall back and crush the two patients. So the fire service is chocking it up.

Coming up, Paul risks his own safety to reach his trapped patients.

You just get in and do your job.

The chopper touches down in a housing estate to rescue a handyman.

Can't find any other digits.

Daz goes back on the road to treat a retired miner whose time down the pit is catching up with him.

How's your breathing? Is it better?

Bikers love an empty, twisting road and the remote dales of Yorkshire attract riders from 100 miles away.

But some routes aren't as idyllic as they seem.

Helimed 99 is on its way to help an injured motorist in the dales.

It's an RTA on the A65, Ingleton.

-16 minutes, Tony.

-16?

-Yeah.

Just to let you know we're en route to Cowan Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale.

30 miles away, there's been another accident and it's a bad one.

On a country lane near Sedbergh, four prison officers enjoying a day out on their motorbikes

have collided with a lorry.

I'll stand you down from that one.

Air Ambulance Dispatcher Dave Gardner diverts the crew and they're on their way.

It's on the A684 near Garsdale, Sedbergh to Garsdale.

Three motorcycles and a lorry.

Just to let you know, Helimed 58, obviously, Cumbria, are asking for a second air ambulance.

It's chaos with the injured bikers and the wreckage of their bikes strewn across the narrow lane.

One air ambulance is already on the scene, but with four seriously injured patients, they need back-up.

In the remote area that it is, they've got a critical patient that needs taken from site quickly.

A second patient and there may even be a third patient.

They must have made an assessment and they need air transport.

They've provided the initial response and we're there to back 'em up.

-Is that a helicopter there?

-Yeah, it is.

-Yeah, it's just at our 11 o'clock on the main road.

-OK.

Within minutes, they're over the scene and a field in the dales is about to become a makeshift helipad.

Steve Cobb parks a safe distance from the Great North Air Ambulance

and Tony and Lee quickly make their way towards the scene.

It's clear emergency crews have been waiting for them and they're just in time.

Looks quite a nasty incident and several motorcycles went into the wagon as they went round the corner.

I'll be back in a second.

Paramedic Tony starts with the basics.

-What's your name, matey?

-Ian.

-What's your surname?

-Walton. I'm in agony, I'm sorry.

This is an accident any motorcyclist dreads.

The bikers were riding along the narrow lane when they faced a ten-ton lorry on a blind bend.

One crashed and slid under the lorry. Another hit it head-on.

Another biker and his pillion collided with it before hitting a dry-stone wall.

Amazingly, they're all still alive.

I'll just give you some oxygen, matey. Head up slightly.

I came up this end,

got waved down, so I stopped.

I came up and three of my friends had been in an accident. Well, four, cos a lady was on pillion.

-How bad is this pain now? If it was six before, what are we talking about now?

-Seven.

-Seven.

Helimed 99 will take the most seriously injured biker, Ian Walton.

He's got several broken bones and may have serious internal injuries.

We've requested a trauma team.

He's got bilateral arm fractures, a knee injury,

and he could have other things which we've not yet found out about.

The accident is putting huge pressure on the emergency services. More ground ambulances are en route.

Lee and Tony want to get Ian to hospital quickly.

The nearest hospital's helipad only has room for one helicopter,

but with two seriously injured bikers, Lee must come up with a solution and fast.

Can you just liaise with Dave, where that next landing site is? Great North were gonna go to Lancaster.

Coming up, they're on one of the most remote roads in England, but where can they take their patient?

The team treats a trapped couple to a little light humour.

-Is it a Cabriolet you're in?

-A convertible, yeah.

-It is now!

And I join paramedic Daz on a ground shift in one of Yorkshire's toughest mining towns.

A helicopter ride is something few people forget.

Most of them have no idea they're gonna need it until something unexpected happens

and leaves them in urgent need of medical help.

In a quiet cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Bradford, there's been a gruesome accident.

The owners of this house were doing home improvements when they hired a handyman to shift some wood.

He was using this power saw when he severed most of his left hand.

Right across his fingers, right across there in a circular motion.

We've just got a bit of tissue.

I've packed it out and given him a lot of pain relief.

Neighbours ran out to find him staggering into the street with blood pouring from his arm.

We just ran over once it happened. He said, "I've chopped my hand off!"

I didn't know whether... I didn't know what he'd done at first.

But when I saw that he had done it bad, then I got lots of towels.

Ten years ago, Steve McGraffin would have had little hope of regaining the use of his lost fingers.

But the Helimed team and advanced microsurgery could yet save his hand.

We don't know if there are any contaminants on the hand.

These days, the techniques are fantastic. It depends on the nature of the injury.

The patient's daughter Sarah rushed around after hearing of the accident.

Steve has to tell her the bad news.

-His hand?

-Yeah.

Steve personally doubts whether her dad's hand can be saved, but they'll give it a go.

Both the patient and his family know the odds aren't good,

but Helimed 99's crew will save Steve's hand if they can.

They're heading into a densely populated housing estate,

but pilot Steve Cobb is a local lad and he knows there's a helipad less than 200 yards from the scene.

It's just 15 minutes since the accident.

Ground paramedics gave Steve painkillers, but they have barely had time to start working.

-The four fingers are off. Completely across there.

-Thumb still on?

-No.

-What's his pain score?

-Pain score's ten.

-Ten?

-Ten.

We've tried a bit of morphine.

He's going to LGI. Just making sure we go to the primary landing site.

But if the team can get him to the Advanced Microsurgery Unit at Leeds General Infirmary,

there's a chance it can be re-attached.

There's no time to waste. 48-year-old Steve's hand has been wrapped in a plastic bag.

It's slowly dying.

It's a single piece of tissue.

-All in one...?

-He just cut that section off.

Somewhere like that. I can't find any other separate digits.

-Just one piece of...

-It's in a bag?

-It's in a bag.

-And in ice.

-With some ice. Cool. Thank you.

Steve, do you understand what's happening?

We're taking you to Leeds General Infirmary to get your hand put back on if we can.

We're about two, three minutes away.

Just preparing some more morphine for him. He's in quite a bit of pain.

We want him to be as comfortable as we can get him before we travel.

As Helimed 99 lifts off, ten miles away in the middle of Leeds,

plastic surgeon Rob Winterton is gathering his team together to try and save Steve's hand.

There is a lot of evidence which tells us that the quicker we can get an amputated part and re-attach it,

the better chance of success we have, so the fact that he was helicoptered in very quickly,

everybody in the hospital was mobilised very quickly,

allowed us to get the blood supply to the hand as quickly as possible.

This is a hugely complex operation and it involves a large number of medics and support staff.

It's a huge number of people that get pretty quickly involved.

On the day, probably 40 people would have been directly involved

in looking after Stephen.

A week later and Steve has now been back to the operating theatre several times

as the team have tried to re-attach his hand.

I thought I'd lost a finger. Then I realised my hand had disappeared.

Everything from the wrist down had gone. Imagine how much blood's about!

Given that his hand arrived in a carrier bag, it is remarkable that the surgeons were able to save it.

I've lost two of the fingers. They died.

But my small finger and my ring finger, they managed to save.

They've now been sewn back on in the right position.

I thought I were gonna end up with just a stump.

12 months down the line, I might have the best part of a hand back.

Because Steve's injury was so severe, Rob Winterton had to attach Steve's fingers to his forearm

to keep them alive before putting them back on to his hand.

It's something the Leeds team has done before.

Rather than putting the fingers back in their anatomical position poking out of the end of his hand,

we felt that the blood vessels to the fingers weren't good enough,

so we re-attached them into the wrist where we knew the blood vessels were of better quality,

so we could keep the fingers alive and try another day to put them back on the end of the hand.

And it's not over yet.

Steve has no thumb. But the surgeons have a back-up plan.

One of the ways which is popular and we're keen on in this hospital is to use the second toe from either foot.

You can take it off the foot and micro-surgically implant it into the hand.

That survives on the hand and we re-attach the blood supply. And that acts just like a thumb.

And Steve knows that it's speed and skill that saved his hand -

the speed of the helicopter and the paramedics and the skills of the surgeons that put it together again.

I don't think I'd have had any sort of a hand if it hadn't been for them

with the speed that they got across to Leeds.

I couldn't have got anywhere else fast enough, to anywhere,

not even to a local hospital, to have any chance of saving anything.

Coming up, there's a near miss as Helimed 99 meets the RAF on a high-speed dash to hospital.

And Daz saves the life of a patient who has lapsed into a coma.

Open your eyes. Hello!

Let's get back to West Yorkshire as the team struggle

to reach a couple trapped in their upturned Porsche.

It's a dramatic scene. The Porsche has come off the motorway and hit the side of a factory

before landing upside down.

Paul Williamson and his partner Helen Rowley are trapped between the seats of their Porsche

and a muddy culvert has been slowly filling with water.

Now their rescue teams must work out how they are going to move the car without injuring them further.

She's feeling dizzy. She's very cold.

We'll take the tension in these wires.

We don't want the car to fall back and crush the two patients.

The fire service is chocking it up at this side, so if anything moves, it falls back onto the wood.

We've got some airbags down, so anything falling lands on them and not the patients.

They've been trapped for 45 minutes, so shock could be a problem.

Paul wants to find out from the driver how the accident happened.

It may help him work out what injuries they have.

-Did you lose it on the corner?

-I were going in a straight line and it just went off the road.

-And I was only going about 60 miles an hour.

-Right.

-Is it a Cabriolet you're in?

-A convertible, yeah.

-It is now!

The plan is to winch the car up and support it underneath with airbags,

so paramedic Paul can scramble underneath the car and free Helen and Paul, but it's very dangerous.

The wall is bowed in, so they're worried about the wall collapsing, as well as removing the car.

They're trying to secure it on one side, so when they tip it,

it's not gonna slide down and trap the people even more.

A fireman who has spent half an hour with the couple is exhausted,

but finally, his colleagues begin to lift the car, allowing paramedic Paul to squeeze underneath.

All that's stopping the car crushing paramedic and patients

is a couple of cables, but the fire service know what they're doing.

'You've got the smell of the petrol, it's damp, it's dark. The torches provided a little bit of light.

'It's quite confined. You've got fluids dripping on you. Not somewhere you want to be

if you're claustrophobic, but you just get in and do your job.

Working in the dark and in cramped conditions, paramedic Paul manages to free Helen.

And he's soon carefully manoeuvring her out from under the car.

'Helen was quite anxious, as anyone would be stuck upside down in a car for an hour.'

We decided to get Helen out. There was just enough room to free Helen from where she was on the floor.

On a nylon sheet, I managed to get her out.

It was three or four minutes from where she was at to being out and checked by an ambulance crew,

so it was a good decision all round.

Incredibly, Helen appears to be unhurt,

but it is essential paramedic Simon immobilises her back and neck, in case she suffered a spinal injury.

Helen will soon be receiving a full examination in hospital, but Paul is still trapped.

Coming up, the operation to free Paul begins.

And a biker crashes with his teenage son on the pillion.

-What hospital?

-Harrogate District.

-Harrogate District.

They don't call it the great outdoors for nothing.

From the size of the hills to the distances back to the cities,

everything about the UK's national parks is a bit large.

On a narrow road in the Yorkshire Dales, three motorcyclists have been in a smash with a heavy lorry.

They are lucky to be alive.

We're just getting sorted out here. Great North are going to Lancaster Hospital with their patient.

We're going to Harrogate, the next nearest.

Ian Walton is seriously hurt. Both arms are broken and he is in severe pain.

Helimed 99 is one of two air ambulance crews on the scene.

We're gonna try and bring your feet together now. Tell me if there's any pain in your groin when I do this.

The team try to relieve Ian's pain before going to the helicopter.

Once we've got you all strapped, your pain will be a bit better.

Ready, steady, lift.

Across the road, medics from the Great North Air Ambulance are working on Ian's friend AD.

He's in quite a bit of pain, but he's stable. We've splinted him and we're taking him to Lancaster Hospital.

But there's a problem. Few hospitals can accept more than one helicopter at once.

-We're going to Harrogate cos you're going to Lancaster?

-Yeah.

-Great stuff.

-Cheers.

-All right.

I've never seen a bike with the front end completely off.

Ian will have to be flown to a trauma unit over 40 miles away.

It's a long journey, but for Helimed 99, it takes just under 20 minutes.

'Yeah, go ahead, mate.'

-Yeah, just on our way down.

-'Yeah, we're ready for you here.'

The accident is already making the local headlines.

'This is BBC Radio Cumbria.

'Three motorcyclists were badly hurt in a crash near Sedbergh today.

'The A684 has been closed this afternoon.'

Towards me. That's it.

The only issue is obviously we can't both go to the same hospital.

They're going to Lancaster, so we're going to Harrogate instead.

Steve Cobb rides a 1960s scooter.

For him, this is a reminder that riding any bike can be dangerous.

The bikes I ride on, I'd have had time to stop and have a cup of tea before I hit the lorry.

Those guys go faster than me and they were scattered all over the road.

Ian has broken three of his four limbs.

OK, we'll take you over.

It looks like a query of femur,

definitely two bones in his arm, his humerus, and a fractured wrist.

-Ready?

-Yeah, clear right.

Paramedic Tony is carefully monitoring his blood pressure.

Internal bleeding following a broken leg can be fatal.

One thing we'll be monitoring is his blood pressure.

At the moment, that seems fine. His heart rate has not increased.

Their patient is OK, but there is a surprise for Helimed 99's crew.

-Harrier, is it?

-Big jet coming down the right-hand side. Can you see it?

-A near miss with two military jets.

-Gone either side of us, them two.

Up in the dales, there is no radar.

Pilots must rely on their eyesight to avoid mid-air collisions.

Back at base, Dave briefs the waiting trauma team.

Hello, Doctor, it's Dave at the Air Ambulance. Just updating you...

They've left scene now. Their ETA is 15 minutes.

With fractures like these, Ian is likely to need complex surgery.

It looks like he may never ride a bike again.

But just three weeks later, he is back at home and on the road to recovery.

Ian, I've seen the footage of your horrendous crash. What happened?

I came round the left-hand bend, all I can remember from that

is looking forward after the bend, seeing my friend hit a large vehicle.

-And all of the road was covered in bike and truck.

-So how do you feel about biking now?

Has this accident put you off completely?

I won't get back on a bike again. We were riding safely and sensibly.

I had the proper equipment. If that can happen when I'm riding sensibly, I wouldn't put my family through it.

Ian and his mates will be off work for months. They work with some of the UK's most dangerous men,

but the accident has even brought out the soft side in some of them.

I believe there's a card coming from some of the prisoners I look after which is very nice.

The public will think it's us and them,

and it's nice that some prisoners believe I'm good enough to send me a "get well" card.

Coming up, a driver who wrote off his Porsche is freed at last.

Many flying paramedics have become local heroes, opening fetes and attending charity events.

But they never forget their original jobs on the front line of the NHS.

For every month they spend in the air, they do another on the ground.

Flying paramedic Darren Axe has worked for the ambulance service for nearly 15 years

and joining the Helimed crew is the highlight of his career.

How he gets to patients isn't important. It's the life-saving treatment he can give that's vital.

Today, he's about to help a pair of bikers who are in trouble.

Darren is a big man with an outsized personality that he uses to reassure his patients.

-We're gonna sort your dad out.

-Will he be all right?

-Agh!

-How do you feel there? OK?

-Yeah.

Laurence Delaney has fallen off his bike and collided with an oncoming car.

He has some painful injuries, but is more worried about his son David who was sitting on the back of the bike.

He's on the phone to his mum.

-What hospital?

-Harrogate District.

-Harrogate District.

Your pain is where you're holding?

All this side. When I breathe, I've got a pain in my back.

Despite agonising back pain, Laurence has managed to stagger to a nearby wall,

but Darren knows accidents like this can cause serious spinal injuries.

But he's always ready with a reassuring word for his patients

and most enjoy his sense of humour.

We won't drop you. We only drop people on Sundays.

David seems to have had a lucky escape, but after watching his dad undergo some distressing

medical treatment, Darren and Pete know he needs reassuring.

David, are you all right? We're going to take your dad to

-the same hospital, but he'll go in the helicopter and the crew will take you. OK?

-Yeah.

Where's the pain apart from in your shoulder?

Thanks to Darren and Pete, both Laurence and David made a swift recovery.

Darren's job means that one day he can be flying at 150mph,

the next, he's swapping the helicopter for a fast response car,

here in his hometown of Castleford.

My geography of Yorkshire's not the best, but I do know

that Castleford's a mining town, they like Rugby League,

and a bit of a crack - they're nice hardworking people.

Do you find it's better that you're a local lad, dealing with these people?

Yeah. Without a doubt.

We've got some real good characters -

good, honest folk in and around the area where I live.

They're not real complainers as such.

If they're complaining, they're generally in need.

I always try to speak to them on a level. I worked down a pit.

Castleford's a tough town with major health problems.

One study found one in three people were in poor health,

with one in ten permanently sick, or disabled.

It has high rates of smoking. The coal industry is all but gone now,

leaving one in three people in some areas out of work.

And today, it's a former miner who needs Darren's help.

You've just got to be aware of everything around you -

I mean you're driving above normal road speed.

You're driving to a system in an effort to make sure

that the public know what your intentions are

and they all try to get out of the way.

And with the help of a fast response vehicle

that means he gets to many of his patients in under 10 minutes.

Darren's first patient of the day needs a fast response.

73 year old Selwyn Law is struggling to breathe.

-I'm just going to do a few checks - check your blood pressure. All right?

-Yeah.

You've definitely not got any chest pain?

Selwyn has emphysema - a common condition in old mining communities

as years of inhaling coal dust damages the lungs.

Even small changes in the weather can trigger episodes like this

and if left untreated it can be fatal.

Selwyn, how's your breathing now? Does it feel better with that oxygen?

A little bit.

The first thing Darren needs to do is help him breathe

and that's down to pure oxygen.

Take a deep breath for me.

And again.

But he must carefully monitor Selywn's condition.

It sounds strange, but too much oxygen could cause him to stop breathing altogether.

Like an onion. It's going to be cold.

Finally, Darren has Selwyn's breathing under control,

but he still wants to get him checked out at the local hospital.

BM is good. I've just checked it - 6.8.

He's having difficulty in breathing. He's had two lots of antibiotics to no effect.

He's not got any chest pain, but he does suffer with chest pains from time to time.

'I'm willing to give Selwyn some supplementary oxygen'

to settle him down a bit cos he was struggling to breath

and that tires you out.

We've taken him out on a chair so he didn't have to exert himself.

He's on his way now to get further treatment.

In the initial part of my career with the ambulance service

we had lots of patients with lung disorders, emphysema,

chronic bronchitis and these were all mainly due to

the mining environment and the people that worked there.

The percentage of those patients is now decreasing over the years

as the older miners pass away and things.

My dad worked underground for 35 years and he suffers with his lungs,

because of working underground for so long.

When you're an ambulance man there's rarely time for a breather.

Darren's soon speeding across Castleford to another patient.

This time, actually getting to the scene is the easy part.

Hello.

Hello. Ambulance.

Eventually Darren gets into the house and is just in time.

Rose Vanfield has diabetes and must carefully control her blood sugar,

but she's been unwell overnight and her blood sugar has dropped so low,

she's in a coma.

Darren quickly tests Rose's blood sugar level -

a reading below three is life threatening.

Rose's is 1.2.

Darren quickly injects Rose with a drug called glucagon.

This helps the body release more glucose,

but he now needs a more unconventional medicine.

-Can you get me some jam and bread?

-Yeah.

-Please.

-Not for me!

-No.

Rose. Open your eyes for me, Rose.

Rose's husband, Eli, found her lying motionless in bed.

Rose, open your mouth for me.

Rose, open your eyes. Hello. How are you doing?

As Rose's blood sugar begins to rise, there's an amazing transformation in her condition.

Open your mouth. Open. Close. That's lovely.

You keep that on.

In many cases, patients like Rose don't need hospital treatment.

Sit up a bit, Rose, for me.

-Ooh.

-That's it.

I tell you what, Rose, swing your legs out, now you're sat up,

and we'll get you cooled off because you're sweating like a racehorse.

Darren wants to make sure there's no other reason why she had the attack.

Two more of his colleagues arrive to take her to hospital.

Shall we dance?!

Take your time.

Thanks to Darren and a quick check-up in hospital,

Rose was soon back home.

Daz, you're known as a bit of a joker amongst your team-mates,

do you think that helps when you give a bit of humour back to your patients that you're dealing with?

Yeah, without a doubt. You can get a long way

by being reasonable and asking people the right questions,

try to take their mind off their troubles a little bit.

And do you think that helps, that you're a local lad? And that you talk to them on their level?

-Do you think that helps?

-I think it does. It's not a massive advantage,

but I think if people hear a familiar accent

and a familiar voice then I think that eases them a little bit

and makes your life easier and gets them where they need to be.

It's turning into a busy day for Darren.

And he's now been called to an incident he's all too familiar with.

On the outskirts of Castleford,

a car has hit a lamppost hard.

As a helicopter paramedic, Darren is used to treating patients amongst the wreckage of serious accidents.

The car's driver and passenger seem to have got away with it,

and although they're both a little shaken up,

Darren's happy they haven't suffered any serious injuries.

One's got an abrasion on the side of her left arm,

other one's got some shoulder pain. Other than that, nothing.

One thing's for sure,

Darren wouldn't happily give up either of his life-saving jobs.

Do you find there's a different type of job that you get on the land, as to the ones in the helicopter?

The variations are because they're different types of work.

99% of this work will be trauma and the work back on the road will be medical incidents.

Varying types of patients from kids right through to old age pensioners.

You need to have a rounded skill level and if you tended to stay with the helicopter all the time,

your medical skills would fade because of that.

It doesn't matter how safe your car is, or how quickly these guys arrive,

how you come out of a car smash is entirely a matter of luck.

On an urban motorway in Bradford,

a couple are lucky to have survived after their Porsche left the road and took off,

hitting a warehouse wall ten feet off the ground.

Fire-fighters are worried that the wall they hit may have been weakened

but they've just managed to free Helen Rowley

now they're preparing to extricate her partner, Paul Williamson.

This is a delicate task.

But at last, the driver of the Porsche is free.

They're both extremely lucky.

It's one of those situations where you get to the scene of a job

and you sort of think, "Oh dear", you know.

"I think we're possibly looking at fatalities with this job."

And, you know, I think the way they've landed,

obviously with the build of the car,

and the fact that they've landed in such a position, it saved their life.

His patients safe, paramedic Paul is also carefully prised out from under the car.

Helen and Paul have only suffered a few cuts and bruises

and they don't even qualify for a flight to hospital.

They'll go by road for a thorough check-up.

And just a few weeks later,

they're fit to tell me about their terrifying two hours trapped under their car.

So, I've just seen the footage of a pretty nasty looking crash,

tell us, what was it like when you were heading towards that wall?

I couldn't actually see anything.

We were already rolling in the air.

I didn't have a clue that we were hitting a wall.

It just seemed to go on for ever until we landed in the ditch.

-I didn't know we'd hit the wall until the next day.

-What happened then?

Well I could feel a little bit of impact cos it were on my side.

As soon as we'd landed at the bottom we both unclipped ourselves out of the seatbelts.

We were upside down.

And we both realised we were actually trapped

and at that point Helen says to me,

"I hope it's not gonna catch on fire."

-My hair was trapped so I couldn't move my head either. Paul had to yank my hair out from...

-Really?

..part of the ground and the car, yeah!

What was it like when you finally realised what had happened and you were upside down?

I knew they had it in hand. I knew we'd eventually get out,

but I wasn't being impatient or anything,

I just basically knew we'd eventually get out of there

and they'd do the best job to get us out.

A pretty long time to be under there. What happened once the car was finally lifted off?

Well, what they did was, they raised it from the front bonnet

and when they'd got it to a decent amount up,

they smashed the front windscreen and they took us out the windscreen.

-Pulled you through here?

-Pulled us through the windscreen, yes.

So you both own this Porsche, it smashed into a wall,

it's upside down on top of you,

and then the Fire Brigade say they're gonna smash the windscreen.

What was it like?! This is a Porsche!

Well, we kind of knew that there wasn't much left of it really,

so at that point it wasn't really a problem.

And what do you think now? Will you buy another one?

Maybe one day. Maybe a couple of years down the line.

Not for a long time, I don't think.

Helen and Paul reckon they might replace their sports car with a 4X4.

And who can blame them for looking for something with a roof next time.

That's all from Helicopter Heroes.

But when we come back -

a walker is seriously injured when he's attacked by a herd of cows,

and pilot Tim has to use the chopper to protect his patient.

The team are scrambled to rescue an injured climber in the Derbyshire Peak District

-And it did make a loud noise.

-Did it?

A teenager falls 15ft from a rope swing,

and there's fears for her spine.

And the Great British summer threatens to ground Helimed 98 as low cloud shrouds the Pennines.

We wouldn't fly in this.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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