Episode 8 Helicopter Heroes

If you're critically ill or seriously 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 of pilots

and paramedics will fly to your rescue at two and a half miles a minute.

These are Yorkshire's Helicopter Heroes.

When the people of England'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, there's an accident in a dairy and a worker is trapped in a machine.

A piece of metal has gone all the way through his hand.

A trainee journalist hits the headlines when he crashes his car.

We've got a potential sucking chest wound there.

The team return to the scene of a rail disaster for another life or death emergency.

The carriages were in that field.

And up in the Peak District, a girl on a go-cart needs help.

Can you move all your arms and legs, yeah? You can?

Everything about this machine is designed to make it easier for pilots and paramedics.

It takes just one press on one button to start the engines

and most of the dials have been replaced by TV screens,

but whenever you mix man and machine there is a risk something could go wrong.

Helimed 98. We've a lift on this detail near Huddersfield.

ETA approximately six minutes, over.

Helimed 98 is leaving Sheffield Airport for the Pennine hills.

We're going to a location just south of Huddersfield.

We've had reports there that someone's got their hand caught

in some machinery and they are still trapped at this stage.

Emley Moor on the nose.

The Emley Moor TV transmitter is as tall as the Empire State building

and the crew are heading for a farm in its shadow.

Jason Bentley was bottling milk in the small dairy unit when his hand became trapped.

He seems calm, but he's being brave.

A piece of metal has gone all the way through his palm pinning him to the machine.

Helimed 98, over, now landing at Emley Moor.

As pilot Tim Taylor circles over the farm, he spots a landing hazard in the nearby field.

-We've got a wire that runs...

-Yeah, I was going to say...

Have you seen that one? It's running all the way straight across the...

-..the yard.

-There's wires and livestock everywhere.

What about in where the silver car is there, your three o'clock, Tim?

Yeah, there's wires at rudder and there's horses this side.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I can see them now.

But he manages to find a field 100 metres away.

Inside the dairy, Jason is going nowhere.

He and a fire service crew are waiting for paramedics,

Peter Vallance and Paul Bradbury before they start to try and free him.

-It's a penetrating injury, Lee, straight through his hand.

-Right.

It's obvious Jason is in real pain and it's only when Paul and Pete

have a good look at how he's trapped do they see why.

There's a piece of metal,

has actually gone all the way through his hand.

Thankfully, he's in quite a sterile area

so the chance of infection is reduced.

It's not as if a rusty nail has gone into his hand.

The crew normally ask for a pain score out of 10,

but Jason is off the scale and is being remarkably calm.

The gas and air is helping, but they must try

and figure out a way of getting him out of the machine without causing more pain.

The Fire Brigade at the moment are looking for the easiest way to actually remove the...

the piece of metal that's there.

So what we're looking at doing is cutting it off

about a foot away from his hand and actually taking part of the machinery with us to hospital,

then it can be removed in much better circumstances

than trying to do it in an environment such as this.

Despite his pain and predicament, Jason is showing extraordinary dedication to his job.

Will I be back at work today?

There's a load of milk to bottle up today, you know what I mean?

So, we're already an hour back.

As the Fire Brigade prepare a power saw to cut through the metal bar going through his hand,

Jason has some suggestions as to where they cut.

If you cut there you can do one cut and then it'll come away.

But paramedic, Paul points out a practical problem.

You won't make it too big?

It'll not fit in the helicopter.

Jason is already in immense pain and everyone knows it's going to hurt a lot more when they start cutting,

so paramedic, Pete tries to get some morphine into Jason before they start.

A combination of factors including shock and cold are making it impossible to find a vein.

-Can't you find it?

-No, mate, I'm afraid not at this moment in time.

Now we can't get a vein as he's shut down.

They need to get him out, so without extra pain relief Jason gives them the go ahead.

-Go on. Give it a go, give it a go.

-Go on, see what it's like.

No, no, no, no!

-No.

-As expected the bar through his hand vibrates and it's too much for Jason.

I'm not bothered who or how many people hold it, you're not

cutting it yet until I get some more pain relief.

It's absolutely killing now, really.

The Air Ambulance crew need to figure out how to get

pain-killing morphine into Jason and the Fire Brigade need to get some more powerful cutters.

For now, Jason has to wait.

Coming up, the Fire Brigade call in more muscle to free their patient.

The team fly to the rescue of a rail crash hero.

And an elderly driver is teetering on the edge of a Derbyshire peak.

You must be talking, 80, 100 feet to go down here in into that next bit.

It's not surprising these guys are the regular stars of local newspapers and TV.

Everything they do is news, but it's not often they find a journalist on scene before they even arrive.

It's early morning and it's wet.

The Sheffield Helimed crew have only just driven into work

and now they have another long journey ahead of them.

Helimed 98 has just lifted Sheffield for the route into Whitby.

Request flight information service and clearance to climb into the zone.

The early shout means paramedic, Pat

and pilot Tim haven't had a chance to settle into their morning routine.

Shakes the cobwebs, Pat, eh?

Shakes the cobwebs in the morning.

-Just a little bit.

-We've not had a cuppa yet.

Helimed 98 from Yorkshire Air Centre, the patient is still in the vehicle.

It sounds as if he had a nasty arm injury and he was bleeding quite badly.

This WAS a Vauxhall Corsa and its driver is 22 years old.

The accident is on the remote Moor's Road linking the Yorkshire coast and Teeside.

It looks like he's still in the car.

Yeah.

Police, ground paramedics, a doctor and the Fire Brigade have already been working hard.

There is only one car involved in the smash

and as it's careered out of control, it flipped on to its roof trapping the driver.

Carl Hansell is a student journalist from Scarborough

who was driving to his college course when the accident happened.

He's out of his wrecked car, but badly in need of hospital treatment.

Tell me about the pain that you've got. Which bit hurts the most?

-My right shoulder.

-Your right shoulder.

And do you take any medication for anything?

No, but I wouldn't mind some.

You wouldn't mind some? All righty.

The fire crew have worked hard to get Carl out of this wreck.

What injuries have we got, Sam?

Well, we're talking pelvis,

right shoulder, elbow and lacerations.

After this sort of impact, Sammy is worried that Carl's injuries

might not be just the ones she can see.

-Take a deep breath for me.

-Carl's chest is very swollen.

-Have you seen it, yeah?

-There in the...

-Yeah.

We've got a potential sucking chest wound there. It's all right, I've got this one over it.

Sammy's worried. She's detected a potentially fatal injury in Carl's chest.

His lung may be in danger of collapsing.

What we're thinking of doing, Carl, is just putting you into our helicopter and flying to James Cook.

-Yeah!

-Unfortunately, Carl, you're only going to be on about eight minutes.

Carl's enthusiastic about flying, but he doesn't know yet

that Sammy is about to perform an emergency operation on him in the back of the helicopter.

Coming up, the driver's on his way to hospital, but will his injuries

end his journalistic career before it's begun?

A trapped worker's in agony and paramedic, Paul has to use a fearsome new gadget.

Plus, pilot Tim finds himself flying in the slipstream of the Dambusters.

-Steady, steady!

-Straight between towers, mate!

-Steady, steady.

When I was a copper I would have given anything for a view

of an incident that these guys get, but when you're arriving

at an emergency getting a bird's eye view of what you're about to deal with can be pretty scary.

This is the chaotic scene that the Helimed team found one day in 2001.

A mainline train derailed with 10 people dead and 82 injured.

The Great Heck train crash is the worst incident the Yorkshire Air Ambulance has ever attended.

One of the heroes of that they lived yards from the crash.

72-year-old, Gillian Whittles and her husband rushed from their trackside home

to help the casualties, but now she needs help.

Gillian's having a heart attack and Helimed 99 is on the way.

-Helimed 99, just confirm the grid course 32.

-'600 direct.'

-Roger that.

For paramedic, Lee Davison, the name of Great Heck brings back unpleasant memories.

All the engines were in that...

And all the carriages were in that field.

It was just horrific.

But Lee knows he must put his memories to one side and concentrate on helping his next patient.

The pain is caused when the heart is starved of oxygen, so the longer that the heart is starved of oxygen,

the more damage there is to the tissues around the heart.

The muscle itself.

The faster that we can get patients to hospital and get that blockage

cleared or whatever is causing that lack of oxygen to get to the muscles, then that's better for the patient.

Also on board today is Dr Jez Pinnell.

He is a hospital consultant and his extra skills could be vital.

There's somebody in this field.

They're waving their arms about.

Yeah, yeah. Waving their arms about for access, yeah.

-And this is the actual site where the train crashed. Here?

-Yeah.

Exactly this field, because that's the farm that they used.

They crashed into this field.

Lee may have been here before but not into this living room.

He has to try and reassure his patient, Gillian.

The team quickly connect their patient up to a heart monitor to confirm their suspicions.

She has got chest pain central, with...

It looks like she's having two, three AVF elevation with reciprocal changes.

It's worse than anyone thought. Gillian's having a massive heart attack.

We're going to fly her into LGI for an angiogram

and possibly an angioplasty and stenting, depending on what's going on.

OK, sweetheart, just a sharp scratch, OK?

I've given her morphine for her pain

and that seems to be settling.

She's steady and reasonably stable at the moment.

Gillian's family all live nearby and have come over to help.

Great Heck is a small, tight-knit community

brought even closer together by the tragedy of the train crash.

Gillian and her husband, Andy, cared for the walking wounded in these very rooms.

-I've explained to your mum that Leeds do the gold standard...

-Right.

..for the condition that she's got at the moment, OK?

So that's why... Hang on.

-So that's why we'll fly her to Leeds.

-OK, we'll just get her standing up.

We'll come across in a four-by-four.

-I think that belongs to the family.

-Right.

If Gillian is to survive, she needs emergency surgery on her heart

and that can only be done over 20 miles away at the Leeds General Infirmary.

It's crucial the team don't waste any time

and her son quickly drives her round the corner to the waiting helicopter.

-All right, chaps.

-Thanks.

-Thanks guys, cheers.

-See you then. Thanks, Jeffrey.

Good to see you, mate.

It's been a tough few months for Gillian's family and friends.

Her husband, Andy, has cancer and she was due to go into hospital for an operation on her gall bladder,

but now they can only hope that Helimed 99 gets her to the expert care she needs in time.

We're all set at LGI, so hopefully she'll be on the operating table in the next 15, 20 minutes.

I'm just going to put some headphones on you, sweetheart, OK?

Helimed 99 Alpha. We've lifted from close to Egley power station

and we're inbound to the LGI.

Just climbing to 1,000 feet, turn around 1009.

There's little that can be done for heart attack patients out of hospital.

All Lee can do is make Gillian as comfortable as possible and monitor her condition closely.

Gillian, how's your pain now?

Has it eased?

The journey to Great Heck has brought back some painful memories for the crew.

It was actually right... It was right early in the morning,

wasn't it? Did you hear it, were you in bed?

Yeah.

Was he?

Let's hope you never have to see anything like that again, eh?

As well as being a specialist cardiac centre,

the Leeds General Infirmary also has a state of the art helipad

on its roof which means the team can quickly get Gillian on her way to the waiting surgeons.

We've already phoned the cath lab

so basically she'll go straight down to there,

straight on to the operating table

and they'll put a stent into the artery

which she's got a blockage in at the moment

and, hopefully, she'll make a really good recovery.

The Helimed team fly so many patients to hospital for what's now a routine procedure

it's easy to forget any cardiac problem can be life-threatening and so it proved in Gillian's case.

Although the angioplasty treatment went without a hitch,

there were complications, and for several weeks her condition was critical.

I were nearly a goner.

I went into heart failure while I were in there.

And my pulse used to go over 200 beats a minute

during the night.

If they operated it was a 60/40 chance that I'd die.

I feel lucky that I'm here.

I'm sorry to say that soon after we spoke to her, Gillian died.

Her family say that thanks to the Helimed team,

they had a few more precious months with a very brave lady and to show their appreciation,

at Gillian's funeral, there was a collection for the Air Ambulance charity.

Coming up, after an accident on a moor land road the student reporter needs surgery.

What I'm thinking of doing is just putting a little needle into your chest wall, OK?

And in the Peak District, paramedic, Pat faces an uphill struggle to reach his patient.

Your hand has more nerve endings than almost any other part of the body

and normally that's a good thing, but when you're palm has been pierced by a sharp piece of metal

and you can't move, that means it's agony.

At a dairy farm in the Pennines, farm worker Jason Bentley has got

his hand trapped in a milk bottling machine.

A piece of it has passed through his palm pinning him to it.

Paramedics, Pete and Paul try and fail to give him morphine

as the veins in his arm have shut down with cold and shock.

Can't you find it?

No, mate, I'm afraid not at this moment in time.

So, with minimal pain relief Jason lets the Fire Service try and saw the machinery,

so he can be flown to hospital with a metal bar still attached.

-Go on, give it a go, give it a go.

-Go on, see what it's like.

-No, no, no, no.

-No.

The attempt fails because the bar vibrates.

It's killing now, really.

The Fire Brigade only have one option left now,

the heavy duty cutters that they use to prise smashed cars apart.

As they turn on the mobile generator that powers them, paramedic, Paul explains to Jason

that they're going to have to cut him out without morphine and it's going to be painful.

Only when he's free from the machine will they try another way to administer painkillers.

The last option to us is what we call intraossious,

which we normally use on children, and it's putting a needle

straight into the bone in the leg. We tend not to use it on adults

unless they're unconscious, but this guy is in excruciating pain.

The Entonox we've given him's not touching him.

We put a needle into his leg, drill a needle into his leg, and give him some morphine through there.

I've already explained it's going to be painful for him,

but, we've not got any options available to us at the moment.

So, with the thought of having a drill put into his leg and with no pain relief,

Jason allows the Fire Brigade to move in with their cutters.

-Do you know where the little drill is?

-Yeah.

Are you holding it? Hold it.

-Right, now.

-It's going through now. It's going through.

The metal bar through his hand is twisting.

Ya (BLEEP)!

That's it, done.

Right, Jase, come on, deep breaths, deep breaths.

-I want that morphine you promised me!

-All right. It's all right.

After very audibly letting off steam,

Jason, who seems to be able to tolerate remarkable amounts of pain, is prepared for his next ordeal.

Paul talks to the fire crew.

If you guys ease him...

ease him down, obviously keeping him...

-And with Jason helping out, the team prepare to move him...

-No.

Are you doing it or is it easier for me to do it, that's what I'm saying.

Very carefully, with a large metal bar still attached to his hand.

Quick, quick, quick, quick.

Quick, quick, quick, quick.

The paramedics only use the bone drilling method of giving morphine as a last resort.

They know it can be painful, so they have one more go at finding a vein in Jason's feet.

I'm going to tap your leg, Jase.

Have you got morphine in?

No. There's diddly squat in your feet, mate.

Coming up, the paramedics are forced to pull out their painkilling gun.

And at a place called Surprise View, an elderly motorist has a terrifyingly close look.

Another turn and it would have gone over and she would have been down in the bracken.

Now, let's go back to the North York Moors to catch up on the case of a young journalist

who's found himself the centre of a news story.

Carl Hansell has been trapped in his car for nearly an hour.

Among his list of injuries is one that's causing paramedic, Sammy Wills real concern.

We've got a potential sucking chest wound there.

It's all right, I got this one over it now.

He doesn't know it yet,

but Sammy's about to perform an emergency operation on him in the back of the helicopter.

I'm going to have to put a little needle in your chest.

-Have you found it's difficult to breathe at the moment?

-Yeah.

He needs a surgical procedure usually carried out by a doctor in hospital.

What I'm thinking of doing is just putting a little needle into your chest wall, OK?

What's happening at the moment is the air is collecting, all right?

I can't hear anything, so...

They have to find the exact spot to insert the needle.

If they get it wrong, they could puncture internal organs.

Mid-clavicle,

third or fourth intercostal.

Can't feel a rib.

No, we'll just have to aim.

There's the rib there, Sam.

Pat's "little needle" looks pretty big to me.

Right, you're just going to feel a sharp stab.

Sharp scratch coming up now.

-And they've done it.

-Well done, lad.

Carl is now on the short leg of this journey over the North York Moors

to Teesside and on to the waiting surgical team at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough.

-How does your breathing feel at the moment?

-Shallow.

Carl had to give up his student journalist course after this smash.

His shoulder blade was in 150 pieces and he lost several litres of blood.

He was lucky to survive.

Just four months since the accident, Carl is coming to his local radio station

to be interviewed about his lucky escape, and to do a bit of job-hunting.

He's now even more determined to become a journalist.

It's just made me stronger. I really want to go for it now.

It's a big commitment,

so I'm going to have to get back to work.

I'll try and... Try and get some funding from somewhere.

Good afternoon. Jonathan's away. You've got Jules for the next three hours.

Nobody else was involved in Carl's accident

and he puts it down to the long hours he spent driving to get to college.

I got onto this dream course, I'd been on it five weeks,

so I was exhausted from shorthand revision through the night because learning shorthand's a big deal.

It's like learning a new language, you're practising constantly.

Having endured a terrible car smash Carl now nervously prepares for his first live interview.

He wants to do well.

This will look good on his CV.

We've had some pretty amazing stories arrive here at BBC Radio York

as a result of rescues made by the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Carl Hansell joins us now.

This is interesting. You're going to try and tell me

the story but you don't remember half the story itself!

I was driving past Whitby and my car careered into a fence.

I'm lucky there were no other cars

because there were other cars on the road and I'm lucky that they weren't involved.

Presumably you've been knocked about by this and you were unconscious?

Yeah, my first clear memory was waking up in a hospital with a severely shattered shoulder.

If there was no Yorkshire Air Ambulance, would you be here talking to me now?

It's possible I wouldn't. You don't like to think about these things.

I'm sorry, Mum! But, yeah.

It's all gone well and he gets to play DJ.

This is Jack Johnson, Better Together.

Carl knows he's been very lucky to walk away from this and amazingly,

there was one more bit of good fortune for our would be journalist.

It's possibly the only luck I got that day is that it was my right shoulder that shattered

and I'm actually left-handed, so in terms of affecting me, my life,

I've been ridiculously lucky in that aspect.

Yeah. So, life goes on, I can continue to write for my journalism, for example.

Coming up, a trapped worker's been freed,

but he's still attached to part of the machine which injured him.

Actually taking part of the machinery with us to hospital,

then it can be removed in much better circumstances

than trying to do it in an environment such as this.

Everybody likes a bit of fresh air and for millions of people

the Derbyshire Peak District is the ideal place to get away from it all,

but that means the Helimed team must get used to landing in some of the UK's most rugged terrain.

The Peak District is the UK's oldest national park.

555 square miles of stunning landscape straddling six counties.

Just 38,000 people live here, but it attracts 22 million visitors every year

and that's why the Helimed team know it like the backs of their hands.

The Peak District is a huge playground for thousands of people who want to enjoy a brisk walk

and take in these views, but for others the only way to get to the top is a full on attack.

It's the rugged rock faces of the park that attract most people and from paragliders

to rock climbers they're here for the adrenaline buzz that comes from doing something risky.

But extreme sports have a habit of ending painfully.

Helimed 99 has been called to a climber who has fallen at the top of Stanage Edge.

The weather is perfect for paragliders, but that's bad news for paramedic, Pat Greaken.

It means the helicopter has to land at the bottom of the valley

to avoid a collision, so Pat's got to climb to the top the hard way.

A fractured ankle.

Up here, it can be difficult getting him down off the fell.

The out of breath paramedic is going to need Mountain Rescue's help with this patient.

Ian Dallas from Cheltenham was visiting the peaks with his family when he fell.

I... We were introducing the kids to climbing on an easy climb

and I was only eight to 10 feet up

on a very popular route, turned out to be very slippery

and a hand jam came out, my feet shot off and I landed upright with the proverbial crack from my right ankle.

The apprentice climbers are concerned for their father, but he's in pain and his pride hurts a lot.

Something's cracked. Never had anything like this before, I'm afraid.

We've climbed all around the world and you go and do it on something stupid and simple like this.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the hill Mountain Rescue have begun to arrive in force.

There's enough work to keep seven separate teams busy in the peaks.

We want to be thought of as local teams, part of the community,

and that's how we go about it.

And some have a personal reason for turning out to help.

20 years ago it was me up there with a broken leg and somebody came to fetch me, so I'm just...

I'm just paying back what they paid me all those years ago.

When the footpaths are covered with boulders you need ingenuity to transport the injured up here

and this is how Ian's going to get off the fellside today.

At the top of the hill Mountain Rescue doctor, Steve Rowe has taken over treating Ian's ankle.

He's a climber himself.

The bottom bit was very slippy where lots of people have climbed on it over the years.

Beyond that it's a very nice route, but the bottom is a bit treacherous.

With his ankle splinted, Ian's ready for his lift off the fellside.

It's difficult to tell if it's broken or sprained.

He can't walk so we'll carry him

in a Mountain Rescue stretcher and check him out at the road head.

Ian's injury is too minor to earn him a flight to hospital,

he's going to go by road instead, but such is the remoteness of this place even the most minor incident

can turn into something life-threatening, especially in winter.

When snow falls up here you've got to take it seriously

and getting around on the roads has its dangers in mid-winter.

-OK, well I'll just...

-It's a road traffic... A car overturned in traffic. Over.

On a road in the heart of the peaks, an overturned car is balanced precariously

on the edge of a 300-foot ravine known as Surprise View.

Yeah, we believe that this area is within an hour's drive

of about 10 million people, so obviously a lot of people come through this area.

Across at two o'clock, flashing blue light.

-Two o'clock, yeah, I can see it.

-This is a holiday area

and the roads can be lethal for drivers unfamiliar with the local switchbacks and sharp bends.

It's not going to be an easy landing for pilot, Matt Tachon.

Have a quick look out the right door at the rear rights please, mate.

-OK.

-Should be all right.

-Cracking the door.

-But with paramedic, Pat's help, he's down.

-OK on the right. You're on the path on the right on the right skid.

-Left's clear, mate.

-Left one is on the pad.

-Heli down.

Pensioner, Patricia Raydan is trapped in her car.

Fire-fighters fear she's badly hurt and one has climbed into her upturned Volvo to protect her neck.

There's not a lot we can do until they get her out.

They'll cut the roof off and lift her out. She's moving.

She says her neck... Her neck and shoulder are sore, but...

The car has come to a rest, feet from the edge.

It's probably saved Patricia's life.

You must be talking 80, 100 feet to go down here and into that next bit. So, she's been lucky.

Another turn of the car and it would have gone straight over and the momentum...

Well, she would have been down in the bracken.

It looks like she's come up the hill here

and hit the banking and somehow, you can see the marks on the road, which has flicked her over on to her side.

But she's an elderly lady and, you know,

she's not remembered anything of the accident which is a bit of a concern.

Paramedics, Lee and Pat need to reach their patient.

Because it's on the roof, we don't want to roll it

when she's sat with her legs out of the window,

sat facing with her back to the seat of the chair.

The Fire Brigade are going to cut the roof off so we can get access to the lady.

Anyone not doing anything, come and stand back a little bit. Come and stand back.

The Fire Brigade are having trouble freeing Patricia.

The car is solidly built and their cutting gear is working overtime.

One fire-fighter has been inside the car now for 20 minutes.

We actually put one in there to put a collar on her because she was complaining of spine injuries.

We need someone in there to put blankets right her and to put what we called the soft shielding

and hard shielding to protect her from flying debris.

Patricia was driving across the Pennines from her home in Southport

to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Sheffield.

Despite being trapped Patricia was able to ring her daughter on her mobile phone.

Now she's arrived to help Pat with her mum's medical history.

-Does your mum have any medical problems?

-She's on...

-She's on medication. It'll be in her bag on the back of the car.

-What's it for?

She told me she has hypertension.

Hypertension and that... Any heart problems?

-Heart problems, no. She's all right, she still OK in there?

-Yeah, she's sat there.

At last the Fire Brigade have finished cutting

and the Helimed team can finally examine their patient.

Hello, Pat. Do you remember anything of the accident, Pat?

Do you remember what you were doing before the accident?

-I didn't hit my head or anything.

-No, I'm just making sure, love. Trying to get the glass out and stuff.

There's glass all over the place.

She can't remember anything of the accident which makes me wonder whether she's...

-Blacked out.

-Yeah, whacked it... Or whacked her head on the side

of the gate post when she's gone over onto this position.

Patricia's been lucky.

Despite rolling her car and stopping feet short of a 300 foot drop

she's escaped with little more than bruising. Her daughter is relieved.

All right, you daft thing? Are you going to be all right? They're going to take you...

You are going to be all right.

They're just going to go and examine your shoulder and neck.

-Sorry I ruined your weekend.

-You haven't ruined any weekend.

As long as you're all right, that's what matters.

Patricia's going to complete her journey to Sheffield as she started, by road.

It's too risky to carry her stretcher up the steep slope back to Helimed 98,

but before that weekend at her daughters, there'll be a trip to hospital

for a check-up just in case.

No-one loves flying in the peaks more than pilot, Tim Taylor.

He's a military historian and he knows that Derwent Valley

is where the wartime Dambusters trained for their famous bombing raid.

And the route to today's case allows him to fly in their slipstream.

Look at that! Across the dams.

-Steady...

-Straight between towers, mate.

Steady!

Bomb gone!

Boing, boing, boing!

Everything about the Peak District is outsized, including the hills.

If you are relying on your legs, getting around can be hard work,

but when you're heading downhill gravity has its dangers too.

Near the picturesque village of Grindleford,

12-year-old Briony Kirkman has found that out the hard way.

Two kiddies playing on a go cart.

One was on... There were both on at the same time.

-Yeah.

-Fell over.

One seems to be all right apart from scratches

and that sort of thing, the other one has banged her head on the road.

No helmets, needless to say.

No? There's a surprise.

The trippers are out in force in the peaks and every ambulance in the area is busy.

-Luckily for Briony, Helimed 99 has flown to the rescue with paramedic, Darren Axe.

-Hi, Les.

-This is Briony, she's 12 years old.

-Hello.

She was stood on those and grabbing on while her friend was steering,

gave it big licks coming down here, as they should, at their age.

-Yeah.

-And they've lost control of it.

Have you got pins and needles anywhere?

Yeah, just in this hand where... where...

-It's this, the left one.

-The left one, OK.

I've tried to uncover that and it doesn't stick to it.

Can you move your arms and legs?

-Yeah, we have.

-Yeah, you can?

Can you remember everything that happened?

No, not when I fell off.

-Now when you fell off?

-No.

That could mean Briony's been knocked out. It could be a bad sign.

Children's skulls fracture more easily than adults,

but it's also easy to worry them so Darren's keeping it light.

-Briony, how old are you?

-12.

-12. Are you married?

-No.

-No!

Briony was playing with a friend when the accident happened.

Mum wasn't expecting a trip to Accident & Emergency.

So, nothing to be frightened of.

We won't hurt you. We're not going to drag you around or poke you with things.

We're going to put some little things on you so we can see what's happened.

As soon as I came the paramedic said that he thought everything should be OK.

I mean, obviously, there's no guarantees,

but it's just not very nice seeing her being taken away in that, so...

The Helimed team are taking no chances.

Briony's spine has been immobilised for the flight to hospital in Chesterfield.

But she's still cheerful.

Because I'll probably...

You'll probably, like, you know...

-Drop you!

-Yeah!

People who live in the Peak District know that if they need urgent medical treatment,

the narrow local lanes and notorious traffic jamming them mean that help can be a long way away.

This way Briony will be in hospital in five minutes.

And she was soon back home.

Her injuries turned out to be minor.

But the Helimed team know it won't be long before they're heading back to the peaks.

The downside to life in the hills.

Now, in a dairy in West Yorkshire the operation to free a trapped man is reaching its climax.

Jason Bentley was bottling milk when he became impaled.

Paramedics, Paul Bradbury and Pete Vallance could only give him minimal pain relief

before the fire service cut him out with a metal bar still running through his hand.

Ya (BLEEP)!

So, what we're looking at doing

is taking part of the machinery with us to hospital,

then it can be removed in better circumstances

than trying to do it in an environment such as this.

But before that, they must give him some morphine

and the only way of doing it is by drilling into his leg and into a bone.

What Jason doesn't know is that paramedic, Paul has never done this before.

We actually drill into the bone and the centre of your bone

is very rich in blood supply so any drug given to that's very effective.

It's... It's like a little battery-powered drill

and he'll be in agony for probably about a second

until it actually goes in and then hopefully

we can start giving him some morphine and it will ease the pain for him.

paramedic, Paul has some encouraging words of advice.

Now, look away for this bit, Jase.

While Pete finds the exact spot for him to drill...

-Happy there?

-Yeah.

Steady, Jase.

One, two, three.

..and the hollow needle is in,

with an understandable reaction from Jason.

(BLEEP)

-What are you doing to me?!

-It's done.

Before they can get the morphine in, they must first draw out some bone marrow.

-I've just... That bit's fine.

-And then flush it out with some water.

-A big flush.

-Jason gets another pain warning.

This might be painful as it goes through as well.

It's because it's cold water, Jase. You might feel it.

Aah! Stop it!

Keep sucking, keep sucking.

Just count to five and it'll be done.

And at last, the morphine.

There's morphine is going in now, Jase.

It is painful when you first start putting

any sort of fluids through it because the pressure within the...

Within the bone itself causes that pain sensation.

That's now subsided and the morphine should be getting round into his system very quickly.

But the new pain gun has worked.

Jason is much more comfortable now.

The whole emergency operation has been watched by his workmates.

He's desperate to get back to his job at the dairy,

but Jason won't be working any time soon,

and neither will the machine they've had to chop apart to free him.

Within the hour, Jason was being operated on.

Paramedics, Peter and Paul returned to base full of praise for their patient.

I think if he'd not been able to keep his head

and tolerate the amount of pain that he was going through then it would have made it much more difficult

-to work with him to get him freed from that situation.

-That's not fixed.

You can cut there. You can do one cut and...

On the whole he was calm and he assisted us and he even

gave some sort of advice to the fire service.

Because he's used to working with that bit of kit he knew where the best place to cut it would be.

Unfortunately, Jase was in quite a lot of pain.

I think at one time he said it was 50 out of 10, which rates quite highly!

Yah (BLEEP)!

Yeah, think if I'd got a metal bar stuck through my hand, I think

I'd be screaming and shouting like Jason was, so I can't blame him

for the choice of language that he used when he was...

when he was at his worst pain!

You know, I think I would have been exactly the same and most people would be.

The SAS have used this to drill quickly to get morphine into wounded soldiers.

For Paul, this was a first.

Yeah, it's just like a normal little electric screwdriver-type drill

and when you're pushing against it initially there was no sort of movement at all.

Obviously, once it's pierced the skin you're against the cortex of the bone, which obviously is rock hard.

And then eventually, there's a give and it goes straight into the bone,

but you can't to go too far

or you're going to, come out the other side or at least

go into the back part of the bone so you're not going to get the same effect.

It was a team effort to sort Jason out and one which paid off.

Once the metal bar was removed, hand surgery followed,

then two days in hospital and Jason was soon back at work.

When Helicopter Heroes comes back, there's a major road accident.

Were having difficulty getting through. the weather's bad up here.

And the Helimed team are battling appalling weather.

One of the RAF's top gun ejects.

So at the moment he's quite severe pain, but he is stable.

Why this teenage show jumper looked a little familiar to paramedic, Darren Axe.

As far as I'm aware, she'll be the first repeat customer that we've ever had.

And a young biker proves wearing the right safety gear can't always save you from serious injury.

How does that feel?

Does that feel normal?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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