Episode 15 Helicopter Heroes

If you're seriously ill

or critically injured, every second counts,

especially if you're up high or off the beaten track.

But thanks to these guys, the people

of the UK's biggest county

are never more than ten minutes away from a hospital.

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance can do 150 miles an hour,

and every day brings a new life or death emergency.

Five million people

depend on these yellow helicopters

to bring lifesaving care from the skies.

When a multiple pileup closes Britain's highest motorway,

or there's a serious accident on the shop floor,

the highly trained paramedics and pilots of the Helimed team

are there to rescue the casualties.

Today, on Helicopter Heroes...

the team faces a difficult rescue

as a small boy is impaled on a metal spike.

He has got another potential for it to go in him again.

There's a serious accident on a moorland road.

There's also a casualty in the back of the ambulance with chest injuries.

A climber's badly hurt in a freak fall.

Just on the off chance that you've broken your neck,

we'll take nice careful care of you.

And World Cup fever lands a soccer-loving dad in hospital.

Something's happened to his foot and elbow.

Paramedics are trained to deal with any medical emergency,

but sometimes a case comes along

that puts special demands on the entire crew.

Deep in the Yorkshire countryside,

hundreds of people spend their working lives

carving out a living from the local rock.

Quarrying is big business.

But when the diggers are gone

and the workings are grassed over,

these are dangerous places.

And on the slopes

of these workings near Pontefract today,

there's been a serious accident.

'Service, what's your emergency?'

'It's not an address, it's by a quarry in Upton

'where a boy's fell down and has got a wire going into him

'just under his rib cage, and it's trapped under his rib cage.'

'So he's... So he's fallen.

-'Has he fallen onto the wire?'

-'We just can't move him. He's in agony.'

The Sheffield crew have just clocked on.

I've put in the post code for the quarry.

Pilot Tim Taylor doesn't hang about getting airborne.

Helimed 98. We've now lifted en route to detail at Darlington.

Revised bearing of 026.

They're flying 20 miles north of Sheffield,

and it sounds as though they need to get there fast.

All we know is a three-year-old child's fallen,

or for whatever reason,

has got some wire sticking out of his chest.

-The quarry there.

-So this is the quarry.

We just need the whereabouts, where the child actually is.

Helimed 98, yeah, we're overseeing now at Darlington.

We've got a visual with the land vehicles.

Tim puts the chopper down

as close to the edge of the quarry as he can.

What have we got?

Their patient is tiny.

Helimed 98, can you just...

Paramedic Lee Gray needs backup.

The little boy has gone down a steep slope

and wire from the post has penetrated his chest.

So he's no injures other way out, anywhere else?

Not on long bone...

The crew worry that three-year-old Ricky

might have damaged his internal organs.

The wire has gone in near his heart.

Scoop's on its way.

Ricky's dad was with him when the accident happened.

After I slipped meself on pebbles, I let him go,

and he's fell into his side into trees into a post,

and wire off the post

has gone into him and got stuck under his ribs.

He has got another potential for it to go in him again.

-Has that snapped off, or do you see...

-No, just as far as we're aware,

that's the only entry site in him. Is he normally fit and well, Dad?

-Yeah.

-Good boy. Nice breath for me.

Good lad. Like you're blowing a balloon up.

As Lee examines the wound,

Ricky starts getting distressed.

It's a bad sign.

RICKY CRIES

Listen, shall we give you some meds and stop that pain, eh?

Shall we?

Yeah? Good lad.

Lee, should I get you a pedi collar?

Sammy and Lee want to get out quickly

and on the way to hospital.

The wire from the post is unstable.

They're going to have to move him with it still stuck in.

I mean, either one,

but I think scoop would just be a bit safer.

The plan is, because he's down a steep slope,

we're going to scoop him and bring him up.

We've only got, literally, a rope.

Ricky needs to get to hospital soon.

They can cut the wire from the fence,

but how much of it is still embedded in the little boy?

He may be tiny, but getting him up the slope

without causing any more damage is going to be difficult.

Coming up - Ricky's rescue is going to be tricky,

but Sammy and Lee come up with a rope trick.

We're going to put you on one of them,

and we're going to get you up out of the way, eh?

There's a serious climbing accident in picturesque Wharfedale.

There could be a serious head injury there,

bleeding inside his head.

And how you can be badly hurt in your own back garden.

He just slid down, and I just saw my mum panicking.

The Yorkshire Ambulance Service

employs nearly 4,000 staff,

and eight out of ten of them

are in frontline jobs like these.

24/7, 365 days of the year,

someone is here to take your 999 call,

and sometimes that call rings a bell

at Helimed H.Q.

Even in winter,

the resorts of the Yorkshire Coast

attract holiday makers.

But on the moorland road to the seaside town of Whitby,

one tripper's journey has ended in a serious accident.

There's been a head-on crash between a car and a Land Rover.

When you say, he's trapped,

can you just explain a bit more?

Right, no problems at all. It's the dashboard

that's pushed right up onto him.

So he just can't get out of the car. Right.

Driver Max Moore is trapped behind the wheel of his Fiat.

He and his wife were on their way

to their mobile home by the sea.

Now she's on her way to hospital,

and Max's feet and legs are pinned beneath the dash.

Sounds like the dashboard's come in

and may be causing some problems to the abdomen,

and so we've been dispatched.

It's quite a ways to check up there,

and so probably about 15, 20 minutes flying time.

You've got stood traffic out there at about two o'clock.

Looks about right sort of place

-in relation to that road curving round.

-Yep.

The accident's happened

a long drive from the nearest trauma unit -

20 miles away in Middlesbrough.

But Steve manages to put the chopper down

a few yards from the crash.

OK, clear. Tail's clear. Good.

Max has a badly dislocated hip.

His right arm's broken,

and he has injuries to his feet.

He's in severe pain.

How you doing? Yeah.

He's trapped by his ankle.

He's got some pain in his ankle and pain in his shoulder.

-So we've got a fracture there.

-Hey, mate, you all right?

-Do you need anything for pain, anything at all?

-Left leg's trapped.

Local paramedics have tried to treat Max's pain,

but gas isn't working.

He needs morphine.

Just for a second, lads.

If you just stand back for five minutes, we'll get around

and give him some morphine and get him settled.

Is that all right with you, guys?

What we're going to try to do first is get some IV access,

get some pain relief into him, so that any sort of movement's

going to be much more tolerable for him.

Then the fire brigade can get down to their business

of ripping the roof off, and we can extricate him

with, hopefully, minimal fuss

and minimal pain for the patient.

So how much pain are you in?

Sort of eight out of ten, or a five out of ten, or...

-It's like a seven or eight at the time.

-A seven or eight.

Max is a school chef.

He and his wife were on their way

from their home in County Durham to Whitby

to buy carpet for their holiday home.

The accident wasn't his fault.

It would appear that one of the vehicles,

travelling towards Guisborough

has slowed down to turn right into the junction,

which you can see behind me.

The Land Rover coming behind that vehicle has

seeing that vehicle, we believe, at the last minute

swerved to avoid it, and then, unfortunately, hit the vehicle

travelling the opposing direction,

effectively a head-on collision.

Being trapped can have serious consequences for patients.

Crush injuries can lead to a build-up of toxins in the blood,

and that can be deadly.

Aah!

OK, good. You're nearly well, mate.

They need to get Max to hospital,

but the steel shell of his Fiat is proving harder to cut

than they expected,

and Max is having difficulty dealing with the pain

of his prolonged entrapment.

-Aah!

-You're OK.

Coming up - fire-fighters think they've freed Max,

but his ordeal is not over yet.

OK, ready, steady, and move.

The experts arrive to help with little Ricky's rescue.

-Hello, sir.

-You all right?

-We are.

As you can see, there's our three-year-old's predicament.

And the team rescue the victim

of an unusual sporting accident.

You can wiggle your feet for me OK, can you?

Wiggle your fingers. Fabulous.

It's the spectacular scenery of the Yorkshire Dales

that makes this landscape so attractive to tourists.

But these hills can also be deadly.

The Cow and Calf Rocks above the spa town of Ilkley

are a popular place for a day out.

There are stunning views of the Wharfe Valley

and, for some more adventurous visitors,

rock faces that can challenge the most experienced climber.

Off to a climber that's fallen at the Cow and Calf Rocks

at Ilkley, quite a popular climbing spot.

Yeah, I've got somebody on the floor

in what looks like a space blanket around him

in the quarry there,

so in between all those paths.

Pilot Chris Attrill has to make a precision landing.

You guys want to hop out?

The footpath is no wider than the chopper's skids.

-How are you doing?

-Yeah, I'm OK.

-What's you name, mate?

-Keir.

Keir. OK. Do you know what happened?

Student Keir Teasdale

is being looked after by his climbing buddies.

-I took a fall...

-Right.

They're doing all the right things -

keeping him warm, supporting his neck.

-He wasn't wearing a helmet.

-Unfortunately not.

You're going to get one for your birthday.

I think I might do, yeah.

He's fallen 20 feet onto his face.

Al's worried.

Nice deep breaths for me.

Keir was leading, this climb up here,

and he got onto that ledge up there,

trying to get into that crack.

Sometimes you can break your neck in a fall like this,

which is, in itself, not a big deal.

But if you break your neck, and there's some damage

-to your spinal cord, that is a big deal.

-Yeah.

So just on the off chance that you've broken your neck,

we'll take nice careful care of you,

keep you nice and wrapped up,

and then if you have broken your neck,

we can deal with it before there's any damage to your cord.

All right, mate, it's not the most comfortable thing

-in the world, this, OK?

-No.

OK, there we go. That's a good fit.

-RING TONE

-So we're happy with that.

This patient's dropped, about halfway down

the cliff face that you've looked at.

He's landed on his face. He's sustained some injuries.

Any injuries above the collar bone, clavicle,

we treat those with a high suspicion of a spinal injury

to go with it, so we completely immobilise him

and make sure he's stable.

The Cow and Calf Rocks

are only a mile out of Ilkley town centre.

But Cave Rescue have turned out to help

with the final stage of getting Keir to the helicopter.

Couldn't actually land it as close as we would like to,

so, unfortunately,

we had to land a little bit down below them.

Normally, I like to drop the crew above

so they've got to walk down.

There could be a serious head injury there,

bleeding inside his head.

He could have other internal injuries from his fall.

So although he seems OK,

we're not going to be hanging around.

We're gonna be getting him off to Leeds General Infirmary

pretty sharpish just in case.

Rock climbing accidents

are surprisingly not that common.

It's a very safety-conscious sport.

But statistics show that when they do happen,

it's almost always to inexperienced climbers.

-Clear to land, mate?

-Yeah. No worries.

Within minutes of leaving the rock face,

Keir is landing at the Leeds General Infirmary.

Falling 20 feet onto your face is going to hurt,

but his broken nose and cracked teeth

will be repaired.

Amazingly, his spine wasn't damaged.

-Keir was very lucky.

-One, two, three.

He wants to get back to the rock face soon,

and he's going to buy a helmet.

Coming up - the battle to free a trapped motorist

hits another setback.

We're not going anywhere, guys.

Something's wedged, I would suggest there.

And a sporting dad has to sit out the World Cup

after an embarrassing injury.

This gentleman's fallen off this roof here

where he got a nasty displaced fracture.

Now let's return to the quarry in West Yorkshire

where the team is struggling to rescue an injured boy

badly hurt in a bizarre accident.

Three-year-old Ricky is in agony.

A piece of wire from an old fence post

is imbedded in his chest.

Ricky tumbled down the steep sides of the quarry

when he was out with his dad.

Can I just pop a little, a little scratch in your arm

so we can get your some medicine and stop that tummy hurting?

Yeah? Can I do all that for you?

Your daddy's here. You going to be brave for us?

-Yeah, he is.

-Good lad.

All I'm going to do is, Dad, is just pop

like a drip, and then we can give him some fluid,

or some morphine or whatever just to help his pain.

Open your eyes for me, Ricky.

-Hello.

-Look at him.

Are you going to have a little ride with your daddy

-in this helicopter with us?

-Yeah.

Yeah? Take you with your dad, eh?

His arms are tiny, but they need to give Ricky

pain-relieving morphine before they move him.

-Hold onto Daddy's hand.

-Squeeze it.

Little sharp scratch now.

And good boy. Nice and still for me.

Good boy. Well done, Ricky. Well done. Are you all right?

Lee is worried the wire could have damaged internal organs.

It's gone right into his chest.

Well done, Ricky. What's hurting you, Ricky?

-Tell me.

-Tell us where it's hurting.

Tell me what's hurting you.

This down there.

Normally, to get a patient up a steep bank,

the paramedics would wait for backup.

But because Ricky is so tiny,

they think they can lift him themselves.

Sammy's making a makeshift hoist.

Ricky, Ricky, we're all finished now.

-No more sharp scratches.

-That's it now.

But what I'm going to do is give you some medicine

to make that pain go away a bit, eh?

-Is that all right?

-Yes.

Good lad. And then we'll slide you up this bank here.

-So 1.4 to...

-1.4 to 2.9.

The morphine dose is critical in small children,

and Dad is with him for support.

The ropes aiding Ricky's escape from the slope

are normally used

to hold down the Helimed's rotor blades in high winds.

Paramedics in the field often have to improvise.

Ricky, you're going on like a little sled.

-Have you been on a sled in snow before?

-Yeah.

Yeah? We'll put you on one of them

and we'll get you up out of the way, eh?

You're going in my helicopter with your dad.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, you'll be able to tell all your mates, will you?

At last,

the fire brigade arrive to help in the rescue.

-Hello, sir?

-You all right?

-We are.

As you can see, there's our three-year-old's predicament.

Ricky's journey to hospital is about to begin.

Paramedic Lee knows he's likely to need surgery.

Good boy, Ricky.

Brilliant job.

Even though he's only three,

Ricky's mad keen on motocross.

He slipped and fell down the quarry side

when he and his dad were on their way to go biking.

There we go, little man.

We'll give you some more of this.

-Some more air.

-You might feel it tickle your nose, OK?

Dad's going to fly with the crew to the trauma unit.

His son's going to need an operation

to get the wire out.

Walking down the slope, that's when I slipped

and, obviously, I let go of him,

because I didn't want to bring him down with me.

He's gone into the side and come off worse than me.

Can I have your little thumb

to put this peg in like that? Yeah?

Despite paramedic Lee's adventure stories,

everyone's concerned about their tiny patient.

Coming up - surgeons operate to remove the spike

from little Ricky's chest.

And the off-duty medics go on a busman's holiday

to an air display.

It's amazing how safe you feel in your car.

But this metal cocoon can turn into a prison in a split second,

and a road accident can change your life.

On a moorland road near Whitby,

Max Moore is trapped in the wreckage of his Fiat

after a head-on crash with a Land Rover.

His wife's already on her way to hospital

with chest injuries, but her husband's in pain

and pinned by his legs.

-How do you feel? OK.

-Aah!

When you look at the wreckage of the car,

his injuries at the moment are relatively minor.

As you can see, the Land Rover, you know,

there's only going to be one winner if you hit one head-on.

Extensive damage to his car, and it's took the bumper

off the Land Rover, so for the moment, you know,

he's in a great deal of pain still

with a fracture to his arm.

But, hopefully, we can get him out soon

and get him on the way to hospital

and just relieve that pain a little bit more.

All right, Max, you just relax.

Don't try and help, because we'll do it all for you.

You just tell us if it hurts anywhere, OK?

Paramedic Tony's examined his patient thoroughly.

His pain suggests he's dislocated his hip,

-but he won't be able to confirm this until Max is freed...

-Aah!

..and that's proving harder than anyone thought.

The bodywork of the Fiat

is continuing to frustrate his rescuers.

I'll go ahead. So we'll go on move then, all right?

Everybody got a bit?

OK, ready, steady, and move.

We're not going anywhere, guys.

Something's wedged, I would suggest there.

Finally, they reach his feet,

but now there's another problem.

Max, deep breaths. Slow it down and deeper.

Max? Open your eyes for me, Max. Max?

That's better.

Hold on, Max. Hold on.

Those short breaths, Max, you're not getting

it into your lungs, so you're not going to benefit.

Deep, slow breaths.

That's great stuff, Max.

-Aah!

-Everybody got a bit then? We're going up about six inch.

-Ready, steady, move.

-Aah!

Great stuff.

At last,

Max is removed from his car.

The team know dislocations can cause internal bleeding,

and they need to be careful.

OK, I'm ready whenever you guys are ready.

Ready, steady, and move then. Nice and steady.

Yeah, yeah. It's on the top end.

Max is in pain,

but he can't stop thinking about his wife.

Is my wife all right?

Yeah, she's already gone.

She'll be well on her way to hospital now.

Doctors at the James Cook Hospital

at Middlesbrough have already been alerted to Max's arrival.

They'll know he'll probably need surgery.

Max has got some obvious lacerations,

but we're more concerned about any possible internal injuries.

He has been complaining of pain throughout his pelvic area,

so if he has got a fractured pelvis,

that can bleed quite significantly, internally.

He's also been complaining of pain down his right leg,

so, again, the big bone in his leg is his femur.

If that was fractured and to bleed internally,

then he could have a lot of blood loss.

His blood pressure's fine at the moment,

so we're not going to give him any fluids,

but we've got it set up just in case.

If he suddenly drops his blood pressure

significantly, then we can give him fluids.

It's all ready to go.

As usual, we treat for the worst-case scenario

and hope for the best.

Max will soon be in an operating theatre,

the first of three

surgical procedures he'll need.

Your good lady

will be in here, I'm sure.

He's been lucky to survive, and a week later,

he's recovering in a normal ward

with clear memories of his ordeal.

You think, you know,

I've been on that road hundreds of times before

in the past taking our children on holidays

to Whitby and to Scarborough,

and you always think that it's OK.

On this occasion, it wasn't.

But thank goodness, at the end of it,

I'm still alive and here to tell the story.

But it's through these wonderful people,

that they are the ones that have kept me alive.

Max is confined to bed for almost three months.

It means there's an important person missing

from Red House School.

He's the chef, and the kids are missing the man

behind their favourite menu.

But today they have a visitor.

Hey!

Good to see you all!

Hey! And you've all grown!

It's not for nothing Max is popular here.

Max always makes us laugh,

and he knows every single person

in the school's name.

And every year, we have a favourites day,

and each year group chooses their favourite meal,

and Max will then cook it.

A dislocated hip,

a broken right arm, and other injuries

mean Max is still in pain, despite the brave face,

and he still can't drive.

I'm not done and dusted yet.

I intend to get back to work.

And I would hope that it will be this year,

but, obviously, I'm in the hands of the hospital consultants.

Coming up -

little Ricky's mum and dad wait for news from the doctors.

Everyone loves some time off,

but it's amazing how often a weekend's relaxation

can end in a trip to A&E.

This is the Helimed team's idea of a good weekend.

He's got his AA sunglasses on.

Today, they're on a busman's holiday

to an air show.

RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire

stages one of the UK's biggest displays.

Plane-spotting doesn't strike me as the most hazardous hobby,

but you'd be surprised how an innocent pastime

can leave you in pain.

The most popular hobby in the UK is gardening.

We spend hours pruning, weeding,

mowing, and planting.

It's also the hobby that lands 87,000 people a year

in hospital A&E departments.

Help is requested by an ambulance to be on the scene

with a gentleman, we think he's fallen,

and snapped his upper leg, his femur.

Just had control on.

Apparently there is a field behind the ambulance,

and they've secured any livestock. Over.

Helimed 99 is looking for somewhere to land

in the picturesque village of Sawdon, near Scarborough.

There's been a gardening accident.

It's a big garden -

big enough to land a helicopter in.

-You all right?

-Ralph Fieldhouse has fallen while mowing the lawn.

He's really tensing up and he's screaming out

when we try and move him, aren't you, Ralph?

You're not happy with what we've given you so far?

He's landed awkwardly and has broken his leg.

So pain-wise, so we know how much pain you're in,

if you had to score it, nought being no pain at all,

ten worse you could imagine, what are you saying it is

-at the minute?

-Uh, probably 9/10,

-and an experience.

-So I would say

that you're still hurting a bit then.

The air ambulance carries the most powerful painkiller

a paramedic can deliver.

Lee prepares the morphine.

What we do, how we go on with morphine is w give you

a bit at a time until we get on top of your pain, all right?

So we'll give you a bit, see how we go

after a few minutes, a bit more if you need it,

rather than giving it all at once,

cos it sometimes makes you feel a bit sick.

Ralph has got himself wedged in an awkward place,

between his apple tree and beech hedge.

Moving him is going to be tricky and painful.

Just going to give him a bit more pain relief.

I mean, people vary on how they take pain relief.

It sometimes takes a little. It sometimes takes quite a bit.

So, this guy's had his first dose,

which has helped him, but it's not got him totally pain free,

so we're just going to give him a bit more.

-Yeah?

-Put your hands together, mate,

and make sure you keep them in, because if you put them out,

it sort of unbalances a bit.

It's not surprising Ralph is in such pain.

He has a history of leg and hip injuries.

He has five breaks below the knee,

and he's got a...

replacement knee and a replacement hip.

He had just gone round the corner and slipped.

Oh, my!

-He was wearing those stupid clogs.

-Oh.

So do you feel like your knee gave way,

or did you just trip?

-I-I slipped and then...

-You slipped.

-..and then my ankle went underneath.

-Right.

I see, it's only five minutes down to Scarborough.

The most common gardening accident

has nothing to do with a mower,

not even a hedge trimmer.

More than 115,000 gardeners

take a tumble every year.

But very few are lucky enough

to get the full Helimed treatment to the door

at their local Accident and Emergency department.

Back at the air show, the medics can relax,

but they know that the chances are

someone somewhere will need their air ambulance today,

and the two colleagues missing out on the display.

Unfortunately, we see the aftermath of, you know,

when good times go bad, really,

but you don't have to be going at 200 miles an hour

and flying upside down to have an accident.

32 nations,

736 players,

four years of anticipation.

The 2010 World Cup is in full swing,

and for many, it's a chance to leave work early.

Fans are gathering in city squares across the country

to see the action on big screens

and shops have done a roaring trade on memorabilia.

It's also inspired many amateur Wayne Rooneys

to have a kick around in the back garden.

Today's football victim

isn't on a pitch.

He's in his back garden, and a helicopter

is hovering above looking for somewhere to land.

The accident has happened on an estate in Yeadon,

a mile away from the helicopter pad.

He fell off the roof, fell off the shed roof up here

trying to get the football for a little boy.

Getting married in two and a half weeks.

Putting a twin jet-engined air ambulance down

in the middle of a housing estate

isn't an everyday occurrence, but pilot Chris Attrill

has spotted a handy helicopter-sized patch of grass.

-If I put you into that green field in at 4 o'clock...

-Yep.

You should be able to get through the back gate.

Richard Harrison has fallen off the roof of his garden shed

while retrieving a football.

God, that's the fastest I've run in years!

-Oh!

-We're getting married in two weeks.

As well as the cushion to support Richard's head,

step-daughter Evie has all the details.

What happened was, um, they were...

Oscar and my step-dad were playing football,

and it went over there,

so then Richard climbed up and onto the shed,

because he thought it was up there.

Then I was just in the kitchen, and he just...

slid down and I just saw my mum panicking,

so I went over to her and she said,

"Just get me the phone," so I went and got the phone,

and now you've all come, and he's broken...

Well, something's happened to his foot and elbow.

It seems like a simple accident, but it's not.

The ground paramedics who arrived first

noticed that Richard's toes were going white.

The break in his leg had cut off

the blood supply to his foot.

If paramedic Pete Vallance doesn't straighten it right now

and get the blood flowing again, he could lose it.

That's it, bud, hold on.

Keep going. Go on, nice deep breaths. Go on.

Richard's on the gas and air, but it's still going to hurt

when two of the air ambulance's beefiest paramedics

combine muscle power and skill to try and get

this misshapen foot back into the right line.

See, look. He's fine.

Everyone is feeling the pain,

but no one quite as much as Richard.

Despite a lot of effort,

there's still no pulse in the foot.

Pete's decided it's worth another go.

-Just have one last pull.

-Go on, go on.

Five good ones, Go on, mate.

After some strenuous manipulation,

it's worked.

Getting a little bit of colour back in your foot now.

When the bone's misplaced, it can cut off the circulation,

which is not good for the long-term effects on the foot.

So we've managed to do that. He's got nice pink toes now.

So we're happy and get him loaded on, and we'll fly him to LGI.

Richard's in enough trouble with his foot,

but there's more grief to come.

As he's loaded into the helicopter

for his journey on to hospital,

his partner reminds him that he has a date

at the registry office in a couple of weeks time.

Well, if we get there.

Will Richard make his big day,

or will his foot fall

stop the wedding plans in their tracks?

Two weeks later,

one day after his wedding day,

and Richard's still in hospital.

Me toes, me foot and me ankle were all smashed.

But again, hopefully, they've put the pins

and the plate in.

That should stay in forever, and I won't have

to come back and have them take it out,

so it's been quite lucky in that respect,

that I won't have to come back and have another operation.

Apart from a touch of the sun and some temporary deafness,

there's not much danger at the air show today,

and pilot Tim Taylor

likes to keep things in perspective.

It's important to have a holiday.

You're just as likely to have an accident at home,

you know, watching telly and doing nothing,

so it's important you don't let accidents

affect your frame of mind

and you just crack on with what you enjoy.

But if you're young, even the most ordinary day out

could land you in A&E.

Brimham Rocks near Harrogate

must be one of the UK's weirdest tourist attractions.

An extraordinary collection of boulders

weathered into bizarre shapes

by thousands of years of wind and rain.

It's a great place for a day out, but today,

there's been a nasty accident,

and Helimed 99 is being scrambled.

Reports of a nine-year-old that's fallen 50 feet.

The land crew are with him.

I don't know about his condition yet,

but obviously very concerned about falling 50 feet.

Ground paramedics are looking after nine-year-old Ryan Morgan,

a key member of the Boys Brigade.

-Hello.

-Back of the ambulance.

Is he in the back now? Great, thank you very much.

Are you a relative?

-He's with you?

-Yeah.

OK, then. Thank you.

He was on the rocks with his mates from Rochdale

when the accident happened.

No worry for a weekend at glass houses

on our annual camp.

They were climbing,

because that's what we've come to do,

with the two adults up there with them,

and Ryan had been told not to jump,

and he foolishly decided that he could manage the gap,

which he failed to do.

Yeah, it's a weekend away for the lads to enjoy.

We were canoeing this morning and stuff like that.

We were climbing rocks, and then...

Ryan was leaping from one boulder to another

when he fell, hitting several rocks on the way down.

His head hurts, but it looks like he's been very lucky.

-Can you give me a pain scale?

-Nine.

-Nine out of ten for his head.

-You need to stay awake, don't you, darling?

Shall we give him some Calpol?

-Do you want to come for a ride in my helicopter?

-Yeah.

-All right, then that's what we'll do.

-Can I come?

-Are you eight or nine, Ryan?

-He's nine.

Oh, definitely nine. Great boy.

Holiday-maker Brian Harris,

a fire-fighter out for the day with his son Jake,

helped care for Ryan.

Well, I heard somebody shout, "Oh, there's a lad fell

"from the top and fell in the ravine."

The two rocks join together,

so he tried to step from one to the other,

and fell down the crack, the crevice in between.

Right, you're going down, Neil.

Brimham Rocks are only a few miles from Harrogate

and its A&E unit.

-That's where Ryan is heading now.

-Open your mouth.

Last little bit, lad.

The rocks are owned by The National Trust,

and every year, an unlucky few visitors

end up with an unexpected aerial view of the attraction.

Paramedic Sammy was right to be cautious

about Ryan's case.

A few weeks later,

he's back home in Rochdale,

but he's been very lucky considering his injury.

I feel really lucky,

because some people could have died when they fell.

I fractured my skull

and cut all my back.

All my friends were on the rock next to me,

and I tried to jump across

to the one where all my friends were,

and I buckled on the other side and fell back.

And, when I hit one of the rocks,

I slid down halfway.

I feel happy that I survived

and just glad that I got out of...

got out of hospital quickly.

Now here's a sport

that you don't see that much of - lacrosse.

It may have a gentile image, but read the rules,

and you'll see that body-and-stick contact

is permitted.

That's why they need protective gear.

Yeah, all right!

How are you doing? This is George.

-18-year-old.

-OK.

He's been involved in a crunching tackle

whereby he felt his forehead has gone

-right down to his chest.

-Right.

18-year-old George Ievers

plays for Sheffield Steelers lacrosse team.

-He says he thinks he remembers what happened.

-His dad is the team's coach.

Final of the Yorkshire Shield Lacrosse Tournament.

George here got hit

by two of the Leeds players.

Crunch, and a bit of whiplash back.

-He got knocked out.

-George has come round.

He sounds groggy, but manages to explain

to air ambulance doctor Alison Walker

where the injury is.

-Hi. How you doing? What is your name?

-George.

George. How are you feeling, George?

-Sore in the back of the neck.

-Sore in the back of your neck?

Is it the bottom of your neck and the top of your back?

-Is that where it's sore?

-She's worried that he may have damaged his spine.

-Yeah, OK, any numbness or tingling anywhere?

-No.

You can wriggle your feet for me OK, can you?

Wiggle your fingers? Fabulous.

This is the news Dr Alison was looking for.

We've examined him, and he's got

normal feeling in his hands. He's got normal power

in his limbs, which is a very good sign.

Hopefully there isn't any significant injury.

The important thing now is to keep his neck

in the neutral position, and to safely move him somewhere

that they can do some further investigation, such as X-rays,

-to exclude any kind of injury.

-George is in great pain.

Paramedic Sammy Wills has the answer.

This is morphine.

All I'm doing is diluting it to make it easier to give,

and that'll give George a bit more pain relief.

He's not very comfortable as he is at the moment.

The medics are not taking any chances.

George is going to hospital to have his neck

thoroughly checked out.

He may be leaving the field of play injured

and on a stretcher, but he's still awarded

the Yorkshire Shield Player of the Tournament trophy.

And I'm pleased to say all our victims of weekend mishaps

are on the road to recovery.

But that's not the case with all the teams' patients.

Three-year-old Ricky fell down the side of a quarry

and impaled himself on a fence post.

A wire sticking out from it has got imbedded in his chest.

He's fell into his side into trees,

onto a post and wire off the post

gone into him and got stuck under his ribs.

As the crew leave the quarry for hospital,

it all goes very quiet.

Dad is understandably worried.

He's gone quite quiet, but he's had

that morphine from me, so that's just to get rid

of that pain, so we could get him in up here and back.

-All right?

-Yeah.

Helimed 98...

As they land on the rooftop helipad,

the trauma team below prepare to X-ray Ricky

to find out the wire's path through his body

and assess any damage.

It was difficult for the land crews

and ourselves, and Ricky was in so much pain

when we arrived down there, because, obviously, he'd got

this wire that penetrated via his ribcage as well,

so we had to get him settled off with some pain relief

before we could think of trying to get ourselves out of there

and stay on his own feet at the same time, really.

He did look a little bit Heath Robinson,

but what you've got to remember is that in a child

of three years old, it's extremely dangerous

for anything to be piercing into their abdomen,

or the chest area, so we wanted to get Ricky out of there

as soon as we possibly could to have a really good look at him

and get him through to LGI here.

After his X-rays,

Ricky was prepared for the operating theatre.

The surgeons worked on him that night,

and the next day, he was home.

Let's go on then. Come on. Let's go.

-OK.

-Ricky is still pursuing

a life of fun and adventure with his dad.

The quarry is currently out of bounds.

The front room is a safer playground.

It went in there just under his ribcage,

but it had, like, a knock on it, so it went

like that and a piece of wire about that long,

so it must have gone in, and then it was stuck up here.

But the piece of wood were up here. They cut it about here.

We were in the hospital and waited for ten hours.

Just strapped his back there.

But you can't take the biker out of this boy.

Mum and Dad are amazed.

Woke up about 7 o'clock in the morning.

-Just normal, really, as though nothing's happened.

-Nothing had happened, yeah.

Within an hour of being home, he was out playing on his bike.

He's been normal ever since.

Ooh!

When I first saw it, I just thought

his internal organs...

-That's what I thought.

-His lungs are around that area.

Just anything. I don't know how far it had gone across or anything.

-The hole there was like that.

-Mm-hmm.

I could more or less see into him,

-which wasn't a very good sight.

-Can I have your little thumb

-to put this peg in like that?

-The day of Ricky's big adventure

is not one that mum and dad will ever forget.

And the family have nothing but praise

for all the emergency services

-that turned out to help.

-They kept me calm, and they kept our Ricky...

Well, they were calm anyway, they kept calm.

They kept talking with him. They did a brilliant job.

Air ambulance, paramedics, and fire crew.

Even the operator I phoned up,

she was good, and the man who phoned me back,

he were an operator - they were all excellent.

Mum quite likes the idea of Ricky being restricted

to playground slides.

But both he and dad still have plans

for bigger thrills.

It's in my blood sort of thing. Me dad had motorbikes.

I've always had motorbikes.

My 13-year-old son's always had motorbikes,

and it's natural to me.

He's been around them all the time,

the noise and everything, he's just been round them,

and he obviously wanted to copy his big brother.