Episode 2 Helicopter Heroes

If you're seriously ill or critically injured up here,

your life is in real danger.

Complaining of severe pain.

Mid-thirties, been ejected from a vehicle.

Hospital's an hour away by road

and speed is the only thing that can save you.

Roger, Helimed 99 is en route. Over.

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance and its highly trained paramedics

are scrambled a thousand times a year.

'Tell me exactly what's happened.'

'A small child was on the path. A wagon's cut the corner and run over him.'

Many of its ex-military pilots flew the SAS into action.

That's not a suitable landing site. This one here is.

Welcome to the life and death world of the helicopter heroes.

Today on Helicopter Heroes:

He's one of the world's best riders,

but he's about to come a cropper.

Can the Helimed team save him?

'Underneath the rock face, just to the right.'

The day a French motorist took to Britain's roads

with painful consequences.

Potential spinal injuries with the force of the accident.

A heat wave adds to the team's case-load.

Jumped off the bridge in shallow water.

About six beers.

A boy's knocked down by a bus

and this landing will require all of pilot Tim's skills.

'Two lampposts but we're clear.'

The more rugged the landscape, the more important air ambulances are.

Those are the Yorkshire Dales and it's no wonder the Helimed teams

spend an awful lot of time over there.

100 cases last year.

In the world of extreme sports,

Chris Akrigg is a legend on two wheels.

Six times national trial bike champion,

and at 33, this is what he does for a living.

Scaling impossible terrain with a combination of muscle power

and a superhuman sense of balance.

Today he's tackling the rocks of the Yorkshire Dales, on film as usual.

But his next trick will be a challenge, even for him.

First, it goes wrong.

And again.

And then this happens.

Ambulance!

We've had reports that someone's fallen approximately 40 ft.

We're not sure of the extent to the injuries as yet.

But obviously if they've fallen 40 ft, there's potential...

Mountain rescue are also en route to it

so I'm guessing that this is going to be

a quite difficult area to access.

I've come down a hell of a long way.

It's not good.

Chris is lying near two rocky outcrops

known locally as the Salt and Pepper Pots.

The steep cliff face is in the shade,

making it difficult to spot the patient.

Got him, yeah.

Underneath the rock face,

just to the right of him.

Yep, straight down now.

OK. What are you thinking? Top or bottom?

Er...

Down the pass somewhere.

Pilot Steve Cobb must land at the top of the cliff.

It's the closest he can get to Chris.

99 on the ground, over.

Is there a path this way?

Not really.

Often eyewitnesses overestimate the height of falls

when calling the emergency services,

but Chris's plunge was easily enough to have killed him.

Now then.

What happened?

I just went down, pretty much in a skydiving position,

landed somewhere here.

-From up there?

-Yep.

-On that?

-Not on my bike, no.

I sort of landed and rolled down the grass.

But you were on the bike when you were at the top?

I rolled in the grass, I didn't realise that was just there.

I knew it were there, but not that close, it was a bit of a...

Take this pack of my back, mate.

This cliff up here, sort of jumping the gap

and then the next thing I know, he was coming down that

and landed pretty hard on his head

and shattered all his helmet.

Darren can see immediately that Chris's leg is broken.

A fall from this height

means he may have other even more serious injuries.

He's actually come down there

which is quite extreme cycling, looking at that.

Apparently he didn't actually see the drop

prior to getting to the edge there

so it's going to be quite an effort getting him down from this location.

OK, mate. Take a deep breath for me.

Did that give you any pain? Any pain here in your ribs or...?

-No, fine.

-No pain in your chest? None at all?

Just your wrist and your arm, is that what you're telling me?

-Yeah, I think my wrist got a bit...

-Can you wiggle your fingers?

-Can you do that with your wrist?

-It's pretty sore.

Wiggle your toes for me.

-Is there padding in front of those jeans?

-No.

Chris's leg is swelling up.

His femur, the biggest bone in the body, is shattered.

Daz, Pete, traction splint, please. Over.

Darren fears fragments of bone have punctured blood vessels.

If so, he could bleed to death internally.

Chris urgently needs to be in hospital.

Tourism is big business in Yorkshire.

Foreign visitors spend nearly £500 million a year here.

And half come to head out into the countryside.

But that can bring unexpected consequences for the locals.

It's a Sunday afternoon

at the Helimed team's North Yorkshire airbase

and paramedics James Vine and Al Day are in a hurry.

On a country lane just ten miles away, a biker's been badly hurt.

The reports are that the motor cyclist has had

a fairly significant impact, gone over the roof.

This is Heartbeat country

where the TV copper of the '60s patrolled idyllic villages

and even today the emergency services are thin on the ground.

'Yeah, Roger on that, 99.

'Just to let you know, we've also called a doctor,

'so if you get there and you don't need doctor or crew,

'could you let me know?'

Will do, Chris.

Helimed 99 will be the first help the biker gets.

You're clear left, no wires.

Right, guys. I can drop you on the road and then move away.

Reaching their patient is a challenge.

Pilot Chris must land on the road where the accident's happened.

But he'll have to park somewhere else.

Leaving three tonnes of chopper in the lane

will prevent ground ambulances getting to the scene.

Take everything you need with you,

and then I'll go and reposition somewhere. All right?

OK, good to go, guys.

OK, disconnecting.

Allen Keenahan was out for a ride on his high-powered bike.

He hit the car head on and was catapulted over the roof.

Allen's arms are badly broken.

But Al fears more serious injuries are yet to be detected.

This chap's been on his bike

coming round this corner

on this de-restricted road at about 60 miles an hour

and has hit a car and gone over the top of the car.

The cyclist might have broken his arms

but other than that he seems OK at the moment.

So he's probably had a fairly lucky escape

but we're going to have to treat him

for potential spinal injuries with the force of the accident.

The rider's helmet did this to the car's windscreen.

It's a miracle he survived.

The cause of the accident is a mystery.

The car appears to have been on the wrong side of the road.

You're on the wrong side.

From where we are, we saw him coming in

and I just stopped because I couldn't do anything else...

The nationality of the driver was a factor.

He's French and forgot to drive his hire car on the left.

The bike's on the right side of the road,

and the car's on the wrong side of the road.

Both arms have gone through, I think.

Slowed himself down through the windscreen.

It's amazing.

The French motorist, who'd been visiting his niece

at a nearby public school, is shocked.

He's from Paris and wasn't used to the winding lanes

of the British countryside.

That's little consolation to Alan. He's a self-employed builder

and his injuries are likely to mean months off work.

He was fine actually straightaway.

He was conscious so he was able to chat and explain where it hurt

and stuff like that.

But, I mean, we just kept him comfortable.

That's the best way to deal with it really.

Flying doctor Rob Anderson was at home nearby

when his bleep went off.

Thanks to his skills, A&E has just come to Allen.

You'd expect anyone not wearing the appropriate kit to be...

to not survive this sort of impact.

It's amazing.

But Doctor Rob knows some life-threatening injuries

are impossible to diagnose at the roadside.

Until Allen's safely in hospital,

there's a risk his life could still be in danger.

Everyone likes a day off in the sun

and as temperatures rise many of us head for water.

But a reckless few tend to take risks

that make them patients for the Helimed team.

On a hot day, the chilly waters of the River Warfe are tempting,

especially for the young and the brave.

Several teenagers have died tombstoning here

despite warnings from the police.

It isn't a safe place to jump. It's as simple as that.

If you're lucky, you'll hit the deep section,

but if you're unlucky, you'll hit something shallow.

And today Helimed 98 is on its way to another casualty of the heatwave.

What they've said is he's got a query fractured ankle,

query jumping off a bridge.

The accident has happened in the spa town of Ilkley.

So it's about a K past there.

The bridge is there.

The banks of the River Wharfe

are crowded with people enjoying the sun.

Pilot Steve can't risk a landing close to the patient.

Helimed 99 to air desk, we're now on the ground, over.

Hello, ladies.

Matt Crooks is 20 and he's had a drink. Or two.

He's jumped 20 ft into what he thought was deep water. It wasn't.

His mates dragged him from the river.

He said he'd hurt his foot. I helped him out and he can't walk.

-This is his friend.

-Hello, friend.

Can I just swap places with you? Just for two minutes.

Matthew?

-I'm called Sammy, I'm one of the paramedics, OK, mate?

-Yeah.

-Can you remember what happened?

-Yeah.

Cos you've hurt both your legs

and your back's hurting,

what we'd like to do is lay you on this board, all right?

Then we can take you and get them sorted.

Matt's mum and aunt have come down to the river.

They're understandably worried.

You're not allergic to anything, are you?

Try not to nod or shake your head, just say yes or no.

As far as I know, he's just jumped off that bridge in shallow water.

All over the North, young people are taking risks in the water.

Matt's one of the few whose moment's miscalculation

may have lifelong consequences.

-Try and relax.

-Just take a big breath for me.

-Does that cause any pain at all?

-Yeah.

Watch his legs.

Going to give you some more pain relief in due course.

They want to protect Matt's neck and spine.

This medical manoeuvre is called the logroll.

Ready, steady, roll.

It keeps the spine in line and prevents it being damaged.

Well done, Matt. Well done, Matt. We've got you now.

-Gently down.

-Good lad, Matt.

Well done. Let's have this arm down, lad.

Doctor Simon Ward knows the circumstances of the accident,

what medics call the mechanism of injury,

are highly likely to lead to spinal injuries.

Looks like he's injured both of his heel bones, the calcanium,

which is quite a common injury when you land on your feet from a height.

That's resulted in a shock going up his legs into his spine

and he's complaining of back pain.

Dr Simon wants to reduce Matt's pain before they move him.

Ketamine is a powerful drug that kills pain

and gives patients temporary amnesia.

We need to use some further analgesia, some ketamine,

if his pain doesn't settle. But we're doing other things first

like splinting the limbs to make sure that everything's held

nice and firmly for the transfer.

Can you score for me out of ten? If 10 is the worst pain imaginable

and zero is none, what number are you at now?

It's a nine, without any doubt, it's a nine.

A nine. Have some more then, mate.

How much alcohol have you had today?

-How much what?

-Alcohol. Not that much to tell you...

-Just give me a clue.

-About six beers.

Keep breathing. You've got some morphine inside you.

The alcohol will be doing a bit of a trick as well.

We called air ambulance basically because of where we are.

We thought if he has got that amount of injury,

he needs carrying up on a spinal board up to the main road,

a rough road journey into hospital.

It would be far better and far faster,

if we could get him in by the air ambulance.

Right then. That noise you can hear,

is the helicopter just coming a bit closer, OK?

See you at hospital.

We'll lift you up into the helicopter

and then we'll be flying just for a few minutes.

We'll be sat right at the side of the you.

Lots of people here today, a nice day, couldn't get down to the river.

There's space here but lots of people around

so we landed in a rugby field

and then got the area cleared by the police to make it easier

for the land crew to actually get to the aircraft.

The patient's on his way to Leeds General Infirmary

where doctors are waiting to examine his spine.

He'll be subjected to X-rays and a scan.

But despite the height of his fall and his pain,

it turns out he has no significant injuries.

Now, let's return to the rescue

of one of the UK's top mountain bikers in the Dales.

Chris Akrigg is lucky to be alive after surviving

this 40ft fall down a cliff face.

His thigh bone is shattered

but paramedic Darren Axe is amazed that it appears to be

his most serious injury.

I bet that were one hell of a wild ride coming down there.

Not too bad, actually.

-I think you're lucky to be alive to tell you the truth.

-Really?

Yes.

Darren fears Chris is bleeding internally.

Straightening his broken leg is the next priority.

It will reduce damage to blood vessels and nerves.

So what we're are going to do, Chris, is slide a little bar

up between your legs and it's going to sit in your groin.

I think it's mainly at the bottom end.

Right, we're going to have to put some traction on to this, mate, all right?

What are you like now? OK.

Pete, I've got traction onto his knee.

Having a traction splint is usually agonising for the patient.

But not for this one.

It's very surreal.

It don't matter, if you're not feeling it,

that's all that matters to us, mate.

Chris appears to be immune to pain.

I know you've got to do your thing so I'll just keep quiet.

If we're doing anything that causes you an increase in pain,

-tell us straightaway, all right?

-Yeah.

Paramedic Pete has been in the ambulance service for thirty years

and even he is surprised

with Chris's ability to deal with the pain.

-How are you doing a pain wise?

-Not too bad.

Tell you something, you're not mardy, are you?

-I'm what?

-I said, you're not mardy.

You act like a lion, mate.

Darren fears he may be showing off.

Being brave doesn't get you any medals, mate.

If it hurts, tell me, I'll give you some more for it, OK?

You've only had a quarter of the dose you should have had.

He's in good spirits and it appears to be an isolated injury,

which, looking at this again, is very lucky

so we're just waiting on mountain rescue now to get all the staff here

and then we'll be taking him down to the waiting ambulance.

Prepare to lift. Brace. Lift.

Feeding it through.

Chris's route off the fell is in the safe hands of the rescue team.

It's the beginning of a journey to the local hospital,

where the doctors will discover the severity of his injuries.

Their diagnosis will change his life.

Coming up...Chris has cheated death, thanks to a simple precaution.

He was wearing a helmet, which has been destroyed by the fall,

but he's not sustained a head injury.

But will he ride again?

Remember the biker whose collision with a French tourist's hire car

left him badly injured?

He's about to take off for hospital.

The market town of Helmsley's a popular coffee stop

for the North's bikers,

but today one rider's journey has ended five miles short of his destination.

Alan Keenahan hit the car's windscreen with his head

and was catapulted over the roof.

Very lucky just to come away with two broken arms, I think.

His head's certainly gone through the windscreen, hasn't it? It's outrageous.

-How are you feeling now, Alan?

-Just my arms hurt.

Bikers love the winding lanes of Ryedale

and accidents involving them are far from rare here.

There was one up there about three months ago. It's like a death trap, this bit of road.

It was a gritter first and then the car came through.

It's a really dangerous piece of road.

Alan's been given the most powerful pain killer in the paramedics' armoury.

Do you want a bit more morphine? Or do you want to see how you get on?

Let's see how you get on for a few minutes.

When we get to the aircraft, we'll talk about it again.

Getting Alan to hospital means moving Helimed 99 again.

Once again, Chris is turning the road into a helipad.

-How are you feeling now?

-Yeah...

-How's that pain? Has it eased off a bit?

-It has a little bit.

Yeah, that's probably the morphine. Do you feel a bit warm and fuzzy?

No, not really, no.

Alan needs to be flown to the A&E unit at York.

It's 20 miles away, but it's less than a mile from his home.

Here we go.

You're clear left. And above.

James thinks he knows why Alan has been so lucky.

Modern biking equipment isn't cheap, but it works.

The fact that the gentleman went through the windscreen

and the helmet he was wearing was a very high-quality helmet certainly saved his life,

there's no question.

You get what you pay for when you buy equipment like that.

Alan will soon be undergoing surgery.

His arms are badly broken from the impact with the windscreen

and then the road.

He spends more than a week in York Hospital, recovering from his injuries.

I remember it all. I remember the noise. A big crunching noise. I remember tumbling.

And then being on the floor, but not knowing where I was

till I looked over and saw the back of the car.

It seemed like seconds before there were other people with me

and I looked down beside me.

Alan knows the French driver's mistake could have killed him,

but he accepts the visitor didn't intend to cause an accident.

They'd gone through some twisting bends and ended up on the other side of the road.

Because there was no other traffic, it didn't alert them they were on the wrong side

until they've come around the corner straight into me.

Air ambulances are life-savers for millions of people living in the countryside.

But they can also come to the rescue of some patients badly injured in the big cities as well.

The two Yorkshire air ambulances cover more than five million people

and around three out of four of them live in an urban area.

They may live only minutes by road from an A&E,

but, sometimes, a helicopter and its crew still turn out to be life-savers.

Tall buildings, street lights and television aerials are all lethal obstacles for helicopters.

And looking out for them is the top priority for the whole Helimed team.

But, thanks to skilled crew members, pilots effectively have eyes in the back of their heads.

Today, a young boy has been hit by a bus,

right in the middle of a tightly packed housing estate.

We're going to an RTC involving a five-year-old child.

The response on the scene at the moment says this patient is in a consciousness.

But first they have to find him, somewhere on the sprawling estate below.

It should be just round here.

There's that roundabout, and if you go bank round in a circle, that's where the grid's going.

The helicopters are kitted out with the latest satellite navigation equipment,

but, sometimes, even the crew of a £3 million helicopter need to go back to basics.

OK. You've got A-Zs behind you.

Don't know whether you want to see if that gets you a better idea.

But, even more basic than that, these pilots all have pin-sharp eyesight.

-I've got a visual.

-You've got it?

-Yes.

The obvious space is that little triangle but people are walking there.

-I'll change that. We'll go for the car park with the green bin.

-Yeah, I've got it.

No, because there's lots...

Er... Where them people are, in the triangle, they would have walked past.

-You'll have to whip your door open.

-Let me know when.

Yeah. You can do it now.

Opening the door is risky. But they need an uninterrupted view.

There's a stanchion this side of it. Bus shelter to the left.

-On that green paddy in the middle?

-Yes.

-Are we all right on the left?

-We are, yeah.

-We've just got two lamp-posts but we're clear.

-Clear, right.

Between the flats and the parked cars, a tiny triangle of grass is about to become a helipad.

Clear my side.

He's just cycled straight out in front of the bus, allegedly ten to 15 miles an hour.

Paramedic Paul Bradbury is worried about his patient.

A five-year-old male, been hit by a bus.

Initial injuries, he's got a head injury. GCS 14. He's drifting in and out of consciousness.

Five-year old Cain has a serious head injury after cycling out in front of a bus.

Ready, steady, lift.

Sometimes, it's best to give the patient treatment on the roadside. But this isn't one of those times.

Can you lift your arms up for me?

Cain, lift your arms...

They know Cain needs to get straight to the children's hospital.

It's what paramedics call "scoop and run".

-One, two, three.

-See you later, Cain.

-Have a nice ride in that helicopter.

-See you later, Cainy.

Now it's back down to Tim.

Getting into a tight spot like this is one thing.

Safely getting back out will test all his skills.

The crew, together with Cain and his mum, are in hospital in minutes.

And just a few weeks later he's back on his bike -

with extra-special thanks for the helicopter crew

and the landing they managed to pull off.

Bradford's a city where open space is in short supply.

And getting anywhere fast is a struggle for ambulance crews.

Today there's been a major accident and Helimed 99 is on its way to help.

-Down there, mate. Half past 12. Back of t'junction.

-There you go.

There's been a crash on a busy route into the city.

But, a few hundred feet from touchdown, they spot a problem.

The little car park at the side looks the best place.

-Yeah.

-Is that a wire?

Wires are deadly, and difficult to spot.

-We're just coming over t'trees, mate.

-Yep. Three my side.

Clear of t'light stanchions, clear of t'wires my side, mate.

All clear wires, my side. Just the building.

A hire car depot is about to get an unexpected customer.

All clear my side.

And they're down.

The fire brigade are certainly impressed.

Aye, he's not bad, is he?!

-So this guy, any idea on injuries?

-He's got a head injury.

Right.

Are we talking injuries as in lacerations?

The paramedics are ready to start work, but Tim Taylor's job is done.

It's, um, it's exactly the same dimensions

as the helipad that we practise on,

so it was near-perfect landing conditions,

although it does look quite enclosed.

Can you get us a couple of large dressings?

We're going to expose the wound on the head, make sure it's not a head injury and is more lacerations,

just to double check, otherwise he'll go by land.

The motorist suffered a head injury, but Dr Andy doesn't know how serious it is.

-Shall we get him out and have a look when we get out?

-Yes.

We're coming out now. Leave them handy, in case.

Obviously, they're just about to extricate these two people from this car.

One of them sustained a head injury.

Dr Pountney's in there, giving him a check over.

I think they're going to make a decision on whether or not

we'll be transporting once they're free and they've managed to expose the wound.

Just watch for the straps underneath that side.

Every time the Helimed team land in a built-up area, they need to make a careful calculation.

Does the patient's medical condition justify the extra risk to his safety

entailed in a risky take-off from a confined site?

In this case, it probably doesn't.

-You feel what?

-Right dry.

-You're going to do.

That's a natural reaction when you've had an accident like this.

Let go of that oxygen mask for me.

Have you any pain round your chest at all, sir?

That might be a bit cold. Deep breath again for me.

-Are your legs all right, sir?

-Yeah.

He's going to hospital for X-rays, but his condition isn't serious enough to justify

the risk of a take-off from this landing site.

He'll go by road.

He had an isolated head injury, but he was fully conscious throughout.

When we looked at the wound on his head,

he has a big flap across the front of his head.

It lifts right up, revealing the skull underneath.

At the moment, he's got a good pulse, good blood pressure. Hopefully, that seems OK.

The hospital's only a minute or two down the road from here

so the land crew are taking him down there.

Inner-city firefighters rarely get to work with the Helimed team,

so today they're keen to find out what an air ambulance can do.

I've seen it close up at the training centre, but at a job, yeah.

-I've seen it on the telly!

-LAUGHTER

There you go!

Just say, "Cat up a tree"!

CHEERING

They'll know next time they have a car-crash victim who needs specialist treatment.

But for the crew of Helimed 99 it's time to return to base.

Taking off from the city demands the same care,

but at least this time Tim knows the hazards.

When the Helimed team touches down in urban areas,

they can come face-to-face with the same problems and dangers

as their colleagues on the ground in our big cities,

and that includes crime.

It's someone been attacked with an axe.

Apparently, they say he's got a bit of a hole in his head.

He's fitting and they've smashed his legs with an iron bar.

It's a winter morning. Paramedics Sammy and Tony know they could soon be facing a man with an axe.

Right guys, quick question.

The people that have obviously done this, are they still there?

The police are there.

You fancy having a word with Dave,

-to see if the crews have been asked to stand off or not?

-Yeah, good point.

The nature of the injuries sound very serious - an axe and a crowbar.

The fact that he's been assaulted. Quite a stressful situation.

We've checked that we're safe to approach.

There have been several calls in for it.

I believe his head is described as having a hole in it.

Knottingley is a town built around its river and canal network.

Its industrial units are tightly packed

and there are few places to land a big, yellow helicopter.

We've got the river down in front of us.

At some point you should see the canal veering off the river.

The site Chris has chosen is a tiny industrial yard right next to the canal.

This side of the road and the bridge, there's a triangular section.

Got a boat this side of it. A car's just passed across the top of it.

-Checking for masts on the boat.

-Boat to the right.

We might get a spot of recirculation here.

Clear to your left. You have got some pallets and stuff next to the wall. Keep an eye on them.

-The boat is blowing away from the mooring, but it is tethered by chain.

-Everything's staying put.

-Should be fairly heavy here.

-Clear left.

-I think your gap is 12 o'clock.

Sammy to Dave. We're on the ground, making our way to the location. Over.

This is a nervous moment. But Sammy and Tony are relieved to find the police are already on scene.

-They've hit him on the back of the head with a metal bar.

-Yep.

He's got a lump and there is an open wound to it.

I've not seen it, because when I got here, police had dressed it.

There's a lot of blood in there. He was unconscious, we don't know how long for.

He has been convulsing.

We've received a report

about half an hour ago of a gentleman being attacked,

with possibly an iron bar and an axe.

We've arrived here

and the gentleman's sat up on the grit bin.

Quite a nasty head injury.

I believe suspects have made off prior to our arrival.

With a head injury like this, urgent specialist treatment is critical.

The crew knows he needs to get straight to the specialist head-injury unit in Leeds.

We're going to be a good ten minutes on scene, cos we're on an industrial estate.

I think we'd say we'd be about 15 minutes, probably 20.

Not only was this a tight landing spot,

the harsh weather can cause problems, too.

On cold days like today, the helicopter's skids can literally freeze to the ground.

-Time's coming for me to have a look behind...

-OK.

-..in case she sticks.

-I felt that!

-Yeah.

Getting out of here will be tricky.

But Chris uses the full force of the twin jet engines

to get away from the masts, factories and bridges as fast as possible.

Got a small tree here.

And there's a light stanchion.

'Just a radio check.'

All looks good my side.

He's got some kind of internal head injury as well as external laceration to the back of his head.

And then to get the salt, as well.

It's not something that normally goes together.

So it's quite a strange job all round, really.

Their patient had serious injuries,

but thanks to the crew's determination to pull off a very tricky urban landing,

he was able to fully recover.

But, despite an extensive police inquiry,

no one was charged with the attack.

The UK's strict aviation laws ban pilots from landing in built-up areas

unless it's a matter of life or death.

So when the Helimed team is called to an urban emergency,

the pressure is really on to get down.

The old mill towns of West Yorkshire

are built into one of England's most undulating landscapes.

Terrace houses cling to hillsides and streets can be 1,000ft higher than the next neighbourhood.

It's a daily problem for Captain Steve Cobb.

-Four minutes to run, Pete.

-All right, mate.

Helimed 98 is heading for Yorkshire's border with Lancashire.

We're off to an area in West Yorkshire called Todmorden.

It's quite a remote area

and the crew out there have attended a home address

and found someone having a heart attack, so they requested

we assist them and get them taken into LGI in, obviously, a much quicker time.

The local land ambulance crew have driven the patient to a park,

where Steve can usually land without a problem.

The town centre landings, it depends where we are and what sort of space we've got.

The minimum we need is twice the rotor diameter of the helicopter.

So if we can find a park, it's usually quite a decent size.

But there's a problem - it's half-term.

I'm not sure if this is school holiday this week. It might still be.

There's always the opportunity of having children and young kids about.

When you said it was reasonably quiet, you'd not seen that playground in the bottom corner!

-Well, it's a...

-It's rammed!

Hundreds of children are playing in the park.

If they can't find a clear area, they may have to abort their landing.

I can see one person, I don't know if they're moving out of the way.

This is going to be a scrum, Pete.

But the crowd clears, giving Helimed 98 the chance to touch down.

-Clear my side.

-All clear, right.

Plenty of room my side. Nobody's approaching us...too close, anyway.

I'm going to step out.

Hey, kids. Stay back onto the path for me, will you?

Thank you.

HE LAUGHS A bit busier than I hoped,

um, but at the moment they're behaving themselves

so, before we take off,

we'll make sure they clear the area for take-off. We should be OK.

The 41-year-old patient is having a heart attack.

Hello there, are you all right?

He's been given drugs by the local ambulance crew,

which will thin his blood.

After getting up at 11 o'clock this morning, he started really nauseous

and at 2 o'clock, he started with a sudden onset of crushing chest pain.

Right.

Spin round to me. Put your bum on here. Your feet are going that way.

I will put the backrest up for you.

-Can just I swap places with you, chicken?

-Yeah.

Heart patients need reassurance and rapid treatment.

His heart muscle is fighting to keep him alive.

But its own blood supply has been restricted by a clot.

OK, mate.

They'll take you in and do a procedure, which will check

if any of your arteries are blocked or closed in any way.

If they are, they'll put them right there and then. Yeah?

The best treatment you can get.

Paramedic Pete's calmness masks his concerns about his patient's heart rhythm.

It's showing worrying signs that he could be about to go into cardiac arrest.

There's no time to waste.

Right, fire away, Cobbster.

A journey that could take an hour by road takes Helimed 98 just 15 minutes.

En route to the LGI.

Whereabouts was the pain in your chest, or where is it?

Bang in the centre.

Is it going anywhere else, down your arms or your throat?

You've had this lump in your throat, anyway, that you're going to have investigated for you.

And, soon, their patient is on the final approach to Leeds General Infirmary.

-How are we doing pain-score-wise?

-All right.

In ten minutes, he'll be undergoing angioplasty,

an operation to clear out the blocked artery in his heart.

A tiny tube, called a stent, will be inserted to keep the vessel open

and, in a few days, he'll be back home in Todmorden.

The perils of turning a high street into a helipad there.

Let's catch up on that case we brought you earlier.

SIREN

In the Yorkshire Dales, an ambulance crew is carrying

one of the luckiest patients ever to fall off a cliff.

Professional mountain biker Chris Akrigg has a badly broken leg.

But he's alive after a fall that could easily have killed him.

His survival has amazed his rescuers.

He's been lucky.

He was wearing a helmet, which has been destroyed by the fall,

but he's not sustained a head injury.

Chris's future is now in the hands of doctors at Airedale Hospital.

This was their patient before his accident.

An athlete whose amazing skills have made him a celebrity

among extreme sports fans the world over.

I knew that my leg was quite severely broken, looking down at my jeans

it was quite tight and I realised it was quite a mess in there.

That had actually been smashed into about five pieces

and I think about a four-inch segment of the bone had been pushed up into my thigh.

One bit had actually pieced the skin, which, obviously, is not cool!

And I looked at my wrist. That didn't look so right.

I wheeled it about a bit and I'd managed to break my radius.

That's been pinned back together. And I've had and a titanium rod put in my thigh

and it's all screwed back together.

The memory of his accident is still clear in his mind.

Basically, I was trying to jump out to another rock

and, as I didn't quite make the gap,

it wasn't a problem, because I was falling back on to the grass.

I didn't realise the grass had such a steep slope,

which led to another crag, that I hadn't actually seen.

So when I'd fallen back, I was rolling around on the grass

and then suddenly I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's there!

"I didn't see that one!" HE LAUGHS

What Chris attempted to do may seem crazy,

but apparently, that day, he didn't consider he was doing anything particularly dangerous.

It wasn't like I was going out trying to better myself

and I was going crazy trying to better myself.

I was actually going the other way, trying to calm things down a little bit

and just go back to my roots a little bit.

Take it easy and then I had something in mind for later on in the year

that was going to be a bit more aggressive

and a bit more mad, I guess, but, you know, it's not going to turn out that way.

Push against me with about 20 per cent of your available effort.

More than a month after the crash, Chris has found an unusual route back to fitness.

With a steel rod inside his thigh bone,

hydrotherapy is a gentle way to encourage his leg to heal.

It's pretty much about five weeks since I actually was discharged.

I've been coming back every week for hydrotherapy,

so this is my fifth time here.

Things are progressing quite a lot. I've got the pot off my arm.

I've been given the green light from that point of view,

so I can push my wrist now.

But today's main goal was to push the leg,

cos obviously I've still got quite a lot of...

Well, just no movement in my legs, still. But it's getting there now.

Chris's physio reckons the pool will help his patient's long-term recovery.

It takes the weight out of the limbs

and you can perform certain functions or walking around

that are relatively painless in water compared to dry land.

Cos when you're on dry land, you're much heavier than you are in water.

And it's nice and warm.

It has a sedative effect on some of the sensory nerves that transmit pain.

And it's just nice and comfortable.

Mentally, long term, my goal is to get back on the bike and doing exactly what I was doing before.

But I've got put certain restrictions on myself.

I'm in it for the long game, not just to rush back on and try to be a hero.

I want to obviously get my strength back and take people's advice.

When I can walk with no crutches, that'll be a big thing

and, obviously, getting back on the bike doing a steady ride

and, ultimately, getting back on and going nuts again.

I'm pleased to say Chris's leg is improving so rapidly,

he hopes to be back in the saddle by New Year.

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