Episode 6 Helicopter Heroes

If you're seriously ill

or critically injured up here, your life is in real danger...

Complaining of severe pain.

Mid-30s. 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 1,000 times year.

Tell me what's happened.

A small child has been on the path. A wagon's ran 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...

-There's three critical.

..there's a major emergency operation

on the UK's highest motorway as a minibus overturns...

We've got the police, fire, ourselves, two aircraft.

..a climber is badly hurt and his son sees it happen...

He twisted his foot and it snapped.

..a rare reaction to a wasp sting leaves an angler's life in danger...

There is some indication his heart has some damage.

..and the Helimed team are called in to assist in a complicated cave rescue.

It could be very catastrophic. They don't have the right equipment.

A stag night is not just an evening down the pub these days.

Some grooms are taken away for days on end by their mates

on a liquid farewell to their bachelorhood.

But one day in West Yorkshire,

a stag party was involved in accident no-one would ever forget.

The crew of Helimed 99 know they are only ever one phone call away

from dealing with an accident so serious, it's declared a major incident, or majax.

And today, that's what they face.

Despatched to a detail

just on the outskirts of Leeds involving a bus that's overturned.

I don't know what else is involved.

We do estimate there's about 20 passengers on board.

On the M62, the UK's highest motorway, a minibus carrying a stag party has overturned.

Many of the passengers have been thrown through the windows.

99. We've landed on the slip road of the M62, junction 42.

There is plenty of space for a second aircraft, potentially three. Over.

James Vine is among the first paramedics on scene.

-And this is what he sees...

-A head injury.

-Yes.

He has seen enough to know they need more help and helicopters.

-99.

-We will have 6-3 as well, please. There's three critical.

Casualties are littering the motorway embankment.

There are so many, the ambulance service must prioritise them.

James is put in charge of deciding who most needs help.

What have you got, mate?

We've just got one patient. Is that all right?

-Top to toe?

-Yes.

-He's a three. Put him on as a three, please.

P1s have life-threatening injuries.

P2s need urgent medical care.

P3s need treatment, but can wait if necessary.

Moving very little air at the moment.

He's complaining of severe pain to his leg.

-OK.

-The doctor's got my stethoscope.

You're all right.

This guy's going to be going first. 46-year-old male.

Acute shortness of breath. He is moving air.

I've listened to his chest, but it's painful.

A palpation to his right side, rear. All right. OK?

-Is there another aircraft coming?

-Yes.

James must make sure the victims are flown to hospital as soon as possible

and Helimed 98 is now ready to join the operation.

-You're going to be going to the LGI in five minutes with the P1.

-OK.

Simon Ward is going to jump on the cab with you,

-leave Lee on the roof and come straight back...

-I've got that.

-..with Simon Ward.

Roger. 99 will be lifting next three minutes for LGI. Patient his mid-30s.

Been ejected from vehicle. Back and neck injuries.

No obs in neurology.

We are going off with a gentleman, a 40-year-old with severe chest problems.

He has got breathing difficulties, so I'm going to take him on my own

and we we'll pick a doctor up at the scene and come back.

Dave, can you see if you can contact the team at the LGI?

See if they can meet us on the roof

and we can come straight back here. This side, mate. Wait a second.

As Lee takes off, flying paramedic Darren Axe hits the ground running.

-What've we got, Col?

-Going to the helicopter.

-Colin, take that one, mate.

-What have we got?

-Pain in his back. Pain when he moves. His neck hurts.

-Is he the next worse one?

-This guy potentially, his spine.

-His airway breathing is fine.

-OK.

-Pop him on primary initially. OK, are you happy with the P2?

-Yeah.

OK, just mark him up as a P2 please, mate.

What have you got?

-We are going to get him on board.

-Injuries.

-At the moment, he's got a head injury.

-Yeah.

-Possible...

-Happy at a P2 a the moment.

-What have you got, sweetheart?

-Fracture.

-Right wrist. OK.

No worries. Nothing top to toe.

-He's fine everywhere else.

-Everywhere else.

There are that many people around here, just trying to ascertain...

Ambulance crews from all over Yorkshire have been scrambled to the scene,

including the boss of the county's 3,000 paramedics, Dr Alison Walker.

James has identified the three P1s.

-One's on SASH, Alison.

-Yes.

-The other one's round the corner and this is the other P1.

-There are three other P2s...

-Yep.

-..and three that are not priority.

-OK.

-So...

The trauma unit of Leeds General Infirmary has only one helipad.

James must make sure choppers quickly clear

if its patients aren't to be delayed.

99. To update you, 98 will be lifting in the next four minutes heading for LGI.

If you can just speak to the lads on the roof and get them to start moving out of the way. Over.

This is no training exercise. The adrenalin is pumping.

-What's your next priority?

-I want him out of the way. One in the middle.

-That's the priority.

James knows there could still be other casualties still lying undiscovered.

And the survival of some of the victims is in real doubt.

There is never a good time to be hurt, but if you are a parent,

it's particularly traumatic if you're the casualty and you are with one of your children.

But one a rock climber in the Pennines had good reason to be glad his 11-year-old son was with him.

Yorkshire's crags, gorges and cliff edges are playgrounds for climbers.

From Everest veterans, to school groups taking to the rock for the first time.

But one of the simplest forms of climbing is bouldering -

tackling short routes close to the ground without ropes or equipment.

-Ow, ow!

-On a windy hilltop on the Yorkshire and Lancashire border,

Andy Heginbotham has fallen 10ft onto his ankle while bouldering with his 11-year-old son.

He fell off the rock face just over there and he rolled

and twisted his foot and it snapped.

And the bone is hanging out of his leg.

It's really bad.

-Ow, ow!

-Although it's clear Andy has badly broken his ankle,

paramedic Kate is also worried he could have serious back and neck injuries, as well.

If we just get this collar on

and will you be able to hold his head for me?

Just keep your head nice and still. Don't shake it.

-Please, be careful.

-All right, mate.

He's been climbing on this area and he has fallen off here.

He's normally a good climber, but today must have been a bad day.

He has just slipped off and landed funny and he's snapped one of his bones in his leg.

What were you doing, Andy, climbing or walking?

-Attempting to climb.

-Attempting to climb! Not too well, eh?

-Not today.

Andy needs some drugs to reduce his pain.

But climbers are very protective about their equipment.

So Kate's scissors are not welcome near his new top.

-I'm going to need to cut your jumper, I'm afraid.

-Why?

So I can get to a vein to give you some pain relief.

-Can we roll it up?

-Yes, we can do.

-The military say don't leave a good man behind. We say...

-Don't leave your gear behind.

-That's the one.

-'It happened so quickly, to be honest. It was at halfway up.'

And he just lost his hand and he has come off and as he's come down, he's landed funny on his leg.

-It can happen to anybody.

-I just want to give you some good pain relief.

-Yeah, same here!

I'm trying my best.

But Andy is so cold, Kate is finding it difficult to find a suitable vein

to inject the pain-killing drug into.

You're not a very good shot with that!

-It's because you're cold. She's cracking at darts!

-Yeah!

-What's that for?

-To hold it in place.

Andy's being well looked after. Not just by the paramedics and the local volunteer mountain rescue team,

but also by his son Lewis.

You keep talking to your dad.

He got his foot in, but because he's got no ropes on, he slipped.

-And, like, it just went all wrong.

-HE LAUGHS

Ow! It feels like you're ripping my leg off.

I was nearly sick. It's really horrible.

HE SIGHS

-What are you doing now, cutting the top off?

-No, we're just cutting his jeans,

so we can have a good look at his leg while we're moving it.

Agh! Ow! No, no, no!

-It's pinched under.

-Is it?

We'll leave it in.

It needs to be splinted so they can move him to the helicopter.

But every movement is excruciatingly painful.

Agh! No, no, no.

-No!

-I'm just going to hold it. I'm not pulling any more.

-You are!

-Get off it! Please.

-If I let it go... It's not supported.

I'm supporting it there till we get it in place.

Injuries as bad as this often never fully heal.

To give him the best chance, Pete and Kate need to realign his ankle,

but it's clear that might be impossible.

Straighten your leg. That's it, straighten your leg.

For some people, a simple allergy can be a serious business.

Nuts, shellfish, even some medication,

can provoke an extreme reaction in an unlucky few.

This is one thing about summer very few of us would miss - wasps.

They may be good for your flowers, but being stung can put you right off them.

And if you are one of those unlucky people who have an allergic reaction to their stings,

it can be fatal.

Helimed 98. Our ETA now three minutes. 08:55. Thank you.

Today, Helimed 98 has been scrambled to a fishing lake near Doncaster

to rescue an angler who's showing signs of heart problems following a sting.

A crew are already on scene

and have identified they believe he's having a heart attack.

They have contacted the Sheffield General Hospital,

which is quite a long way away by land, but time matters.

It looks like there is a golf course adjacent, so we might...

That will be fine, I'm sure. Parked yellow vehicle to look at.

I'll let Doncaster know we are landing.

Helimed, probably landing in one minute.

Steve Williamson was taking part in a fishing competition

when the wasp stung him.

It's the fourth time in the last two weeks and his body is reacting badly.

-Going to continue into the field.

-OK.

Still over the wires.

-Got visual with everybody.

-OK, your side?

-Yes.

Just over grass now.

Yes, still looks good my side.

The grass completely in front, rear left of the fence.

All fine from left.

Still all good. You've got a lot of people, but they all in here.

Paramedics have detected an irregular heartbeat and low blood pressure.

Doctors at Northern General fear it could be anaphylactic shock.

-How are you feeling?

-A lot better than I was.

-Yes? Good.

-Unable to give pain relief because initial BP was 75 systolic.

-Fine.

Steve's wife Christine has been told and has come to keep him company.

He's going to be flown direct to the heart unit of Sheffield's biggest hospital.

He said to me, "Blooming heck, something's bitten me again."

He had a little red mark on his arm.

And he went to his car and one of the lads came to me

and said, "Go and have a look at Steve, I don't think he's very well, he's in the car."

I said, "He'll be rolling his fags!"

I went and had a look and he didn't look a very good colour.

He was complaining of pains in his chest.

Steve's been taken directly to the hospital's cardiac unit.

He's had some sort of anaphylactic episode

that's dropped his blood pressure and made him feel really unwell.

But, when they've done his ECG, there is some indication that his heart has some damage.

It seems to be reverting now, but because angioplasty have accepted him

and he is stable, we'll take him straight there, anyway.

Paramedic Sammy knows that anaphylaxis can kill.

The body is over-reacting to the sting.

It's flooding his bloodstream with the hormone histamine.

Victims can choke to death as their windpipe and lungs are constricted.

-We'll look after him, all right?

-I know you will. Love you.

-Cheerio.

We're wiring you up for sound again, now, boss.

Steve's being wired up to the choppers onboard ECG monitor.

If necessary, they'll be able to shock his heart back into a normal rhythm in mid-air.

Everyone is hoping that won't be necessary.

In just 12 minutes, Steve will be in the hands of cardiac specialists.

The team aren't sure whether he is only suffering from a reaction to the sting,

or whether his heart problem is unconnected.

Doctors at the Northern General discover that Steve is seriously ill

and, for 24 hours, he is under constant care from nurses.

When I arrived at the Northern General Hospital,

I started feeling itchy.

We discovered that my body

from my neck to my knees had come out in a severe rash.

I spoke to a staff nurse about it and they fetched a doctor

and I think it's at that stage they realised it was a severe reaction to the wasp sting.

Steve's rare reaction is going to change his life.

And his job as a cemetery groundsman is not going to make that easy.

The wasp had sent my heart into shock

and I've since been told I was very close to actual cardiac arrest

and no doubt if the helicopter hadn't got me to the Northern General

in the amount of time they did, I might not be talking to you now.

From now on, this will be in Steve's pocket all the time.

It's an EpiPen,

which injects a dose of adrenalin directly into his bloodstream.

It's the antidote for a sting, next time, Steve's been warned,

a wasp attack could be fatal.

Now let's return to the M62 in West Yorkshire

where paramedics are struggling to deal

with the casualties of a minibus crash involving a stag party.

The minibus has rolled over on a slip road

and many victims have been thrown out.

Paramedic James Vine is in charge of prioritising patients.

James has identified the three P1s.

-One's on SASH, Alison.

-Yes.

-One's around the corner and this is the other P1.

There are three other P2s and three that are not priority.

P1 is the most seriously injured.

I want him flown next, him out of the way next. He is my only P1 left on scene.

And I've got P2s that are stable. Just ejection injuries.

We are waiting for this patient

to be secured and immobilised then we're going to lift

this other patient.

Once again, a massive team effort. Massive amounts of resource on scene.

We're going to try to do the best we can for as many people as we can.

Heart rate is 110. Sats 100% on air.

BP 115 over 70.

99 has taken one patient to LGI. They're going to move off the pad

as soon as they have unloaded a patient and made room for us.

They've been gone 10, 15 minutes, so I imagine by the time we convey this patient

they would have left by then.

-Do you want someone else?

-I think we're all right.

What's your pain like now?

Is it any easier?

-A bit better, is it? That's good.

-I've given them an ETA.

Considering he's been ejected from a vehicle,

he doesn't seem too bad. He's fully consciousness.

He's in lot of pain in his chest,

so I've given him something for the pain.

We're going to fly him to hospital where he can be X-rayed and properly assessed.

With the hospital just three minutes flying time away,

Helimed 99 is back before its sister ship can even take off.

This is my next patient. We landed quickly.

I'll be going back with this patient that has been triaged.

We're going to follow 98 into the LGI, I think.

Such a large number of patients is putting pressure on local A&E units.

So some with less serious injuries will be driven or flown

ten miles to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

We've got two emergency departments nearby

that could take all of these categories of patients.

The first two have gone by air to LGI,

and they're telling me they would have the capacity to take more patients

into their resuscitation room. I phoned Pinderfields.

They are taking the first P2 category patient and I will phone them back

and check they've got capacity for further patients, as well.

Few of the emergency services can believe so many people have been thrown from a moving bus

and yet escaped with relatively minor injuries.

But they can't be sure until all the passengers

have been scanned or X-rayed in hospital.

Even though people are of a lower category, if they were ejected from a vehicle, I'm flying them to Leeds.

Another has just gone by air to Leeds.

We're looking at capacity between Pinderfields and Leeds Infirmary

in terms of taking the people with the minor injuries

to see which one of them is the best placed to accept them.

The final casualties, the walking wounded,

are about to start their journey for hospital checkups.

For paramedic James it's been his first experience

of a major incident. Now, at last, he can begin to relax.

The situation is just starting to settle down a bit now.

We've had multiple casualties.

They've all been managed as per a major incident,

and our P1s have all gone to the Leeds General

and P2s have gone to Pinderfields

just to try and split the workload for the hospitals.

Police are beginning an investigation into the cause

of an accident that's paralysed much of the local motorway network.

The one person who knows what happened first-hand

is the driver, another man lucky to be alive.

I started to lose control and the wheel started wobbling.

My first thought was, "I'm not going to see my kids grow up."

And then I was just waiting just to die, really.

I thought, "Oh, no, this is me dead."

I mean, I just didn't get how I could survive being thrown out

of the windscreen at 70mph and still live.

I was laying there thinking, "Right, this is my turn, this."

I was waiting for them lights to go out.

And, luckily enough, they didn't.

And, luckily enough, they didn't for the rest of the people on the bus either.

It was a tyre blowout that caused the smash.

Darren's passengers are all mates from the local bowling club.

But, with the wedding less than a week away,

will any be fit to attend?

Even the groom's in hospital.

Coming up... the wedding is only days away,

but will the guests recover in time?

When the doctors came round and told me

how intense my injuries were,

obviously, I went back within myself for a while.

Remember the 11-year-old boy who raised the alarm

when his dad suffered an agonising climbing injury?

Well, now he faces the difficult task

of keeping his dad's spirits up

while the rescuers start the long journey to hospital.

Ow! No, no, no, no!

Andy Heginbotham had been out climbing with his young son

when he fell and snapped his ankle.

The bone is piercing the skin, an incredibly painful injury.

-Let's keep the rest of you covered up.

-It's starting to really hurt.

-I know, I know.

It's a Sunday afternoon

and dozens of local mountain rescue volunteers

have come out to help, including a familiar face.

Al Day works on the air ambulance,

but today he's the leader of the mountain rescue team.

It will be their job to move him from here

to the helicopter waiting at the top of the hill.

What we need to do now is lay you flat on a board.

Once you're on that, that's it done,

-then we'll carry you up to the helicopter and you'll stay on there.

-We've got to collar him

because we don't know if the fracture to his leg's

distracting from possible neck and back pain. Hopefully not.

He's got enough with that leg at the moment.

We'll get him immobilised and get him up with mountain rescue to the aircraft.

Just wait there. Board coming in. All right?

But it won't just be Andy getting a lift in Helimed 98.

-Right. Bit chilly, eh?

-Lewis will be going, too.

What we're going to do, we'll get your dad in the helicopter,

warm him up a bit, get him sorted,

-maybe give him something else for the pain.

-Yeah.

Then we'll sort you out, all right?

The mountain rescue team are carrying Andy back up

to the helicopter, it's just a short way.

It's quite difficult to get to because of the sheer drop

off the rocks behind me.

We just need to get his pain under control, get him warm,

and get him to hospital.

But controlling that pain is difficult.

The gas and air is making him feel sick, and the morphine is having little effect.

But Al has another trick up his sleeve.

This is like a little lollipop, OK?

And it's got a similar painkiller to morphine, but it's a bit stronger.

They've given him some morphine, but we're still struggling a little bit.

One of the things that we have with mountain rescue

is another painkiller called fentanyl

which you can administer via the cheek,

which is a bit easier than injecting drugs,

so we're just given him that, so hopefully that will help matters.

-Fentanyl, eh?

-Fentanyl!

-Right, so if you bring this arm up now towards you.

With the pain-killing drugs now starting to work,

Andy and Lewis are soon at hospital.

It's been quite an adventure for the both of them

as pilot Andy Lister discovers.

It's not nice seeing your dad with a snapped off leg.

It's not nice seeing your dad poorly. I'm sure it's not.

But the helicopter ride must have been good, wasn't it?

Nice smooth flying, I think you'll find.

It was bumpy.

Bumpy!

Best of luck, then.

But patient Andy has several uncomfortable hours ahead of him...

..a series of delicate operations to try and rebuild his ankle.

It's broken where the tibia meets the foot.

These two pins are holding one piece of the bone in.

There's another pin running through.

It was a very painful end to an afternoon bouldering.

A relatively short fall, but causing a huge amount of damage.

'I was two metres off the ground when I fell

'which is sort of strange cos I've fallen...

'What? Four of five times further than that'

in the past and absolutely no injuries. So to fall from two metres

and completely snap my leg is a bit shocking.

We need to get you sorted, really, don't we?

But Andy's hugely grateful for the first-class treatment he got,

especially from his own son.

'His initial reaction was to curl up in a corner and...'

Well, he just went into himself I think, cos he was in shock,

until one of my friends gave him the job

of putting his arms around me and keeping me warm.

And I'm really proud of him.

Millions of tourists visit the Yorkshire Dales each year

but very few get to see some of this area's

most impressive natural wonders because they're underground.

This is caving country but caves can be dangerous,

especially if a sudden downpour on the surface leads to flooding.

Water created these caves,

and when it rains, it claims them back.

Flying over the Yorkshire Dales is one of the perks of the job for the Helimed crews.

This stunning landscape is home for 20,000 locals

but every year, the Dales' unspoilt natural beauty

welcomes up to nine million visitors.

Most say on the surface, but some of the more adventurous

come to explore the hidden world that lies beneath.

The Dales are a labyrinth of pot holes and caves,

some easy to explore, some only for experts.

Get into trouble down here and you will need specialist help.

The Dales Cave and Mountain Rescue team

are made up of a volunteer force of locals

who are on hand 365 days a year.

Although we're called the Cave Rescue Organisation,

we're actually multi-purpose... We do cave rescue, mountain rescue

and we also help the local community in natural situations,

bad weather and so on.

But caving, obviously, that's where we started.

Our original aim was to help injured and stuck cavers.

We still maintain that and that's the core of our business, so to speak.

Today, Cave Rescue have called the Helimed team for help -

getting a patient, who's been trapped underground, to hospital

from a remote Dale quickly,

requires a different team of experts with a helicopter.

RADIO: 'In Ribbersdale area.

'A severely hyperthermia male,

'Cave Rescue requesting you, over.'

All received, over.

A potholer has been caught out by rising water in the caverns

and tunnels beneath Ribbersdale.

He's barely alive.

Sounds like the gentleman's been potholing so obviously

the temperature gradient down below is a lot, lot lower.

If he's been injured, obviously, that could compound the situation.

Sounds like Cave Rescue have got the gentleman out and are requesting us

so we'll wait and see what we get when we get there.

Chris Creasey was trapped underground for nearly two hours.

-How are you, mate? James.

-I'm Martin.

Pleased to meet you, Martin. How are we doing?

The casualty's gone down the pitch in water, so he's been suspended

in a harness in water for quite some time, probably an hour, maybe two.

OK.

We've got Dr John Burton in there.

OK. No worries.

How are we doing? James.

The Cave Rescue team found him unconscious

suspended from his rope.

We dispatched a team of five Cave Rescue members to go underground.

Water levels are very high.

They had to rig a traverse rope down the cave

so they could get down the cave safely

and got to the top of what we'd call a pitch,

which is a drop underground,

which had a very big waterfall running over it.

One of our team members went part-way down the pitch

and found the person we were looking for

suspended on a rope in a harness

in the middle of the water.

Chris? OK? What's up?

The caver is confused and thrashing around.

All symptoms of severe hyperthermia.

The next stage is death.

Ready?

Cave Rescue got him out just in time.

Our team members who were down there

managed to clip this guy with a karabiner onto their own harness

and ascended the rope with other team members hauling

and got the person out to the surface.

He's cold, very, very cold.

Our tympanic thermometer only goes down to about 34 degrees

and it's saying low at the moment so he's certainly colder than that,

which would tend to suggest he needs to be in hospital

and get him warmed up fairly quickly.

The Cave Rescue lads have done a sterling job.

It's taken them two hours to extricate him

and he's been submerged or hanging for approximately an hour and a half

prior to their extrication,

so he's been cold and wet for a long, long, long time.

When you're trapped in freezing water like this for two hours,

you get immersion hyperthermia.

No doubt this team of volunteers have saved patient Chris's life.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This is where we found the casualty about six metres in the waterfall.

He was in the full force of water just hanging there,

he couldn't do anything.

They had to physically drag him out of the cave as fast as they could

to get him to medics on the surface.

Bear in mind the water levels were a lot deeper

so to try to get someone out of here, you're battling against the water flow,

it's very, very difficult. Very hard work.

Well done to everyone on the day.

With the chopper's heaters on full blast,

hypothermic patient Chris Creasey begins his journey to hospital.

He's also being thawed out in a fleece-lined thermal bag.

As his body temperature rises, he begins to come round.

Slurred speech is a sign of hyperthermia,

but Chris manages to give paramedic James

a clear account of his underground ordeal.

Can you tell me what's happened, Chris?

We set off last night,

camped out...

Ten or 11 o'clock, we were underground.

How long were you suspended for then?

Lost.

The lads seem to think it was about an hour-and-a-half?

It's possible. I feel a bit hypothermic.

Well, there's no think about it, you are hypodermic at the moment.

The lads got your temperature at 34 initially which is very, very low.

34?!

Yes. It should be around 37.

I'm surprised I'm still alive.

Well, yeah, I think that's... You weren't far off dead.

You owe the Cave Rescue lads a pint and a pat on the back I think.

The cave system that caught out Chris is called Alum Pot.

It's one of the most popular in Britain

and it's claimed other victims,

not all managed to get out alive.

This whole place kind of gives some impression

of the water and the forces of nature

which have actually combined to create this place.

If you come here on another day when the cave's in flood,

and people are more likely to have the problems then,

you'll see vast torrents of water

and literally it's 100 times the amount of water we've got now.

It's an amazing transformation that occurs when it does rain.

The Cave Rescue team risk their own lives

every time they come underground to help others.

It can be very catastrophic.

They don't have the right equipment.

They either think it's going to be really easy,

they don't look at the weather,

they've not done any preparation as to where they're going

and it all leads to maybe a disaster

and that's why we're always on standby.

The underground team train for emergencies like the one at Alum Pot

and they don't mind helping those

who are less experienced than themselves.

We see some idiots down there, there's no doubt about it,

but everyone's got to start learning somewhere along the line

and we're certainly not into damping down people's sense of adventure.

We'd rather people were out there doing it,

hopefully learning without making mistakes,

but we're there when they do. We're there as a back-up.

Cave rescue demands the same skills as mountain rescue.

In fact, some of Yorkshire's biggest rock faces

are actually underground which means Cave Rescue volunteers

often find themselves called out to help on the surface too.

It's a chap at the bottom of Malham Cove,

an elderly male with chest pains and vomiting as well

so he could be having some sort of heart attack

so we'll get straight across there.

The holiday traffic from Leeds-Bradford Airport

has to wait for a couple of minutes today.

Helimed 99 gets priority clearance from air traffic for this job.

It could be a number of things. It could be of cardiac origin.

But then again it might be that he's been out there climbing

and he's gained some sort of strain.

It could be something as simple as indigestion.

Thousands of years ago, there used to be a huge waterfall

cascading over these cliffs.

When the water dried up, it left behind

the spectacular curved Malham Cove, popular with walkers and climbers.

But it gives pilots and paramedics trying to land their own dilemma.

Top or bottom?

99, we're just over Malham Cove, over.

The top of the cove or the bottom of the cove on the path?

It's easier to carry a patient down a hill,

but the Helimed pilots know this area well

and the limestone pavement at the top of the cove

makes a safer landing site.

So it's a walk down for the paramedics

and Flying Doctor Andy Poutney.

Neville Briggs was out walking with his wife

when they got into difficulty.

Cave Rescue have been called to help carry Neville

off the treacherous cliff side path.

Neville?

Does it hurt when you take a deep breath?

But before that, Dr Andy Poutney and Darren need to be sure

it's safe to move him.

Just terrible, is it?

When did this pain start? It's four o'clock now so...

-An hour ago? Half-an-hour ago?

-Half-an-hour.

-Right.

Neville is clearly exhausted.

He's got a low BPM,

he's taken 1,200 micrograms of GTN

and it's dropped his blood pressure down and so he looks shocked.

The blood pressure drugs he's taken might be causing his problems

or masking a possible heart attack.

It will open all his blood vessels up

and the more of it takes, the worse... The wider they'll get.

His blood pressure will drop, he'll become very pale,

he'll get a headache and he'll feel sick.

Darren keeps trying to find out more vital information about the medication Neville has taken.

No changes in that now.

The ECG is not showing a heart attack or anything like that,

or not a big heart attack.

Sometimes smaller heart attacks won't always show up

on the first tracers so what we need to do is get him to hospital

where there are tests that can be done,

usually a period after the initial or the worst pain,

that will tell us if there's been damage to the heart.

The team must stabilise Neville before getting him off the cove.

Hopefully he's going to be all right. His blood pressure's come up nicely,

so hopefully it was just that the medications have dropped

his blood pressure which they do do.

We just need to rule out it being a cardiac event.

The ECG is not normal but it may be normal for him.

So he needs to get to hospital to have more tests

that can rule out any cardiac event. Hopefully it's just the drugs.

Cave rescue are the experts

in getting injured patients off Malham Cove.

But today, they have some extra help.

As luck would have it,

a team of fire-fighters were on a walk coming down

from the top of the cove and they've now been drafted,

press-ganged is another word for it,

into assisting Cave Rescue in transferring the casualty

back to the top of the cove

where we're going to put him into the aircraft

and fly him to the ambulance at the bottom

and transfer him then by ground into Airedale.

After his trip to hospital, Neville made a good recovery.

He and many others have a lot to thank

the Cave Rescue Organisation for.

Whether it's overground or underground,

these volunteers make the Dales a safer place

for its millions of visitors.

And as more tunnels are discovered,

there's likely to be more work in the future for Cave Rescue.

Now, let's catch up on the story of the stag party caught up

in a terrible motorway accident.

The tables are set, the pink ribbons hung out,

all the preparations for the big wedding are complete.

It's the guests that aren't ready.

In this hospital, nursing staff are caring for the victims of a minibus crash

involving the groom's stag party.

When I got to the ward,

there were two of the other lads on the ward,

which brightened me up a little bit, cos obviously I'm not on my own.

And they put us in a side ward together.

So then that the banter between us was trying to get everybody

round for the wedding and are we going to be there.

A young nurse said, "I've got to get you out of bed now and walking.

"It's your daughter's wedding, you've got to walk.

"If you can't walk, we can't look after you, then you can't get discharged".

That's what she did, she got me up and walking.

This was Tommy minutes after he was hurled out the window of the bus.

Just ten days later, the bride's father's back on his feet.

Few brides can boast a wedding album with guests

looking quite as battered as this.

And she can still remember the moment she heard about the accident.

You didn't know what to do for the best.

I rang Pinderfields and just said,

"Is there any way you can tell me where my dad is, Thomas Ryan?"

So the doctor said,

"Can you make your way over? He's in resuscitation being worked on".

With the exception of the best man,

all of the injured guests made it to the church

only days after being involved in a major incident.

The groom's broken leg was the most obvious injury.

'Very emotional day cos obviously I didn't think I'd be there,

'I didn't think any of us would be there who was in the crash.

'It was emotional walking down cos everybody's heads turn to see you.

'I was in a lot of pain but I also had my lad at the back of me...

'What we'd agreed was that if I couldn't manage it half way,

'he'd take over. But I was determined to make it.

'Anyway, I got to the end and they made me sit in a wheelchair so...

'But I stood there while she did the vows

'and then walked her back up the aisle again.'

I didn't think he'd be there

and for him to be there, it just made my day.

It just made my day.

-Who gives this woman to be married to this man?

-I do.

'As you glance around the church, you can see them all'

in slings and all things like that.

Hayley knows that her wedding day could have been very different

without the help of the medical teams that came to the rescue.

'The emergency services were great.

'They had two helicopters, I think there were 15 ambulances,

'just to get them to the hospital safely.

'Just for them all to be recovered in the timescale it took,

'great thanks to them all.'

And congratulations to Hayley and Thomas who have just celebrated

their first wedding anniversary.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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