Episode 20 Helicopter Heroes

If you're critically ill or injured in a place like this,

there's only one thing that can save you and that's speed.

It doesn't matter where you are.

This helicopter with its highly-trained team will fly to your rescue at 4.5 miles a minute.

These are Yorkshire's Helicopter Heroes.

When the people of Britain's biggest county dial 999,

there's a good chance help will come from the skies.

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance is ready to scramble 365 days a year

and each one brings a new life or death emergency.

Today on Helicopter Heroes:

-A man is drowning and the helimed team help the local lifeboat.

-There's a man gone in.

-A pilot's in trouble:

-Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Can helimed 98 save him?

Total engine failure. About to crash.

There's a whip round at the rugby to pay for a player's rescue.

It doesn't hit home till you need it.

And this won't hurt a bit.

-He said, "Have you got burning tackle?"

-The team improvise to rescue a farmer's wife.

Yorkshire's scenery helps drive one of its biggest industries - tourism.

Everywhere you look, there's a view that could sell a postcard. Nowhere is more beautiful than Whitby.

The whole town is built around its historic harbour.

Captain Cook lived here and this is where many people still earn their living.

No wonder the local lifeboat is never short of volunteers,

but tonight there's a real emergency for the inshore lifeboat crew.

A man's fallen 20 foot from the harbour wall.

The accident's happened within sight of the lifeboat house,

but 50 miles away at Leeds Bradford Airport, helimed 99 is being scrambled to join the rescue.

Clear to lift.

Hundreds of holidaymakers are watching the rescue.

Paramedic Lee Davison knows hot weather and cool water is often a dangerous combination there.

We've dispatched ourselves over to Whitby,

just on the east coast, a nice seaside town that's very popular. At this time of year,

people feel it's quite hot, but the water's cold.

Patients can suffer with hypothermia.

Whitby's lifeboat house is among the busiest in the UK.

They've been saving lives at sea for 200 years and they know this fall can cause serious injury.

It'll be about 18 minutes to the scene. Do you have any further update?

'Yeah. The patient's been recovered from the water. He's currently being checked out.

'I don't have a patient update yet. As soon as I do, I'll update you.'

The helimed team know this is not a town built with helicopter landings in mind.

'Helimed 99, thank you. I've just had an update from the scene.

'Your presence is required. They've made a space for you to land on the beach by the station.'

It's not somewhere I've done a lot of rescues from, the beach, or recovered patients from.

You can end up going anywhere!

Whitby's mariners have kept an eye out for each other for centuries

and today their proud tradition of lifesaving has been upheld.

The man's been rescued by an eyewitness who climbed down into the water

to keep him afloat.

Pilot Craig Redman knows beach landings are a high-risk option,

but in the middle of Whitby he has no choice.

It all depends what time of day it is. If the tide has just gone out, there's lots of moisture in the sand.

The problem with putting skids down is that you sink into it.

Most pilots refuse to shut down their engines.

A technical failure on the sand means £3 million of chopper swamped by the incoming tide.

But it's a risk he'll have to take.

I can see a lifeboat. Down left, ten o'clock there.

But the tide is out just far enough for pilot Craig to land helimed 99

right outside the lifeboat station.

Bring it down on your left.

Yeah, you're secure there, mate. That's fine.

Can one of you take me to where they are?

Attracting a crowd is part of the job for flying paramedics.

A mixture of daytrippers and locals have come to see what's happened.

-Hi, hi.

-This is Stuart.

When Stuart Sloane fell 20 feet into the harbour, it was filled with fishing trawlers and sailing boats.

-He's gone backwards...

-And he falls.

-Yeah.

-No witnesses seen him hit the wall?

-No. Witnesses seen him tumble off but nobody seen him hit the wall.

No one knows if he hit anything on the way down, but the bruising to his chest is a bad sign.

Are you all right? You OK?

-My chest...

-I know. Is your chest hurting? Yeah, OK.

Stuart's lucky he didn't drown. As he fell in, he was spotted by Steve Crowe, who works nearby.

I thought, "What on Earth happened?"

He's fallen in t'water.

Steve immediately went in after Stuart and kept his head above water for 10 minutes until the lifeboat.

-Slowly warming up?

-Getting there, ish.

-Warm and dry now?

-You can get changed?

-Yeah. I just want to get rid of this.

-OK.

Stuart may be on dry land, but he's not out of danger.

He's still in his wet clothes and is dangerously cold.

If his ribs are broken, he could have a punctured lung.

All his rescuer Steve can do is watch and hope that his efforts are not in vain.

Coming up: the tide's coming in and their patient needs urgent hospital treatment.

We'll get him to hospital ASAP.

Pilot Steve drops in on his favourite football team.

I usually go by road. This is a lot quicker!

And a teenager copies his favourite film with painful results.

Don't do this at home!

If you think the weather is changeable, spare a thought for these guys. At 150mph,

the helimed team experience the four seasons in one flight,

especially when they head up into the hills.

With radar covering most of Yorkshire, helimed pilots know they can get help from the control tower.

The air traffic controllers at Leeds Bradford Airport are the guardians of the local skies,

but today an unexpected emergency makes airliners take a back seat.

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

Total engine failure! About to crash.

20 miles away in the foothills of the Pennines, a pilot is in danger of crashing his microlight.

His engine's failed and he's going down.

Leeds Bradford Airport rang me. They've got a distress call from a microlight.

They expect the area where he's come down is north of Emley Moor. Police helicopter is en route.

Paramedic Sammy Wills knows what the pilot may be going through.

She recently flew in the same type of plane from the same airfield.

It's a fantastic feeling,

but I can't imagine the panic of having to make a distress call.

The pilot was passing the huge TV transmitter on Emley Moor when the emergency started.

Since his mayday call, there's been silence. They're looking for two men and a few square metres of fabric

in several square miles.

We're at Emley Moor mast and we've not got a visual. If you've got further details, let us know.

-The local police chopper has beaten them to it.

-We're got police aircraft and the microlight.

Good morning to you.

Pilot Andrew Dixon is lucky to be alive. He's just pulled off a textbook emergency landing

after losing a blade from his propeller.

All of a sudden there was a bang and no engine. Started gliding in.

Mayday. It wasn't until we came down we realised we'd lost the prop.

They gave me a hand out. The fuel system's hanging off the plane and in danger of fire.

The impact has left Andrew in agony. It's aggravated an old back injury.

-You had a hard landing and felt it go.

-Correct.

He's managed to stay within the cockpit, but he's got a chronic history of back problems.

-I tried standing up at one point, but...

-Don't look sideways. Keep looking straight ahead.

Sammy and Glen know they can't take any chances.

Andrew could have damaged his spine. They must protect his neck, too.

-This jacket has so many layers!

-It's cold up there!

-I know! I've had a go.

-Have you?

-I have. It was fantastic.

Andrew's reason for taking up flying is unusual.

-I had a fear of flying.

-Uh-huh. This is the right way to overcome it, I'll tell you!

Well, I worked for the United Nations and I came down in an aircraft into a field.

-You did?

-So a proper fear of flying.

Yeah. I tell you what, if you can overcome it, fancy flying in our helicopter?

The microlight looks undamaged, but it's taken a major impact, landing on rough ground.

Bit of a hairy landing, but we actually did really well considering how rough this field is.

The team fear the impact that bent the plane's undercarriage has further damaged Andrew's back.

His days at the controls could be numbered.

Coming up: pilot Andrew reaches hospital, but there's bad news.

There's a good chance of a spinal injury.

In Whitby, the man who narrowly escaped drowning takes off.

The ribs could puncture a lung, so we keep that in mind.

And the team rescue a trapped farmhand.

He needs surgery straight away.

Seeing the world from 2,000 feet doesn't half make it look small.

That's Sheffield, home to 500,000 people and on an average day about 100 need to make a 999 call.

But only a lucky few get these guys coming to help.

Despite that, there's no shortage of people down there willing to donate time or money

to keep the air ambulance flying.

And today Chief Pilot Steve Cobb is doing his bit by coming in on his day off to visit his other passion -

Huddersfield Town Football Club.

I usually go by road. This is a lot quicker, a lot less crowds.

It'd be tight landing on a match day, but we'll be OK today.

It's the launch of an unusual fundraising venture.

It's the first time a football team has supported an air ambulance charity rather than have a sponsor.

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance are extremely proud to be here today.

I think our various teams, and my own team at the YAA, have worked extremely hard

in pulling this together, this sponsorship deal,

a partnership deal such as this today to raise our funds.

Tonight Huddersfield are holding their own against former Premiership giants Newcastle United.

The salary of one of their internationals would pay for the air ambulance for a year,

but football is doing its bit thanks to Huddersfield Town.

And it's not just the professionals who are doing what they can to help.

It's a sunny Sunday in Kippax near Leeds. Under 11s are playing Yorkshire's sport - rugby league.

You've got to be tough to go into these tackles. There's always a risk of injury.

Today, 10-year-old Adam Taylor is hit by a high tackle round his head.

He's on the ground and not moving.

We've got a nine or ten-year-old young lad playing rugby.

Apparently severe neck pain, scoring 9 out of 10.

A woman on the scene said they'd clear the field as much as they can.

There are some wires across that behind the goalposts.

And you've got them gazebos. Two to the rear of the ice cream van and one in front of it.

An ambulance has already arrived. The crew are checking out Adam.

He has a neck injury and that's always a cause for concern.

They came down here to score and went into a rugby tackle.

Referee gave a high tackle and he jarred his neck. To be safe, we sent for an air ambulance.

He suffers from asthma. No allergies that we know.

Everyone in the crowd is worried for Adam, but no one is more anxious than the First Aider who helped -

Adam's mum Kerry.

He just got a high tackle. His head jarred back and he ended up on t'floor.

I'm a bit nervous, a bit shaky. I was more of a support, but we have a few First Aiders who could help.

If you've got a neck injury, there's potential that the spinal cord could be damaged

or, at worst, severed, so it's important we don't move him and aggravate any injuries.

Adam's starting to come round and looking forward to his flight.

Sadly, the head restraint means he'll only see the sky and a few rotor blades on this trip.

-Will you get me in there?

-Yeah!

Wow!

-Can you see the helicopter now?

-Yeah.

With Adam safely on his way to hospital,

you'd think the club's relationship with the air ambulance was over, but it's just begun.

Adam's coach and the organisers make the spontaneous decision to have a collection.

Until you actually realise what this great service is doing for Yorkshire,

it doesn't hit home until it comes to a place like this. We've got to do summat back.

It costs more than £7,000 a day to keep the helimed choppers in the air.

But by the time the cash has been counted, the collection has paid for Adam's short flight to hospital.

£300 in small change. It's a real result.

We are absolutely pleased to have raised that much in such a short space of time.

It shows the generosity of the people around here.

Coming up: the unlikely cause of a plane crash is revealed.

Somebody's waiting for a pigeon to come home! From the bang, I thought it was an ostrich!

And a farmer's wife needs urgent treatment after a bizarre accident with a rake.

The rake's become embedded with two prongs.

Now let's go back to Whitby, where the helimed team are helping the victim of a nasty accident

in the town's harbour.

Amongst the sandcastles and seaweed, helimed 99 has landed on the beach in Whitby in North Yorkshire

to help a man who has fallen 20 feet off the harbour wall and into the chilly North Sea.

Whitby local Stuart Sloane nearly drowned after struggling in the water for over 10 minutes

before being rescued by Steven Crowe.

We went down onto the boat to see if we could get him out.

We chucked him a life ring and he couldn't move. He had tight hold of a rope.

The only thing to do was go in and get him across to the ladder and wait for the ambulance.

Stuart's been taken to Whitby's lifeboat station, the scene of many dramatic sea rescues

and where helimed 99 paramedics Lee and Kate can start treating him.

All right. We need to get these wet clothes off.

Keep going, Stuart. Put your hand on your chest there.

-I'm in real pain.

-I know you are, mate.

Stuart was obviously enjoying himself before he fell.

-What's he got on down below?

-A kilt.

-Right.

Has he got his undies on?

But still in his wet clothes, he's in danger of becoming hypothermic.

That's when the body temperature falls below 35 degrees.

If it falls any lower, it could be life threatening.

What I'd like to do, if possible, is lay the sleeping bag out. OK?

And then we'll lay it on the floor, put him onto the board, OK?

And then we'll put the board in and wrap him all in it.

Lee needs to work quickly and not just to get to hospital.

It's now half past eight in the evening and due to strict aviation rules

helimed 99 needs to be back at base before it gets too dark.

But the height of Stuart's fall means Lee can take no chances and must protect his neck and spine.

One, two, three, lift.

Hold on, hold on! That's it.

-Make sure that board's underneath.

-Aaah!

And down. Superb. That's perfect.

'We've got this chap on a longboard,'

taken off his wet clothes to get him as warm as we can.

We've wrapped him up with a blanket and in a sleeping bag. We'll get him on the aircraft as soon as we can.

We need to get him to hospital ASAP.

Living by the sea might be many people's dream, but Whitby is used to dealing with tragedy.

Two years ago, three people drowned when their boat capsized here.

And the Whitby lifeboat has nearly 50 awards for outstanding bravery.

Good man, that's it. Just keep nice and still.

-I've broken some ribs...

-Yeah, well, you've done something. You're in a lot of pain.

Say to these lads down here as well. I want them all out of the way.

Whitby is a small town and news travels fast. Dozens of people have come out

to see helimed 99 take off from its seaside helipad. It can't come a moment too soon for pilot Craig.

-Guys, am I clear to start?

-Yeah.

-We need to get a move on.

All right, Stuart. It will be very noisy while we take you to hospital.

Stuart lives in Whitby and loves its remote and tranquil setting,

but the nearest major casualty department is at the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough

and that's over 25 miles away.

He's complaining of a neck and right-sided chest injury or pain.

He's got significant bruising on the right side of his chest.

When you've got significant trauma like that to the chest, it can impair the breathing.

He's maybe fractured a few ribs on his right side which are giving him the discomfort,

but the ribs could puncture the lung so we've got to keep that in mind.

Coming up, their patient reaches hospital, but he's not out of trouble yet.

He still was very cold, despite the blankets that we put on him.

And a teenage farm worker is run over by a five-tonne tractor.

As he's jumped out, another tractor has rolled over him.

The Helimed crew are all dedicated professionals.

They never stop training and it's rare for a month to go by without a new drug or technique introduced

to help them do their job better.

But the hazards of flying rarely change

and paramedics Sammy and Glen are about to come face to face with one of them - a bird strike.

-This horrible pheasant...

-BLEEP

Yeah, that went through us. That hit the disc.

This pheasant hit the chopper's rotors.

There's no visible damage, but the pheasant is beyond even their life-saving skills.

But accidents like this can and do down aircraft.

Ask pilot Andrew Dixon. Sammy and Glen have just been finding out what could have happened to them.

A passing pigeon hit the blade of his microlight plane's propeller, leading to a painful forced landing.

He's had a bird strike. They've had a semi-hard landing.

Because of his previous back injury, he's got back pain, so we're treating him as worst case scenario.

Ready, steady, lift.

Excellent.

Andrew is on his way to hospital, but his previous back injury wasn't just any old slipped disc.

And start easing him in.

-Was this 12th vertebrae as a result of some kind of trauma in the past then?

-I got shot.

-I had a backpack on and the bullet...

-Cut that.

..hit the backpack and, obviously, it were like a shockwave from the bullet.

Andrew was dressed for his open cockpit.

-You couldn't do us a favour, could you?

-I will do. Go on.

-Get your scissors and do t'other arm. I'm sweating like a pig.

-Of course I will.

-It's all this microfleece to keep you warm...

-While you're up there.

-You're a star.

-I've never been told I'm a star for cutting clothes off another fella before!

'Lifting at 10.45...'

Andrew is airborne again, this time for hospital.

20 minutes ago, his coolness saved the lives of himself and his passenger.

Are you panicking a little? You're all right.

Now the shock of a life-threatening, in-flight emergency is beginning to hit him.

In the next hour, Andrew will find out if he's likely to fly again

or whether his back injury will ground him for good.

We do a brief neurological assessment

which found that he was numb in the top part of his legs,

so there's a good chance of spinal injury.

Now they're doing a more thorough neurological assessment in the hospital.

Altitude 2,000 feet...

For the Helimed team, it's been a textbook search and rescue mission,

thanks to the reassuring voice that helps them do their jobs every day.

It was all dealt with very swiftly, great teamwork from all involved.

The aviation community, whenever "Mayday" is heard on a radio,

no matter where you are,

whether you're flying for British Airways, Ryanair, Jet2,

we're all part of the community that says an emergency is going on

and everybody offers their assistance as quickly as possible.

And at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield,

Andrew is grateful for the fellow aviators who flew to his rescue.

Literally, within a minute,

I take my headphones off

and I could hear the police helicopter circling above.

Another minute after that, we saw the Air Ambulance coming in to land as well.

Fortunately, it's just a bit of bruising now on the spinal cord.

But hopefully, in a few more weeks, I'll be back up flying.

Making a Mayday call was a memorable experience for all the wrong reasons.

'Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!'

It's a call you never really want to make.

The aircraft were being thrown about quite violently for the first 10 or 15 seconds.

But after that, I managed to gain control and land safely in the field.

Somebody's waiting for the pigeon to come home.

Although by the sound of the bang, I thought it were an ostrich, but ostriches can't fly.

Coming up, the man rescued from drowning in Whitby harbour reaches hospital. Will he recover?

They'll want to warm him back up to a normal temperature.

Some of this scenery may look familiar.

This is what's now known as Herriot Country after James Herriot,

the local vet who turned life down here on the farm into best-selling books and a TV series.

But the Helimed team know their way around the fields and barns of this area for a different reason.

Even the most idyllic landscape can be the backdrop to a nasty accident.

The Helimed team are called to farms twice a week on average, more than 100 times a year.

Cattle moving off to the left, horses as well. Beware of horses.

Today in North Yorkshire, the early harvest is over for one farm worker.

-Hiya, lads. How are we doing?

-Hiya.

-How's the pain?

-Bearable.

27-year-old Matt Rodgers has been trapped by a combine harvester. His leg is crushed.

-What injuries has he got?

-It looks like just tissue damage.

It's just all muscle.

Is it muscle?

-We strapped that across him.

-Oh, right, I see.

-Can you feel the oxygen, Matt?

-All down this side?

-It all opened up inside, yeah. Right up to there.

Fire-fighters have spent 45 minutes cutting him free.

Now he's about to get a 150 mile-an-hour flight to surgery.

We'll go straight north and over the hill to James Cook where they've got the specialist trauma centre.

He needs some surgery straight away probably.

Matt's leg is badly broken. He'll need reconstructive surgery if he's to walk normally again.

Combine harvesters are heavy, powerful and hard to steer as Matt's found out.

OK, you're normally fit and well. No asthma, no diabetes...?

Matt's been freed, but the medics are concerned.

His crush injuries are serious and he could be bleeding internally.

He had a bit of metal protruding out his right lower buttock, but it didn't penetrate his skin.

-He's got quite bit of bruising on this other femur.

-We'll get him all tied up, lads, then we can...

-Is my phone still there?

-Yeah, it's in your pocket.

He's an hour's drive from the nearest major trauma unit at the other side of the North York Moors.

But thanks to Helimed 99, he'll be touching down in A&E in Middlesbrough

in less than 15 minutes.

OK, feet first, nice and high.

That'll be grand. Keep him as high as we can. That's great. Keep coming, keep coming.

No wonder farmers in North Yorkshire are among the Air Ambulance's biggest fundraisers.

They know they're more likely to need help than most city dwellers.

After extensive surgery at the James Cook Hospital, Matt was released,

but it will be some time before he is fit to return to work.

You don't have to be working out in the fields to hurt yourself on a farm.

This is a workplace the whole family has to share.

In a farmyard in West Yorkshire, there's been a bizarre accident.

Helimed 98's patient is a woman who has become impaled on a rake.

To get a rake through your leg, it could be they've stood on a rake and it's gone through the foot

or it could be that a rake has splintered

and become impaled into the leg,

but as with any injury where it's pierced the skin, you're looking at damage to underlying structures.

Ground medics have moved Mary Schofield into their ambulance. The rake is still embedded in her leg.

Negative at the moment, because she's in the ambulance, so we'll be able to transport her closer.

She must have fallen on to the rake

and the rake's actually become embedded with two prongs around her knee area.

Paramedics see all sorts of injuries, but this one is a first for everyone and it's serious.

Mary has lost a lot of blood and the pain is unbearable.

We gave her some pain relief. We cut down the rake with a steel saw.

Whether we'll be able to get her in the helicopter, I don't know.

Peter now had a dilemma. The handle of the rake is too long to fit into Helimed 98.

But they can't risk moving the rake in case it's ruptured blood vessels or an artery.

The options are cutting it down, so we can get this into the aircraft -

the guys have already cut the post to get into the vehicle - or cutting the metal fork itself.

If Mary thought her ordeal couldn't get any worse, she could be in for a surprise.

They said, "Have you got any burning tackle?" They'll cut the steel off,

so there isn't a handle on it and it travels better.

That should mean the paramedics can remove the wooden handle,

but blowtorches can reach temperatures of over 2,000 degrees Celsius

and the team risk making Mary's injuries a lot worse.

-Get that wet stuff over.

-Get them wet rags over her.

Paramedics have to be resourceful sometimes and with the aid of a few useful objects from the farmyard,

the team start to remove the end of the rake.

Just as close to that as we can.

The fierce flame is just a few inches away from Mary's leg, but it's worked.

She's been very brave. I don't think I could have been as brave.

She's been marvellous. She's done really well.

-Am I going to Pinderfields still?

-Yeah, I think so.

-In the ambulance?

-In the helicopter.

-Oh, dear.

If it's hurting too much, let us know and we'll stop.

Now minus a long wooden pole, Mary easily fits into Helimed 98.

And Pinderfields Hospital is only a few minutes away.

Husband David is flying too, but with a dirty metal rake still stuck in her knee,

infection is a real risk and one which could complicate Mary's recovery.

Working on a farm is among the most dangerous jobs you can do.

From frisky livestock to toxic chemicals, there are endless ways you can hurt yourself.

But even your trusty tractor can be a killer.

Did they say this guy was actually in a field?

It's Crosper Farm. I'm wondering if it's a family business?

On the outskirts of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, a young farm hand has been run over by his own tractor

that weighs over five tonnes.

Got some wires down just before the building.

He's waving away, or someone in the crew. I can't make out his hand signals, to be honest.

It's going to be a dusty landing,

particularly for a ground paramedic who probably wishes he hadn't decided to marshal in Helimed 99.

Peter Wass appears to have had a miraculous escape.

He was emptying freshly cut grass on to a silage heap when the accident happened.

And the tractor has squashed Peter into the soft mound.

This is the driver of the tractor.

And as he's jumped out, another tractor has rolled over him.

There's no doubt 16-year-old Peter has been lucky.

But he's sustained a notoriously painful injury.

He's been run over by a tractor over his right upper leg.

Query - dislocated right hip.

I think we'll be about ten minutes getting him on board.

So I think we'll have an ETA of about 10.40. Over.

That'll start working, but it'll be about 10 or 15 minutes.

I'm just loading you up, so take your time, nice and steady.

We'll get you some gas and air, so we can get you on this flat board cos that's gonna be a bit painful.

The main thing is transferring him with as little pain as possible.

He'll have some gas and air to supplement the morphine.

-Are we going straight over on to the board?

-Yes.

-When you're ready...

-Ready, steady, move.

Do you want some more of that gas?

I know you're not so keen on it, but just try and relax that leg again for us. All right?

Take some nice, deep breaths.

According to the Health and Safety Executive,

agriculture is now officially the most dangerous job in Britain.

OK, that's it. Let go.

Peter's farming career has only just started.

Now he's likely to be laid up for months recovering from the accident that could have killed him.

Harrogate Hospital and more pain relief is thankfully only a few minutes away.

-Were it the front or back wheel? Can you remember?

-Back wheel. It went over my leg, then stopped.

But you were on all that silage, so it were soft underneath you.

All right. It's no consolation, is it?

This is Helimed 99, just lifted from a site near Spofforth and bound to Harrogate Hospital.

Thanks to Helimed 99 and the silage heap,

Peter spent just a few days in hospital and was soon back home.

But farming is a physical job and it'll be some time before he is back on the farm.

Growing up on a farm sounds like a dream for a city kid like me -

loads of fresh air, freedom and lots of things to mess about with,

but the countryside can be a dangerous place.

Take this wheelbarrow - hardly the most dangerous object in the world!

But in the skies over the Yorkshire Dales, paramedics Pete Vallance and Al Day are about to deal

with the result of a bizarre accident.

Somebody's apparently fallen. We don't know too much about the job.

It's come from another ambulance service.

We'll see what's going on when we get there.

Looks like cattle to the right-hand side and horses.

Farmers have to be smart businessmen to survive up in the Dales.

Some have branched out in unusual directions.

-You've got llamas in that field.

-Is that what they are?

Pilot JJ Smith hasn't had to deal with llamas before.

The team's patient today is Daniel Hall. He's one of three brothers who love Jackass,

the American TV series in which crazy stunts often result in painful injuries.

They've certainly managed that bit. His leg is broken.

His injury is the result of a high-speed wheelbarrow ride down a steep hill

on the farm where his mum keeps horses.

-He was wheelbarrowing down the hill, then he let go and he started rolling and spinning.

-And he heard a crack.

His brothers are remarkably unsympathetic.

-Daniel actually did it with me first, then Joshua.

-Great.

-Then Daniel did it with me later.

And then I did it, but I didn't break anything.

-Don't watch it.

-Don't watch it? Don't do it.

If you push up with your good leg, if I support this, can you manage up there?

Paramedic Pete is used to bizarre accidents, but not those inspired by TV.

I've watched a few episodes, but it gets a bit severe at times with some of the stunts they get up to.

-I bet you don't watch it, do you?

-Do you watch Jackass?

-No, I don't.

Good answer.

Don't do this at home.

He should have listened to his brother.

Daniel's injury is painful, but not serious enough to earn him a flight to hospital.

He's soon on his way back up the hill on four wheels. He'll be in plaster for a month.

His next attempt at wheelbarrow racing will have to wait.

I'm pleased to say all our patients are on the road to recovery.

Let's find out what happened to the man who was lucky to survive a fall off the harbour wall at Whitby.

On a summer's Sunday evening,

the holidaymakers in Whitby have witnessed a dramatic rescue in the town's historic harbour.

The inshore lifeboat was launched and plucked local man Stuart Sloane out of the cold water.

Now the Helimed team are racing the setting sun to get Stuart to the trauma centre

of the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough.

It seems that he's maybe fractured quite a few ribs on his right side.

With the chopper not able to fly at night,

Middlesbrough and the James Cook Hospital helipad is a welcome sight for the crew and patient.

We're going into the hospital. OK, arm across your tummy like that.

There's another worry. As well as Stuart's injuries from his fall,

swallowing a lot of salt water can be deadly.

It can bring on what's called secondary drowning

where excess salt dehydrates the body to such an extent,

it can go into cardiac arrest up to 24 hours after the incident.

We're quite concerned about this rib pain that he's got.

We're quite worried about his ribs.

They're just in there now giving him some more painkiller,

then Lee's handing over and letting them know what's happened.

While Lee is in Resus dealing with his patient, pilot Craig is speeding things along,

clearing up the paramedics' medical kit. He needs a quick getaway from Teesside.

They're probably gonna want to warm him back up to a normal temperature.

He still was very cold, despite the blankets that we put on him.

It's a week since the accident

and Stuart is now recovering back home in Whitby.

For Steve Crowe, the hero of this rescue, it's just another day at work,

persuading tourists to take a speedboat ride around the bay.

I was just packing up for the night,

getting everything on the boat, then go home.

And somebody shouted down that he fell in.

It's a fair old fall, to be honest with you.

It's about a 20-foot fall, something like that?

First I was looking for a way to get him out without having to go in there cos it's very cold.

There wasn't a way, so I climbed down the ladder and walked up to him.

If he'd calmed down, he could've walked over to the ladder himself,

then waited for the inshore lifeboat to show up.

The RNLI inshore rescue crew train for incidents like this.

These volunteers are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

When we got on the scene, a police officer and a member of the public were holding him.

We realised he was badly injured.

That's the first time I've worked with the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

It's good that they're there to assist with what we've got to do.

And as for our reluctant hero Steve Crowe,

every day at work is a reminder of what could have been.

Since that day, whenever people are up close to the edge, it makes you a bit nervous.

Yeah.

And that is all from Helicopter Heroes for now.

Thanks for watching. And remember, if you're ever in trouble, help might just come from the skies.

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2009

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