Episode 3 Helicopter Heroes

When you're with someone who's critically ill or seriously injured,

every minute you wait for medical aid to arrive can feel like an hour,

which is why a helicopter like this can be one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

It certainly was for me when I was a copper.

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 never more than 10 minutes from a hospital

thanks to this 150-mile-an-hour lifesaver,

and every day brings a new life-or-death emergency for its team of flying paramedics.

Two helicopters, four paramedics, five million patients.

Today on Helicopter Heroes, there's drama in Yorkshire's racing country

as a jockey stops breathing after a serious fall.

I just turned her over, put her head back and gave her mouth-to-mouth.

A wedding party is caught up in a terrible crash and the groom's cousin is fighting for his life.

Don't fight us. We're helping you.

The boss shows paramedic Sammy the way on a tricky hill rescue.

I'll follow in his footsteps anywhere!

And the patient who's still smiling despite almost bleeding to death.

It looked like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

They call horseracing the sport of kings, but for the jockeys who ride the thoroughbreds on the track,

there's more at stake than a few quid each way.

If you fall off, it's a long way down, and you can be doing 40 miles an hour.

It's a winter's morning in North Yorkshire's racing country and there's been a serious accident.

Helimed 99's crew are on the case.

The rider's near an isolated racing stable on the edge of the North York Moors.

A female has fallen off a horse and is unconscious.

She may well have fallen onto her head.

Paramedics Pat and Sammy have been called to incidents like this before.

They can be very serious incidents.

It could be anything from minor injuries

to very serious spinal and head injuries.

The morning gallop at racing trainer Mick Easterby's stables near York

has ended in a life-or-death struggle.

Jockey Kate Bosanquet has fallen from her skittish horse.

She's owes her life to Oliver, a colleague with first aid skills.

The horse went hanging left-handed. The horse slipped over,

so she fell away from the horse and landed on her front, head first.

So I just turned her over and then just put her head back and gave her mouth to mouth.

Thanks to Oliver, Kate is still alive but she's in a critical condition.

Luckily for her, Helimed 99 has a doctor on board today.

If the patient has a significant head injury

or significant other injuries, I'm able to give an anaesthetic,

put the patient off to sleep and take control of their airway and breathing.

I can't see any...

-They did well to get the ambulance so close.

-Yeah.

This young lady's made contact with the floor, head first.

Unconscious, face down.

We're gonna get you into the warm in two minutes, Kate, love.

Kate's in a bad way. Yorkshire has one of the UK's biggest networks of

local ambulance stations and local paramedics reached her quickly.

SHE MOANS Stay still, love.

But Dr Jez Pinnell knows she could deteriorate at any time.

She's sustained quite a serious head injury.

The signs at the moment are that she's just got a significant injury

to her head because of the initial fall, because of lack of oxygen.

We are going to give an anaesthetic, put her off to sleep, put a breathing tube into her airways,

so we get control of her airways and control of her breathing.

Then we're going to fly into the LGI in Leeds which is the regional neuro-surgical centre.

Half an hour ago Kate was exercising a race horse.

Now the paramedics are racing to save her life.

Her colleagues are in shock.

She wasn't breathing.

I couldn't feel a pulse but she had all that gear on so...

This lady's got a head injury so we're preparing to go do what's called a rapid sequence induction.

Kate, we are going to put a board underneath your back.

Kate's drifting in and out of consciousness.

Putting her to sleep will allow her injured brain to rest, and hopefully recover.

But all anaesthetics involve a risk.

Will Kate make it?

Coming up on Helicopter Heroes - can doctor Jez save Kate's life?

Survival means a risky procedure

and this is a ploughed field, not a hospital.

In the Peak District an exhausted walker needs help,

and so does paramedic Nick.

You'll have to back pack me.

And a farmers prize bull leaves his owner in agony.

If he hadn't been thrown out, it would have killed him.

Getting married is a happy affair, especially when your family's large

and many guests have travelled thousands of miles just to be there.

But for one unlucky couple, the journey to the reception ended in a terrible accident.

Yorkshire has one of the busiest motorway networks in the country,

and the M62, which carves its way through the Pennines, carries a million cars a day.

It also has a notorious safety record.

Paramedic Paul Bradbury along with Simon Kavanagh and pilot Paul Curtis are en route.

And they've been here before.

We're going to the same spot, actually!

It's where the M62 splits, and there's a farm in the middle of it.

Seems to be notorious for road accidents.

The emergency services have responded quickly to this incident.

Although only one car is involved, it's a bad one.

Two men, part of a wedding party, have come off the motorway

and hit a lamp post with such force they've brought it down.

Helimed 99 are needed fast, but first they need somewhere to land.

The motorway itself is usually the best option, but not today.

They have traffic moving certainly westbound on the motorway.

There does appear to be traffic moving on the eastbound carriageway as well.

With the traffic still running in both directions pilot Paul needs somewhere else to land.

Someone's back garden is about to become a makeshift helipad.

It's not the first time they've landed in this garden.

The paramedics know it is only a short walk to the crash site, with only a few hurdles.

The emergency crew already at the scene have got one casualty out of the car.

He is still alive, but there's another man still trapped in the wreckage.

-Guys, before you move him, can I have a look at him please?

-Yes.

-Just going to check his back.

The only way to this patient is through the windscreen.

Hi, sir. Stay where you are.

What do we call this chap?

-What's your name?

-Atif.

A fire fighter, one of the first to the scene, has been cradling Atif Ali since the accident.

Paul now needs his help to get an oxygen mask and an emergency collar onto his patient before he's moved.

I'm going to put a collar on your neck, so just don't move for a moment, OK?

But Atif is fighting back.

It could be fear, shock and panic, or more likely the trauma of a serious head injury.

Atif, don't fight us. We're helping you.

As the drama unfolds inside the car, on the hard shoulder of the motorway there's another problem developing.

A few minutes ago all these people were on their way to a family wedding in West Yorkshire,

travelling in convoy. Some witnessed the smash, and now more have pulled over.

If you don't need to be here, I need you in the car so I know you're safe and out of the way.

The crowd is getting bigger, and next to the motorway this is dangerous.

There could be another accident. The police decide to clear the scene.

I'm asking you now, sir. Come on.

Back at the car, there's bad news.

He's had a fit, yeah. Or what looks like a fit.

I can't get in there at all.

Atif's condition is getting worse.

They need to get him out, but how?

My only worry is, as soon as we start putting owt around him,

-he's going to start fighting me.

-We could take the roof off.

-You can take the roof off and take him straight out.

-Can you hold him here for two minutes?

-I've got him.

The crew can't risk flying Atif in the helicopter if he is having fits caused by a head injury.

Amazingly, another passer-by has stopped who has the answer.

Hi. By the way, I'm Vic Calland.

Emergency doctor Vic Calland was driving past the scene.

In his car, he has the drugs needed to sedate Atif, making it safe to fly him out.

ATIF GROANS

Stay still, mate.

All this struggling is making it hard for Dr Calland to give Atif the drugs he needs.

-Keep your arm still.

-Relax.

Tell him to calm down. Yeah, go on.

Relax. Come on, brother, relax.

His cousin, who has stayed at the scene, does his best to help calm him down.

Please talk to me. Atif, relax, please.

Time is getting on and as Atif continues to fight

those trying to help him, Simon has a decision to make.

If they ARE to fly him out, he will need to get this motorway shut down

and land a helicopter in the middle of it.

Coming up on Helicopter Heroes -

can Helimed 99's crew free their patient...

Just try and calm down, that's it.

..and prevent a family wedding ending in tragedy?

Doctor Jez turns a field into an operating theatre as he sedates a badly injured jockey.

Are we going to sing Hi-ho?

And paramedic Darren Axe takes a nostalgic trip down a coal mine, where he used to earn a living.

The Pennines are full of stunning landscapes -

spectacular waterfalls, rocky outcrops and ancient woodland.

Exactly the worst place to try to land one of these.

We think it's east of Bakewell.

Today the Air Ambulance boss Mick Lindley is going back to the shop floor.

And he's immediately called into action.

On a woodland path in the Peak District, Gerrard Turnball has collapsed.

He felt unwell and he had a rest and a drink of water.

Somebody said he did pass out for a short period.

But he's conscious now. A terrible colour.

Before settling for life behind a desk, Mick was a paramedic on the road.

He's now in charge of the whole air ambulance operation

and thinks there's only one way to find out what life's really like for his paramedics.

I like to fly occasionally, just to keep

a) hands-on and b) to understand the operation.

If they got any operational difficulties, I can look at that from an operational perspective.

-Whereabouts is it?

-Hiya, mate. They've given us a slightly wrong grid reference.

Where it is, I don't think you can get anywhere nearer. He's in the woods.

Gerrard is stuck at the top of a steep hill.

Mountain rescue are already on scene, but the helicopter can't land

nearby so that means a long hard walk for Mick and Sammy.

If we can get the aircraft closer, then clearly we will do.

But at the moment it's just a matter of getting to the patient and assessing their condition.

A couple of years away from the frontline is taking its toll on Mick and he decides to pull rank.

You'll have to backpack me. And the other one.

My brave leader. I'll follow in his footsteps anywhere. He's very good.

Gerrard's been lucky, one of his walking buddies

is a radiographer and he's been monitoring his condition.

Mick must now ensure Gerrard doesn't deteriorate.

This far from hospital, that could be fatal.

He seems very stable. It looks like he's probably just over exerted himself cos he's been on the way up.

As we found out to our cost, it's a long way up.

It's a long, steady, very steep hill.

We stopped a couple of times, but it was obviously...

He does get a bit out of breath and he says... so we stopped.

It's just been too much for him, really.

I don't know. I should come downhill next time.

He's just kind of calming down. He's not been too concerned either, really.

He's taken it all in his stride, so he's fairly comfortable and happy.

But Gerrard's luck might be about to run out.

He's been on the cold, wet ground for nearly an hour and the weather's turning.

It's not the cold, it's the onset of the rain that's going to caused the problem.

That in itself, if we get to work, can cause hyperthermia.

We're moving him fast as we can, really, just in terms of keeping him dry and warm.

Gerrard needs to be in hospital but for once, it's not a short walk to the waiting helicopter.

Instead Gerrard must endure a frightening journey

down the same treacherous and slippery path he walked up.

Fortunately Mountain Rescue has turned out in force with its latest piece of kit, a human wheelbarrow.

These guys are very experienced, but this slope is steeper than it looks.

Gerrard? Would you like to fly with us today?

-I'm entirely in your hands.

-Let's take you for a ride then.

-OK.

When you're looking at things like time critical

incidents such as that, especially things like medical conditions such as a heart attack,

it's really a question of how quickly you can get them

away from that isolated incident and to hospital.

The longer it takes, the more detrimental impact it has on the patient.

From hilltop to hospital in just five minutes, Gerrard will soon be

receiving the vital treatment he needs at Chesterfield Hospital.

Six weeks later and guess who's back out walking?

Since his rescue Gerrard's undergone numerous tests

and visits to hospital, but he's still got the doctors baffled.

The consultant said,

"I'm sorry, we haven't got an explanation of what happened."

So they'd like me to have an angiogram in case

it might have been a blocked artery. I can't praise them highly enough.

So efficient, sensitive and caring.

They knew their job and they knew exactly what to do.

Coming up on Helicopter Heroes -

there's an accident in a warehouse and a storeman is in danger of losing his foot.

The bag is on top of his chest.

And on the motorway, a badly injured driver takes a turn for the worse.

-He's got a bleeder.

-Has he?

Back on the gallops in North Yorkshire, jockey Kate Bosanquet is fighting for her life.

It took the kiss of life to restart her breathing.

But now only one man, flying doctor Jez Pinnell, could save her from what could be serious brain damage.

Stable girl Kate was exercising a race horse when it threw her off.

Her head took the full impact of the high-speed fall.

Her fellow jockey, Oliver Greenall, used his first aid training to save her life.

Dr Jez is putting her to sleep to allow her injured brain to rest.

It's something I do every day in hospital.

It's something we don't do that often outside of hospital.

She's quite agitated now. If she becomes agitated in the helicopter,

she vomits or develops a problem with her airway, it's very difficult to manage once we are up in the air.

So once we got her off to sleep she is a lot safer and easier to manage.

You've come off your horse and banged your head, all right?

We're just going to put you to sleep. Everything we doing is just to help you.

Kate had stopped breathing.

Her brain literally only had a few minutes, three minutes, before it starts dying.

We call it hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.

Oliver was able to step in, start breathing on her behalf,

and that enabled us to continue on the care.

If he hadn't have done that, we wouldn't have been able to make a difference.

A cocktail of drugs is prepared to knock Kate out.

SHE COUGHS AND MOANS

It's just to help you. Try and relax.

Better than the air you're breathing now, Kate.

SHE MOANS

Right, Kate. Try not to fight.

This would normally be happening in an operating theatre,

with an anaesthetist and a team of assistants.

It's crucial that the paramedics and Dr Jez pull together to make this work.

On this occasion, having Jez with us that day effectively meant that we took the hospital to the patient.

She was anaesthetised on scene in the mud.

It does carry a degree of risk.

We used the same standards of monitoring and the same equipment as we would do in the hospital.

If something was to go wrong and we weren't able to

get the breathing tube down, we have a Plan B and a Plan C,

and everybody in the helicopter crew

is trained to deal with those situations, should they arise.

Kate's life is now in the hands of Jez and his team.

They're even breathing for her as the anaesthetic allows her to slip back into unconsciousness.

I've given her an anaesthetic now so she's had a sleep,

she's had some drugs to try to relax all her muscles.

That has enabled me to put a tube into her throat, down the windpipe

which does two things. It protects her airway now, in case she was to

vomit, and it also allows us to ventilate her, to breathe for her.

This means we can control the oxygen level and we can control her level of carbon dioxide

which is important if you have a head injury, as we suspect she does.

It's time to get Kate on board the helicopter.

When the brain gets thumped as hard as Kate's has been, it can swell and put itself under massive pressure.

It gets confused and some patients lash out.

Many even start fighting with the paramedics who are trying to save their life.

It's because the brain is sending all sorts of messages and it's their instinct.

They don't mean to lash out. It's just their way of trying to "Hey, I don't know what's going on, help."

They know that they've got a problem but they're often not fully aware of the situation around them.

They try and get up off the trolley and pull off their oxygen mask, pull off their monitoring.

They might try hitting out at people who are restraining them,

because they think that they're attacking them.

We would try not to, if at all possible, transfer those patients

by air because it's potentially dangerous for the patient

and potentially dangerous for everyone in the helicopter.

Kate's now on her way to hospital, but the anaesthetic needs careful and constant monitoring.

We're just maintaining her anaesthetic, making sure she's stable on the way into hospital.

We are in communication with the air desk. We shouldn't be too long.

I don't know what our ETA is.

-10 minutes, I would have thought.

-13, 14 minutes.

-Right.

This is a dangerous time before Kate, but it's worth the risk.

The team of neurosurgeons in Leeds are already waiting for her to arrive.

She's had just started to move.

Because she's got a head injury, we don't really want her coughing or moving around.

That doesn't do the pressure inside her head much good.

We're just giving her something to keep her still, as well as some drugs to keep her asleep and pain free.

Kate's in safe hands, but Dr Jez is still worried that

her injuries are so severe she might have permanently damaged her brain.

Obviously what we don't know

is how significant the injury to her brain is.

The worrying thing was that they said when the first people arrived she was face down and not breathing.

It may well have been that she was initially concussed, and then

had a period of low oxygen which could cause damage to the brain.

But either way, she needs to have a scan of her head

to see if there's anything going on that surgeons can operate on.

15 minutes ago Kate was on the gallops in North Yorkshire with a potentially fatal head injury.

Now, she's landing on the rooftop helipad of one of Europe's most advanced hospitals.

The helicopter and crew have done their bit.

Now Kate's life is in the hands of others.

Coming up - can Kate recover from her the fall that almost killed her

or will her brain be permanently damaged?

And a nasty accident with a power tool leaves a mechanic needing plastic surgery.

Doing a marvellous job.

Paramedics hate motorways.

They're dangerous places to work and the victims of accidents are often trapped.

On the M62 in the Pennines the crew of Helimed 99 have their hands full.

Helimed 99's pilot Paul Curtis turned a garden

by the side of the motorway into a makeshift helipad to get the paramedics to the crash.

Atif, just try and calm down. That's it.

On his way to a wedding Atif Ali has come off the M62.

With Atif out of the car, sedated and calm, he's safe to fly

to the head injuries unit he so desperately needs. What's needed now is a helicopter.

We're going to have to close the carriageway if we going to fly him out.

We're just going to liaise with the cops for that.

Both carriageways need to be shut, and this is the road

linking Manchester to Leeds - one of the busiest roads in the country.

But the police don't hang about.

I think it looks ready to go now.

OK, mate. The only thing I'd ask is that one of you is in a position where you actually want me to land

with your back into the wind and your arms outstretched

so clearly I know where I'm going to land and it's safe to do so.

No worries, mate. I'll sort that out for you.

Paul is on the way. The police have the road blocks in place.

Paul, Simon. The block's on at the minute.

They're just taking a while to filter down. It's just beyond the white van, it's just two miles away.

I've got a visual now. I can see the traffic.

It's going to take a while for all that traffic to clear, mate.

One side of the road is clear but Paul can't land until both carriageways are free of traffic.

Drivers passing the crash site are slowing down to see what's going on,

unaware that up in the air there is a helicopter

waiting to land to take a critically ill patient to hospital.

-He's stopped breathing.

-Has he?

-Yeah. Can you grab me a mask?

The worst has happened. Atif has stopped breathing.

We just happened to look across at the patient before we lifted

him up, and I noticed that his chest had stopped rising.

Thankfully at that stage the doctor was at the head end with a mask

and he managed to use the mask on the patient to get him breathing again.

-He's started again.

-We're going to need to tube him, aren't we?

Unfortunately one of the side-effects of serious head injuries is

potentially a respiratory arrest, which is what Atif had.

As the last car slowly passes the crash, the driver is unaware that

in his rear view mirror the vehicle behind him is a £2 million air ambulance.

This is potentially dangerous.

The motorway wasn't designed with helicopters in mind and even with

the road clear, Paul needs to keep the rotor blades well away from the lamp posts.

He manoeuvres Helimed 99 as close to the central reservation as possible...and he's down.

It was taking an inordinate amount of time for the traffic to filter

through the incident location, so I was having to wait for that.

The crew need to get Atif on his way as quickly as possible now.

It's a very good example of how all the emergency services, the police, the fire, the ambulance,

the air ambulance, you've got a doctor who was off duty, all working together for Atif's best interest.

-Leeds General, is it?

-Leeds General Infirmary.

Do you want to just guide it across?

With Atif finally on board, Paul the pilot manoeuvres the helicopter

safely away from the lamp posts and Helimed 99 is on its way.

Those 10 minutes could have been the difference between life and death for Atif.

Had we not been able to close the roads, we wouldn't have been able to take him.

He's made a fantastic recovery.

We like to check up on people with how they've got on after a serious incident.

Again, this is another good example of how the air ambulance benefits

people with the serious injuries taken to a definitive centre.

Coming up on Helicopter Heroes -

will injured jockey Kate Bosanquet ever be fit enough to return to the job that almost killed her?

Now, my last job wasn't exactly safe, but at least I knew the risks when I signed up as a copper.

Helimed 99's paramedics are used to treating patients who have injured themselves at work.

Few know the risks quite as well as Darren Axe.

At the only Yorkshire coalmine preserved as a museum, there are some unusual visitors today.

There is a bucket here, lad.

Darren Axe, who did 12 years down the pit before becoming a paramedic,

is about to give workmates Paul Bradbury and Peter Vallance a taste of life underground.

Right, put your contraband in here.

I left school in 1981 and went straight to Frickley Colliery as an apprentice.

It was the natural thing to do.

There were three generations of my family working in that place,

so it just seemed like... I just followed what they did.

Brian's going to give you one of these each.

This is what we call a check-in system.

Their jobs aren't exactly safe, but mining used to be the UK's No 1 killer of men.

And the crew of the air ambulance spend a lot of their time

dealing with the victims of accidents at work.

You're working with machinery and in an environment that, if you don't respect it,

it will definitely kill you or injure you badly.

Anything from a set of stepladders to an electric drill.

They'll do something or they'll use it in the wrong way.

They'll just not respect that piece of equipment. And then it'll turn round and bite them.

Sometimes the consequences are quite devastating.

And Darren knows at first hand how serious some industrial injuries can be.

In a farmyard workshop, there's been a nasty accident.

A man restoring an old van has been injured by the power tool he was using.

It's been under an angle grinder.

We think 500ml to one litre of blood loss.

When he's been grinding off that, it's hit a bump and it's shot off, straight into the back of his leg.

1, 2, 3, lift. Right wheel first.

The patient has lost a lot of blood and needs emergency surgery.

The tourniquet that has been stopping the bleeding can only

remain in place for a short time and the clock is ticking.

Which is where Helimed 99 comes in.

I feel a bit of a fraud, cos I don't feel that bad.

No, we'll get him in first.

It's the old magic wind, me old China. It's nice stuff.

Trouble is, they make us collect it from mountain tops.

It's good mountain air in a bottle.

Doing a marvellous job.

Ambulance crew, spot on.

They deserve a massive pay rise and twice as much holiday as what they get.

But behind the jokes is a real sense of urgency.

This injury could easily have been fatal.

It was my own fault. Stupidity.

The grinder slipped out of my hands and caught my leg.

He's all right. He's lost a significant amount of blood, really.

He's tried to hobble out of the place and there's blood everywhere.

It looked like a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in his garage.

Because they don't wait to say sorry, do they, grinders?

They just carry on doing what they do. "I'm a grinder, here I come."

You've had better days, haven't you mate? Yeah.

Not only will the surgeons at the Leeds General Infirmary have to stop the bleeding,

they also have to check for any nerve damage. And there's a serious risk of infection.

Luckily, surgery was successful and Mick's now back at work with a new respect for power tools.

500 ft down, this is where Darren began his medical career as a member of the underground rescue team.

And the dangers of the coal industry kept him in work.

My first day underground as a trainee, a poor chap was stood

in this area, breaking up a large lump of rock.

And the machine started and just...

cut him to pieces.

But there's another industry that still keeps the air ambulance busy today.

When you get up north, we've got a lot of farming, a lot of agricultural workers.

And they use a lot of the same sort of machinery that you get

in heavy industry, plus there's always animals

that they're dealing with as well that can be very unpredictable.

So we deal with a lot of agricultural and farmyard type accidents.

On an isolated farm high in the hills of north Yorkshire, a farmer's been hurt.

But today, paramedic Paul Bradbury is rather more worried about his own safety.

The first thing that's going through my mind is where's the bull?

Farmer Andrew Holgate has been attacked by his prize bull Barry

at the remote family farm high in the Pennines.

This is where you need smell-o-vision.

He's been crushed and could have serious internal injuries.

Quite a bit of bruising there.

It's literally put him against the wall and then thrown him out.

Can you move everything all right?

-No pins and needles?

-No.

-Just caught your thigh, not hurting anywhere else?

-No.

He got himself out and stood up and somebody working up there heard him

and Edward had said, "Daddy's lying down in the straw."

Which was not like Daddy, to lie down in the straw.

So we came out and he insisted he would be all right and just needed a bit of a rest, to lie down.

But we decided to call. If he hadn't have been thrown out, it would have killed him.

It's the first time the farmer has been laid up by his own livestock.

No, no.

No, heck as like. I won't say never again, as well.

Farming's one of the UK's most dangerous occupations, especially in remote areas.

But this farmer's flight to hospital will only take a few minutes.

Don't worry. If we drop you, you're in the right place.

Only a scan will reveal the extent of farmer Andrew's injuries.

But the bull's name betrays its fearsome reputation.

He's got a nickname for the bull. It's Barry the...

bar steward, I think.

I think he said bar steward.

Nobody's going to sing hi-ho?

But Paul knows even the most modern work environments can have accidents.

In a warehouse in North Yorkshire, a pallet has fallen off a forklift truck.

One storeman is already on his way to hospital by road and another has a badly broken ankle.

Helimed 99 is dropping into the factory yard.

-Do you think you can land on the concrete?

-Can do.

On the left hand side of that concrete, there's some packaging.

-You're looking at the red topped packaging?

-Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's something that's tied onto a pallet.

Pilot Steve Cobb prides himself on getting into some tight spots.

It's been a squeeze, but they're down.

This gentleman's got a compound fracture on his right ankle.

Moving his toes.

Paramedics Paul and Simon have been called in because they carry strong painkillers.

..the force of it, basically.

There were lots of bags on top of him, up to his chest.

The warehouse's first-aiders have done the right thing and left him where he fell.

-Are you nervous about needles or anything?

-Yes.

Well don't look. Just relax your arm.

There's no pulse in the patient's lower leg and that means he's in danger of losing his foot.

Each minute that passes without proper blood flow increases the risk.

Just looking at what's hit him, we suspect a spinal and back injury.

So we're going to start immobilising his spine in a minute.

Obviously, at the moment, we can't get a collar around his neck.

He's not moving anywhere, so we'll get some pain relief

on board and then we'll start stabilising him a little bit more.

You can see from his ankle it's quite a nasty fractured ankle.

We need to ascertain whether he's got any blood passing that, whether he's got a pulse.

They tried to get a pulse initially and they can't get one.

So were going to put a bit of traction on that, once the pain relief's kicked in.

And then we'll try to manipulate it around a little bit.

Whichever way we do it, it's going to be painful,

so will try to give him as much pain relief as we can to start off with.

If it's too painful, Eddie, put your arm up in the air and we'll stop, all right?

The painkillers have done their job and in seconds, his leg is straight.

That's the worst bit over with.

The storeman's now ready for his flight to the hospital in Harrogate.

If the pain gets any worse, give Simon a prod in the ribs, he'll give you something else.

X-rays will reveal that his broken ankle was his only injury.

We got the team at Harrogate waiting for him so it shouldn't be too long now.

But first, Helimed 99's pilot Steve has to reverse out of his tight parking spot in the factory yard.

Watch out for that debris, boys.

The break was bad, but their patient is slowly recovering.

Meanwhile, the crew of Helimed 99 are coming up for air after an hour underground.

And paramedic Darren has no plans to go back to his first job.

It was a different type of camaraderie.

Everybody watched each other's back, everybody washed each other's back.

How many men could you trust to do that these days?

I enjoy what I do now, it's a great job.

I've gone from 2000ft underground to 2000ft in the air, I don't want to go back in the other direction.

I'm pleased to say that all three accident victims are now back at work.

But up in North Yorkshire, another group of workmates are waiting to hear news of an injured colleague.

Helimed 99 answered an early morning call to the stables belonging to one

of the country's most famous racing trainers, Mick Easterby.

One of his top riders, Kate Bosanquet, has come off on the gallops.

She's stopped breathing.

I put her head back and gave her mouth-to-mouth.

One of her jockey colleagues Oliver knew what to do.

He gave her the kiss of life and brought her back.

After her early morning fall, Kate spent the next few days in a coma.

Her brain was taking time out but she was recovering.

Oliver is turning into work to exercise the horses as normal.

The first aid training he learnt at school undoubtedly saved Kate's life.

She just slipped over basically.

Her eyes were closed. She wasn't breathing or responding or anything.

Her tongue was out, so I put that in.

I started doing CPR, basically.

Amazingly, she started breathing. It was amazing.

I can't imagine what was going through his mind.

I've never had to actually witness an incident and then start dealing with it.

Fortunately, I come along at some stage and get stuck in with the training that I've had.

This young man stood up to the plate and got stuck in straight away with the best knowledge that he had.

I knew that it can be deadly.

The body is quite robust.

It's like an engine, it will get going again.

I was almost in tears, I was so happy, do you know what I mean?

I almost thought she was dead when I saw her.

And then...yeah.

It took me a long time to get over it really.

At the time, I felt OK, but every night it kept going through my head, what happened.

And there's good news. After three weeks in hospital, Kate is up and about.

Physically, she's much better, but she's having to relearn simple things like making a bacon sandwich.

But it's a long road to recovery yet.

The first couple of days, I was out of it anyway.

They just sedated me and kept me quiet.

And then when I woke up, probably the first three or four days I was very, very sore.

And I just slept mainly and ate and that was it.

Well done.

She's making astonishing progress.

From a coma, to intensive care, and now rehab.

In a few weeks' time, back home.

And today's the day.

Back at Mick Easterby's racing stables, there's a few friends delighted to see Kate back.

And so's the boss.

Give me a kiss. She's a lovely girl, a lovely girl.

But there's one special mate she wants to meet up with.

Hi, Olly, you all right?

So how do you say thank you to the guy who saved your life?

It's an awkward moment, but Kate manages to find the words.

When they told me that Oliver had given me mouth-to-mouth

and turned me over on to my side and looked after me, I was just amazed.

He was just brilliant, I want to thank him so much.

He's a very, very genuine person who seems to be able to deal with situations absolutely brilliantly.

So I was very lucky that he was there that day.

And this is definitely a life-changing experience in the case of that was very near death.

The helicopter lands on top of the LGI, which is an eight-floor building, and I was on the 7th floor.

And I was there for just over two weeks.

I think getting there so quickly made a huge difference.

My best guess for why she stopped breathing was either initially

the head injury or the fact that she perhaps had mud in her mouth that needed clearing.

She really only had minutes to live.

I just feel like I do owe him my life, big-time.

I'm sure we'll stay friends forever.

Kate's now thinking of doing a first-aid course herself

to learn the skills that Oliver used to save her life.

Now, when Helicopter Heroes comes back...

There's chaos on the M1 as the team fight to free two trapped drivers.

HE GROANS WITH PAIN

He's trapped by his legs and his feet.

A golfer is struck down on the fairway by a heart attack.

Her pain started on the 7th.

The team race to a rush-hour accident.

He's in a great deal of pain. It's affecting his whole body.

And pilot Matt faces a tense emergency landing.

If the transmission fails, then we'll be going downwards rather rapidly.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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