09/10/2012 Helicopter Heroes

If you're critically ill or seriously injured, seconds count

and in Britain's biggest county, you can be a long way from help.

-Where's the patient?

-'Stuck under the car!'

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance flies at 150mph,

and thanks to its speed, hundreds of patients are alive today,

saved by a highly-skilled team of doctors and paramedics.

Stand clear, everybody.

It covers some of the UK's most rugged landscapes,

turning roadsides into operating theatres...

We're going to put him to sleep with an emergency anaesthetic.

..and town centres into helipads.

And every day, the Helimed team's skill, speed and courage is saving lives.

Today on Helicopter Heroes:

A man's shot. He's miles from hospital and paramedic Tony must save him.

12-bore to the leg.

James is called to rescue a motorist run over by her own car.

If anyone sees it moving, shout "Stop" - it all stops.

A jockey comes off at 40mph and Pete's concerned.

Tenderness round his pelvis as well.

And the team hits the language barrier after a factory accident.

SHE SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE

These moors may look beautiful,

but there's a reason there's heather as far as the eye can see.

This landscape is man-made and some people are prepared to pay more than £1,000 a day to enjoy it.

They're the sportsmen and women who come here to shoot game birds.

From grouse to woodcock, pigeons to pheasants,

they're all in the sights of enthusiasts with 12-bores.

For many organised parties like this, food and drink

is part of a pricey package that's lubricated many a business deal.

But shooting in this part of the world is also an accepted part of country life.

And today on a rough shoot near the market town of Thirsk,

a young gun is badly injured.

There's been an accidental shotgun shooting back in north Yorkshire.

Shotgun injuries at close quarters are frequently fatal.

INDISTINCT VOICES OVER RADIO

There's an open wound, we're putting pressure on.

-Shotgun wound, is that right?

-12 bore to the leg, yeah.

-Hello, sir. What's your first name?

-Craig.

Hi, Craig. These guys will sort you out.

26-year-old Craig Crawford was out shooting with friends.

I went down, I said, "Keep still."

The accident happened

when a gun went off accidentally as it was being put away.

Craig appears unconcerned about his wound

but he's lost a lot of blood.

As well as a large area of skin and muscle.

It's a very serious injury.

One of his mates has put on an improvised tourniquet 20 minutes ago.

Doesn't seem to be affecting the leg much at this time.

Craig's boots show exactly where the shotgun pellets went into his leg.

This is a difficult case for paramedic Tony.

The last shotgun wounds he treated were those of the victims of Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird.

Only one of four of his patients survived.

What were you doing? Working on the farm?

Just...on a shoot.

The tourniquet, a belt, is still on Craig's leg.

Tony is worried about it. It's too far up his leg

and could be starving healthy tissue of blood.

Just going to give them a phone, make sure they're happy with it.

If I don't think it's doing right, to be honest.

But it's a dilemma.

If they take it off the bleeding could start all over again,

Craig's already lost a lot of blood. Any more could be fatal.

With seatbelts, air bags and even automatic braking on some cars,

today's motorists are much more likely to survive an impact.

But there are some freak accidents technology cannot prevent.

High in the Pennines near Huddersfield,

a terrified girl has dialled 999.

The crew of Helimed 99 is familiar with most kinds of road accident,

but this one sounds bizarre.

We've got this house here, it should be that road.

If we go over the railway, we've gone too far.

Paramedic Graham Pemberton needs to examine 22-year-old Rachel Mellard

but it's going to be a struggle.

-All right, Rachel? How you doing?

-I just want this car off me.

I'm sure you do, sweetheart. We'll have it off as soon as we can.

-Are you OK there?

-Yeah, I'm fine.

Rachel was visiting her friend, Megan, who made the emergency call.

I heard Rachel scream so I came running out.

She was quite twisted underneath the car.

I asked what happened, she said she put her handbrake on

and come out to open the gate and the car started rolling

so she jumped in front of the car to try and stop it,

and obviously wasn't strong enough to stop it and it just dragged her under.

What we're going to do, OK, I'm going to have a listen to your breathing at the back here.

The firemen are going to be rattling around you, it's going to be noisy,

but it's fine.

Stay calm and we'll have you out as soon as we can, OK, sweetheart?

It may not be the biggest of cars,

but a Ford Fiesta still weighs in at over a tonne.

There's enough of us, can we lift it up manually?

There's a leg the other side of the tyre.

Rachel is lucky to be alive.

She was like, "Please, please, get the car off me,"

but her leg was on either side of the wheel so I said,

"I can't reverse the car. It'll go over your leg and if the handbrake snapped,

"it's going to roll down anyway and it's going to roll over you."

When I called the ambulance, they said, "Don't move whatever you do"

but she was like, "Please, please move the car off me"

But I got the jack out, I said "I can't because if the handbrake snapped it'll roll over your head."

Keep still, Rachel. Breathe for me, Rachel.

Graham must find out what injuries Rachel has before anyone

attempts to move her.

Before we lift her, do you want a pinny...?

Yes, that's a good idea.

She could have serious crush injuries and the car engine is still hot.

So is the exhaust pipe, which is trapping her pelvis.

Friends and family can only watch on powerless to help.

Just let us know when you're ready.

I think she jumped in front to stop it hitting Meg's car

and ended up underneath it.

But it was Meg that was here, we got the call to say she'd had an accident and came over.

Just hope she's all right.

We can't just lift it straight off. We need to be sure it's not going to fall any more on you.

The fire and rescue service train to get people out of crashed cars using heavy cutting gear,

but this is going to be altogether a much more delicate operation.

If anyone sees it moving, shout "Stop", it all stops.

One wrong move and the car's weight could kill their patient.

The next few minutes will be critical.

Listen to that - that's real horse power,

half a ton of thoroughbred moving at 40 miles an hour.

Race horses are quite simply the most powerful animals on four legs.

But you need real courage to ride one.

North Yorkshire is one of the country's horse racing hot spots.

Thousands descend on the county's nine racecourses throughout the year

as part of a multi-million pound industry.

It's big business, and throughout North Yorkshire

there are dozens of racing stables, paddocks and gallops

for training some of the best racehorses in the country.

But today one top jockey has had a serious accident.

The horse went off at a gallop, tripped, I think, and he's taken a fall.

He was found face down where we're stood.

The Helimed paramedics Darren Axe and Pete Vallance are there in minutes.

A ground paramedic crew has already been treating Stuart Richie.

33-year-old, on a flat racehorse, came off at high speed. Thrown off.

-Landed onto his back.

-Right.

-Pelvic pain.

I'm querying a pelvic fracture because his legs are painful as well.

OK. Right, at the moment, how bad is your pain?

HE MUMBLES

-It's what, sorry?

-Very bad.

-Very bad.

-And it's still in the same region?

-Yeah.

Stuart was thrown off his horse after it refused to stop

at the end of the gallops.

It's left him with numbness and a tingling pain in his back -

a very serious indication of a spinal injury.

-He's not made any effort to move himself?

-No, no.

We've actually rolled him under controlled circumstances.

Stuart's trainer is one of the best in the country.

He's employed by me and he rides five or six racehorses a day.

Just exercising a mare what he often rides.

Just a normal day's exercise.

And she's come off at the end of the gallop

as opposed to pulling up at the end there, I think.

And tripped or slipped and they've parted company.

-The best bet, if I take his head...

-Can I have the towels?

-Well...

It seems Stuart may have a serious pelvic injury.

OK, mate. Bear with us.

A special splint will help prevent it moving any more.

-But these contraptions can be agonising to put on.

-Head still.

OK, Stuart.

OK, mate, bear with us.

Keep your head still for us.

He has got extreme pain to the lower back, pelvic region.

I'm querying whether that's been fractured.

And pains in his legs with a tingling sensation.

Your at ten at the moment.

We spoke to these guys, ten out of ten still.

It's all round that region, you said, yeah?

Stuart's been given a full dose of morphine,

but he is still in excruciating pain.

Tim, can I have red Flectalon, please, mate?

He's complaining of severe thoracic back pain, lower thoracic.

And he's scoring that ten out of ten.

He's also got some discomfort around his abdomen

and tenderness around his pelvis as well.

Sammy, it's Tim.

We've just loaded the patient up and we're going to take him to Hull Royal.

Arriving at 9.35am.

Can you inform security and arrange a secondary transfer, please?

In his 17 years as a professional jockey,

this is Stuart's first serious accident.

But it's one which could now easily mean the end of his career.

After landing at Hull Royal Infirmary,

he's still in agonising pain.

-So is most of your pain there?

-Just at the bottom of my back.

-Yeah?

In the next few hours, X-rays will reveal a fracture to Stuart's pelvis,

an injury so serious, it could prevent him ever getting back in the saddle.

Stuart is forced to stay in hospital for a week

and his recovery since then has been very slow.

I was in a lot of pain for weeks.

I was on crutches for about a month.

And obviously I hadn't been awake or anything like that.

Stuart's now back at work but still on lighter duties.

It will be some time before he's back on a racehorse,

thanks to that morning that could so easily have ended his career.

I don't think the pain stopped until about two weeks later.

I was on so much drugs when I went to the hospital,

it was continuously hurting.

Good girl.

But now things are looking brighter and Stuart's determined

to pick up his riding career at the start of next season.

It's just one of them things, it happens or it doesn't happen.

It's racing. Hopefully it won't happen again, though. Touch wood.

Now, let's get back to the Moors, where a young hunter's life

is in real danger after a serious shooting accident.

These boots are only a week old, but the blast holes in them

are the least of 26-year-old Craig Crawford's worries.

-Number five, something like that.

-Sixes, I think.

-Sixes.

There's a load of those, they're pushed out when they're ignited.

A close range shot has ripped through his lower leg.

His shooting friends staunched the blood flow with a tourniquet,

but it's too high up and paramedic Tony Wilks wants to remove it,

but he's worried heavy bleeding could start again.

Paramedic Sammy Wills calls a consultant at James Cook Hospital for advice.

My colleague is enquiring,

he has had a leather belt utilised as a tourniquet placed on his thigh.

-Are we OK to release that?

-It's been done that way.

He said there weren't significant bleeding when he put it on.

Yeah, they're happy for us to do that

and have a tourniquet ready to reposition lower down if necessary.

As the belt comes off, blood starts to flow into Craig's leg.

And, to everyone's relief, the heavy bleeding doesn't start again.

We'll just pop your leg in a splint, all right?

It just makes it a bit easier for us to move.

The day's shooting was coming to an end,

but a full cartridge of pellets has been emptied into Craig's lower leg.

He could still lose it.

He's remarkably calm to say he's had the lower leg of his leg blown off.

The guys have put a tourniquet on,

which essentially would be the right thing,

but it was a little bit too high.

The bleeding has reduced and simplified, thankfully.

Doing really, really well.

That's it. Then it's feet first onto the stretcher.

The James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough

is the destination now and the emergency team there is on standby.

From 99, patient is packaged, a call has been placed for James Cook, over.

Right, good. Just going to hook you onto that.

Helimed 99 will get him there in ten minutes.

But without reconstructive surgery, he could lose his leg.

Remember the young motorist trapped under her own car

after a freak accident in West Yorkshire?

The delicate operation to free her is about to begin,

but it's not without risk.

-You have to lift at the start.

-OK, let them know.

If it moves inches in any direction, it will break her ankles

and cause serious injuries.

Will it hold there, now? Fabulous, that's created...

The only safe way for the fire service to get her out is to jack up the car.

Try and get a bit more out of the airbags.

We should be right there, lads.

With a combination of inflatable cushions and heavy duty chocks,

they lift the car inches off the ground.

Well done, my love, we've got you.

Despite having the full weight of the car on top of her,

paramedic Graham believes Rachael may have got away without any major breaks.

-I think this pelvis is intact, you know.

-I think you've got to...

But only a scan will reveal what's really going on

and paramedics always play safe.

The whole of her car engine block weight was resting on her pelvis.

Obviously we're concerned about the integrity of her pelvis.

All of her obs are normal, but it's just obviously with

the mechanism of that heavy weight lying on her pelvis

and the exhaust manifold has burned her pelvis a little bit.

We're going to take her down the LGI and make sure her pelvis is still intact.

Her rescuers can scarcely believe

that the first examination of Rachael has revealed little more serious than a burn.

Neither can the waiting medical team at Leeds General Infirmary.

Doctors consider what they call the mechanism of injury when working out

how badly injured their patients are likely to be

and the story of Rachael's accident suggests she should be seriously hurt.

The handbrake's failed

and she's tried to stop it from rolling down an incline herself.

She's come to stop with the engine block resting on this part of her pelvis.

Amazingly, the Helimed team's first assessment was correct.

Despite supporting the full weight of her hatchback

for more than half an hour, Rachael has only minor injuries.

And, a couple of days later, the news of Rachael

and her runaway car has hit the local newspaper.

Top half, I'm really lucky, I've just got a few bruises, really.

My hip where my burn was, they've cut the burn out

and then stitched me together so I'm going to have a scar across my hip.

Legs bruised but nothing that hopefully won't heal.

And my ankle, I had to have a stitch or two in my ankle, I think,

because there was a small wound on there.

But other than that, I've been really lucky.

I remember being at the gate and thinking,

"I'm going to have to jump over it or something."

But the force of the car burst the gate open

and then I don't remember... From the gate being burst open,

I don't remember from there to realising I was underneath the car.

I remember screaming for Megan.

And then Megan coming out and she was obviously horrified.

All right, Rachael? How are you doing?

I want to get the car off me.

I'm sure you do, sweetheart! We'll have it off as soon as we can, OK?

'I remember hundreds...'

Well, it felt like hundreds of people, lots of faces whizzing around me.

I was really lucky and I'm grateful to everyone that was there.

The men and women who fly in this helicopter know that every

working day they take a calculated risk with their lives.

But many workplace accidents happen in jobs you'd think

were much safer than flying around at 150mph.

There's plenty of rich green pasture in the Yorkshire Dales,

but these are difficult times for its many hill farmers.

Profits are down, margins are tight,

and a bit of farmyard DIY can save money.

But for one Dales farmer, climbing up onto his barn roof to fix a hole

has led to a terrible fall.

Out the way, cows. No, don't go that way.

The trouble is, the cows below are exactly where Chris wants to land.

-I've got two coming down my end.

-Come on!

He uses Helimed 99 to encourage them to move away.

It's a trick he's used before.

-Aw, bless.

-Watch out, there's an electric fence, guys.

-Got it.

No worries.

Hence why the cows didn't go that way!

Ground paramedics have already arrived.

They were so worried about 54-year-old farmer

Robert Butterfield that they requested the helicopter's help.

Hi, Robert, how are we doing? I'm James.

-Another paramedic. How are we doing?

-All right.

-What's been happening?

I think I've fallen through the roof.

I think you HAVE fallen through the roof. What's sore?

-Here.

-What's sore?

-My back and my right hip.

Your back and your right hip? OK.

We'll just have a quick listen to your chest.

He's a big man and he has fallen 20 feet

onto the concrete floor of the barn.

Injuries, top to toe, it's all lower back and pelvis.

And behind that right shoulder he's complaining of.

He is lucky to be alive but he is seriously injured.

I just heard a crack of the skylight breaking or something.

I wondered what it was so I turned around and the next thing

I saw was the farmer laid on the floor, on his side,

and we spent ages trying to keep him still until everybody came.

-How long was he unconscious for?

-Two or three minutes.

Two or three minutes.

Robert, this will feel a little bit strange, mate, just a bit of pain.

-Well done, well done.

-Hold on.

-Another one.

-Dales farmers are a tough lot.

-OK, walk with me.

But a broken pelvis can lead to complications that can be fatal.

OK, it is a bit slippy on this last little bit,

just be careful as you go down.

A worrying sign is that Robert's heart is racing.

Tachycardia can be deadly.

Still tachy at one, two, three, and GCS is 15 at present.

It's cannulated and we will be with you in approximately 10-15 minutes.

Robert, I'm going to leave you now, sweetheart, OK?

These lovely people will look after you.

Robert's family have farmed these fields for decades.

His father is understandably concerned.

Jump up, Dad. There's nowt to worry about. He's awake.

We're only taking him by helicopter because of where you are.

There's nowt to worry about.

Helimed 99 is flying out of Yorkshire

into the neighbouring county of Lancashire.

Robert is taken into intensive care at Lancaster.

Sadly, his already critical condition deteriorates.

His lungs collapse, he is placed on a ventilator

and kept in an induced coma for four weeks.

They say that cows react badly when their routine is altered

and they don't produce as much milk.

Robert's cows waited a long time for his return.

But several weeks later, he's back in the cowshed,

but on doctor's orders to take it easy.

I was given a chance in the single figures of survival.

It was very, very doubtful I was going to make it.

But to me, it wasn't so bad.

But for the wife and family, I think it had been terrible.

Encouraged by his nurses,

Robert's family compiled a moving diary of his fight for life.

Against the odds, it had a happy ending.

Another thing Robert and his herd have something to be grateful for

is the local air ambulance.

The air ambulance is a fantastic tool

for people that live away from the hospitals and that.

They said I was five-and-a-half minutes

from leaving home to being at Lancaster Hospital.

And I think without them, I probably wouldn't have made it.

If you have a job, you've probably been

on a training course of some kind

and some companies spend thousands on team-building days.

But even they can be risky.

Out-manouevring your colleagues,

intimidating the office junior and driving the boss round the bend

are all skills that are positively encouraged here on the go-kart track.

This is where some firms bring their staff to bond.

But today a high-speed team-building exercise has gone wrong.

RADIO: Helimed 99. Cleared the cross runway 14

direct north from your current position to avoid the vortex

from the departing Dash 8.

It's actually that kart track on the airfield there?

Yeah, that's right. Just the far end, isn't it?

Should be this side of it. Yeah.

It's a site the flying paramedics know well

and it's certainly easy to spot from 2,000 feet up.

The ambulance is just arriving.

I think that'll be the slowest time of the day

-with the ambulance coming round that circuit.

-Yeah.

The air ambulance pilots have landed in some unusual places,

but this is a first for pilot Chris Attrill...

putting down right in the middle of the racetrack.

Got his arm up over on the other side.

Watch out. There's going to be some hi-vis jackets blowing here.

OK. So, we'll keep a good left. Just coming down.

-He's had a collision on a go-kart.

-Right.

He's been ejected from the go-kart.

-Right.

-Haven't yet managed to ascertain the speed or anything.

Charlie Gaffney had nearly finished his race

when he was caught up in a pile-up

at one of the trickiest parts of the course.

Somebody in front of him slowing down, or a bit slower

than what he was going. He had to slam on, panicked, spun around.

Kart in front was still going as fast as it could.

Both of them belted out. I'm sure he's hit his knee.

-So has he gone in backwards or come out forwards?

-Um...

As they've both hit, he sort of went forwards

-and then backwards, then came out the side.

-Right.

He's come out sideways.

Charlie's outstretched leg took the full force of the impact.

Both the bones are badly broken.

-Are we box-splinting this ankle?

-I think so.

I was going to wait till we get some analgesia in him.

It's quite a fun part of the circuit,

but obviously it's quite a dangerous part as well.

If something goes wrong, it could end up like this.

He spun off, collided and then just came out of his kart.

Immediately, I stopped the race.

The ground crew has given Charlie Entonox, a pain-killing gas.

But it's doing little to numb his agonising pain.

So flying Doctor Simon Ward decides to give him something stronger.

How's that pain doing? Just the same? Bit better? Bit worse?

Still ten out of ten.

This shouldn't make you feel sick.

It might make you feel a little bit light-headed. OK?

I'm just going to give you it slowly because of your kidneys.

The track-side tyres certainly did their job,

cushioning the impact.

But the collision has left him pebble-dashed with tyre particles.

Charlie, rest your hand onto there for me.

We're going to put a splint on your leg. You don't do any moving.

Let us do it because then it won't be sore. All right?

I'm just going to turn you at the knee.

HE GROANS

This disused Second World War airfield is a long way from hospital

and Charlie will need specialist surgery to save his leg.

-Can you feel me touching your toes?

-I can, yeah. Yeah.

So he's soon being flown to the specialist trauma centre

at Leeds General Infirmary,

a flight that lasts just seven minutes.

Below the rooftop helipad, one of the country's top

orthopaedic surgeons is standing by to work on Charlie's shattered leg.

But it's clear there will be no speedy recovery.

They told me ten years ago, I probably would have lost my leg.

The femur was broken

clean in one place and offset and the actual tibia was broken

in five places, like a concertina.

So many small pieces.

Charlie's going to be wearing this special frame for the next 12 months,

a reminder of the team-building day that went so badly wrong.

I remember the sound of the cars crashing and my leg...

I could feel it go instantly,

the pain was instant and I was thrown out of the vehicle

and not too much after that.

Sadly, the team-building day has left Charlie

less familiar with his colleagues.

His injury has meant months off work.

When the Helimed pilots come to work they need a head for heights,

not in the way you'd expect. Checking the rotor blades

and gearbox means climbing up to ten feet above the ground.

And safety experts will tell you that working at heights

is statistically more dangerous than flying for a living.

Across the country, nearly 200,000 people spend their working lives

high off the ground keeping our windows sparkling.

But when you've got a squeegee in one hand

and a bucket in the other, gravity can easily get the better of you.

Every year dozens of window cleaners end up seriously injured.

This looks to be a location within the town as well.

That'll be interesting. Not that it's a big place.

The Helimed team are heading to Holme on Spalding Moor.

It's a small village in the Yorkshire Wolds.

Crossroads in the middle of town.

Their patient has fallen off his ladder as he was cleaning

the windows of the village pub.

We are on the ground, just making our way around now.

We've been unable to land by the ambulance due to lack of space.

We've got reports of someone fallen off a ladder.

Sustained back and head injuries.

-Sorry we couldn't get any closer.

-It's all right.

-How are we doing?

Niall Craven's symptoms are worrying the land crew.

He's confused and repeating himself. But there are other signs which could be even more significant.

He's got C spine tenderness, right at the top of his C spine.

-Tingling to both hands, but no hyperventilation at all.

-OK.

-Is that still present, the tingling the in your hands now?

-Yeah.

-It is?

-It just happened so fast.

I was literally doing the doors

and then all of a sudden he was down in seconds.

It happened so quickly.

Just hearing the ladder move and then I actually reacted

and he was down on the floor.

Holme on Spalding Moor is a small place and news travels fast.

Niall's mum Brenda has just sprinted the length of the village to see her son.

He's a window cleaner and his partner

rang me up to say he'd fallen off the ladders and had banged his head.

I thought, "He'll be OK."

Then when I heard you going round in the air ambulance, I thought,

"Oh no, better get down there."

It's your daddy, isn't it?

With the helicopter over on the other side of the village,

it means a short trip in the ambulance for Niall.

But this is a crucial time for Pete to find out

-not just what's happened but how much of it Niall can remember.

-Do you know where you are now then?

-Do you know where you've fallen off the ladder?

-Yeah, at the pub, The Red Lion.

And how long had you been working up the ladder?

I honestly couldn't tell you.

Can you remember falling off or anything surrounding the accident?

-I can't remember anything.

-After the accident,

how soon can you recollect anything?

Um...

-I can remember my nephew holding my neck.

-Yeah. That's good.

And that's about it.

Brenda and Ethan, Niall's two-year-old son,

have raced back across the village to stay by his side.

Can you remember everything now?

At Ethan's age, it's difficult to take all this in.

And fortunately, he seems more interested

in the big yellow helicopter than his dad's serious injuries.

Daddy going.

He's going to get better, isn't he? He'll be better.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Door.

-That's a door. Yeah, it is, isn't it?

I've got a 30-year-old male.

He's fallen from a ladder,

injuring his head and his back.

It's not just details about what's happened that Niall's forgotten.

He's even struggling to recall his own address.

So you've lived there are a couple of years, you can't remember where?

I'm like that when I've been to the pub...

Pete may be joking but he's aware this could be a sign of a serious head injury.

-Bye, daddy. Love you.

-Too.

-Too. Yeah.

The Hull Royal Infirmary is a specialist trauma centre.

Here, doctors are waiting to do

a detailed scan of Niall's brain and back.

But incredibly, Niall doesn't stay here very long.

The next day, he's on his way home.

And just a week later, he's back at work.

His fall left him with nothing more than a few bad bruises.

I think it's better the fact that I didn't remember anything

cos if I had then maybe it would have made me a bit wary of the ladders.

But I was back up on Thursday after the accident so back to normal.

For a two-year-old, seeing your dad strapped to a board

being loaded into a helicopter could have been a pretty scary sight.

But it seems Ethan's been pretty impressed with his dad's adventure.

Will you help me clean? You wipe this bit, here.

'He told the nursery workers that Daddy's gone in the helicopter.'

Yeah. He's happy enough with it.

And so is Niall.

But this time being just that bit more careful.

Among the most dangerous places to work is a food factory.

The combination of fast-moving machinery, slippery surfaces

and knives is an ideal recipe for an accident.

500,000 workers in the UK come from Eastern Europe.

And the port city of Hull is home to a large community

of skilled overseas staff working in the local food industry.

But when there's an industrial accident,

the language barrier can throw up unexpected problems

for the emergency services.

And Helimed 99 is about to fly straight into them.

-VOICE ON RADIO:

-Helimed 99, just under five minutes.

99 - roger. Five minutes.

A ground ambulance crew has found a Lithuanian worker

trapped by her hand in machinery.

The lady was doing some chicken packing on a conveyor belt.

The chickens go on a long belt, going across.

As they were hooking it on, she'd caught her arm in the top.

It's on like a spiking system, where they hang the feet on.

It's just basically gone straight through her wrist,

protruding onto the other side and dragged her along.

Luckily, the managers pushed the alarm bell and kept it there.

Inside the ambulance, Inga Mitalaiki is suffering terrible pain.

The hand contains more nerve endings

than almost any other part of the human body.

And hers is still impaled on part of the machine.

-I know you don't speak so much English.

-Little.

-Little? OK.

Inga's English is basic but a colleague has been translating.

SHE SPEAKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

-Which portion is actually stuck in?

-This, this, this.

-And these two fingers.

-And the two fingers as well?

-The little one and that one here.

-On this hand?

-Yeah, on the left hand. And I think they're broken.

-OK.

The team's concerned about infection.

Chicken offal often carries lethal bacteria.

She's got a raw chicken on her hands. I need to give her a good scrub.

500 accidents like this occur in Britain's food factories every year.

One in three workers killed at work was employed in the business.

Police are often called to gather evidence

for the Health and Safety Executive.

The biggest difficulty that we face at the moment is trying to understand

what she's done, how she's done it, how she's feeling, where the pain is.

And there is a chap in there who's translating as best as they can,

but the language barrier is probably the biggest difficulty

that we're facing at the moment, trying to assess the lady.

Inga's injury will require plastic surgery.

Hospital doctors will dose her with antibiotics to combat infection.

The young lady had already been extricated,

but she still has a piece of machinery attached to her arm

and a couple of fingers.

She's broken fingers on her other hand as well,

because she's had both hands in the machinery.

We've just been dealing with her pain, to start off with.

-RADIO:

-Squawking ident, Helimed 99.

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

I'll be routing the aircraft into Hull Royal...

She's being flown direct to the trauma unit at Hull Royal Infirmary,

where surgeons are particularly experienced

in dealing with the effects of factory accidents.

Since the city became the home of the fish finger 60 years ago,

it's been a major player in food processing.

Patient's not feeling too good now, guys.

In a few minutes, surgeons will begin to assess Inga's injuries

and work out how to remove the production-line component

still attached to her hand.

The good news is, she recovers well from surgery

but is yet to return to work in the factory.

The employees hurt at work, there.

And, I'm pleased to say, all are now on the road to recovery.

But in hospital on Teesside,

the outlook for one of the Helimed team's patients is less certain.

Helimed 99 is arriving at James Cook Hospital

with gunshot victim Craig Crawford.

The gentleman's been out today on some sort of pheasant shoot.

Coming back to the cars, he's been shot in the leg.

Accidentally, but nonetheless, he's got a nasty hole in his left calf.

So hopefully there's not too many pellets in it.

But he's going to need some sort of reconstruction.

I'm not sure about muscle loss, but it's a definite hole.

26-year-old Craig has an urgent appointment with a leg surgeon.

The shotgun cartridge that they showed me

had size six pellets in, multiple little ball bearings.

32 grams worth has actually gone into his leg.

It looks like it's sideswiped and taken the muscle and skin away.

I'm not sure that his leg's broken.

There is that potential, so we splinted it anyway.

The operation to save his leg begins straight away.

He needed to attend theatre the same day

where we cleaned all his wounds. We had the general anaesthetic.

I believe about 20 odd pellets were removed from his leg.

He lost a significant amount of his muscle.

It left him, essentially, with a big hole

and a lot of pellets impregnated in his leg.

Craig remains in the James Cook Hospital for several days.

The shot had missed his bones by inches.

It was a near miss that means his leg is still there.

One of my friends was there, unloading his gun.

Something happened with the safety catch and it went straight off.

That was it, really.

I just looked down and seen the hole through my welly,

hopped about for a bit, and went on the floor

and then my friend carried us over to the cars.

Next thing I knew, the helicopter and everything was there, really.

He's very lucky, actually.

Just missed most things by a few millimetres.

Craig's sister was first to hear the news that he'd been shot.

The first phone call was off mine and Craig's mam

saying, "Don't panic, don't panic, Craig's been shot."

Then obviously, as soon as you hear that, the panic sets in straightaway.

They hadn't mentioned where he'd been shot.

Obviously we were absolutely distraught.

"Where is it, are we fatal?"

He was incredibly lucky that the injury did not involve his bone.

Overall, I feel he's very lucky to be walking with this sort of injury.

He needed reconstruction.

We took some skin from his left thigh

and used it to patch it up his left leg, really.

It has taken away a significant portion of your muscle.

Which, functionally, I think in the long run

shouldn't cause you too much of a problem.

You have to be patient with it.

And you'll be pleased to hear Craig's now back on his feet,

although he'll always bear the scars of his gunshot wound.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd