Episode 19 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?

-She's stuck under the car.

The Yorkshire air ambulance flies

at 150 miles an hour,

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

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

-Stand clear everybody.

-Keep going, mate.

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

turning roadsides into operating theatres...

We're going to put him off to sleep with an emergency anaesthetic, OK?

..and town centres into helipads.

-Still good on the left?

-Just behind you, Tim.

And every day, the Helimed team's skill,

speed and courage is saving lives.

Today on Helicopter Heroes,

a mother and son are knocked down on the walk to school.

Now, both are critically injured.

He's got a head injury, he's been hit about 20 foot by a car.

There's a freak accident, and a farmer's in agony.

The heavy roller seems to have gone over both legs.

The swimmer who leapt before he looked.

There was this big inflatable ring

and he dived in it and cracked his head.

And a man with a chainsaw felled by a tree.

What it feels like is my heel is going to explode.

Road safety has come a long way in the past few years.

The number of pedestrians killed has halved since the 1990s.

But that still means around 100 people a week are killed

or seriously injured crossing our roads, and the sad fact is

children make up the biggest group of casualties.

The early morning walk to school for one youngster and his mum

has ended very badly.

It's a kiddie and a pedestrian been hit,

but they think that maybe other kids have been hit as well,

with the same car.

Clear left.

The accident has happened

in the former mill town of Colne in Lancashire.

Because of bad weather on the west coast, Helimed 99 is the nearest

helicopter currently able to fly.

Emergency crews arriving at the accident scene manage to send

an update through to Helimed 99, and it's not good news.

What we've done is, uh, these two pedestrians have been

thrown 20 feet, and the child has got a head injury.

-That's as much as we know.

-So, we've got two patients?

So, the person in the car's all right, we've got two patients

who've been knocked down by the car.

Yeah, that's it, that's what he's handed over.

-One adult, one child?

-Yeah.

OK, clear of the fences on the left.

Landing in a built-up area can be difficult, but police have managed

to close the park next to the busy main road for Helimed 99.

-Eh up, mate.

-Go to 186.

-Yeah.

-We've got her son.

-Right.

So, he's primed to go.

-We've got a second helicopter on its way.

-OK.

Are you happy there?

The patient lying in the road is the mother of a nine-year-old boy.

She is seriously injured,

but he is worse, and the Helimed paramedic's priority.

-Hello there, it's all right.

-BOY CRIES OUT

-Femur.

-What are you doing?

-It's all right, bonny lad.

Nine-year-old Leighton Cowdry is confused and frightened.

You can clearly see the impact his head made on the car windscreen.

It's a worrying sign.

He's got a head injury, he's been knocked down...

He's been hit about 20 foot, by a car.

And he's also got a fractured left femur.

So I'm just going to get the splint just to sort that out.

There was no shortage of witnesses to the accident,

including other parents making the same short journey.

I was just coming out of the house, taking my lad to school,

and there was a lady - I presume it was the driver -

just running out of the car, shouting for help.

So we just tried to assist where we can.

We just helped the little lad on the floor, made him comfortable,

and tried to reassure him that someone was looking after his mum.

The vehicle following the car was a petrol tanker.

Its shocked driver made the 999 call.

It was just surreal, slow motion.

Tossed up in the air, six or seven feet, it was as quick as that.

The condition of Leighton's mother is causing increasing concern.

But the clearing weather has allowed the North West Air Ambulance

to get through to take her to hospital.

They looked unconscious to me.

I think the little boy was drifting in and out,

but this lady here seemed unconscious.

So, that was it, the police came, and the ambulance.

Just relax, it's fine.

Leighton's head injury is worrying paramedic Dave Appleby.

He wants to get him to specialists

at the Leeds General Infirmary as quickly as possible.

-No, no, I'm his uncle.

-You're his uncle?

-Give LGI a...

-A call?

Just tell them that he's been knocked out.

I'll give LGI a call, no problem.

He has also got a femur that's gone.

-All right.

-All right?

So, what are you going to do when you get to LGI?

I can talk to you on 1-2-3-0 if you want?

But there's another problem -

the North West air ambulance also needs to fly

Leighton's mother to Leeds.

Pilot Andy Lister must come up with a plan.

As things have turned out, their casualty is ready before ours,

so they are having to go across to Leeds,

and somehow we're going to have to come up with an arrangement

whereby he can clear the pad

so I can bring our casualty in subsequently.

The North West Air Ambulance is airborne.

The pressure is on to get mother and son into A&E.

Time is your biggest enemy if you're seriously hurt,

and in a county as big as Yorkshire, the clock is always against you.

A major hospital can be 30 miles away,

so the speed of a helicopter can be a lifesaver.

It's harvest time on the Yorkshire Wilds,

and thousands of agricultural contractors are busy

getting the grain in and preparing for next year's crop.

But on one farm near Beverley, work has stopped.

A man's been run over by a farm implement weighing two tonnes.

His pelvis and both his thigh bones are fractured.

The internal bleeding alone could empty the entire body's blood volume

into those three fractures.

So these are life-threatening injuries.

Farmer John Bird was walking behind a tractor

which was towing this seed drill.

Somehow it went over the top of his body, crushing his pelvis.

Helimed 98, approximately one minute to run,

we'll advise when touched down.

Oh, there it is.

Landing here will be no problem.

A flat, open field is rare luxury for a Helimed pilot.

It quickly becomes clear why the air ambulance has been called in.

John in is so much pain, the paramedics are having trouble

just transferring him onto a stretcher.

47-year-old male who was walking alongside this device

on back of the tractor while it was in motion,

and he was checking something, and he's ended up going underneath.

Rollers have gone across him. He's got extreme pain around this area,

but he says he felt it go over both legs and crunch him.

These wheels passed over his legs and pelvis. He's very lucky to be alive.

The guy's got possibly serious injuries at the moment,

and we're hoping to get him to hospital as soon as we can.

Hello, John, I'm one of the paramedics.

I'm just going to have a quick look at your legs and your pelvis.

Without an X-ray, it is impossible for paramedic Sam to determine

exactly what injuries John has sustained.

Considering the weight of this machinery,

broken bones and internal injuries are very likely.

When I arrived, John was pretty much in the position...

Well, he was position that he is in now.

The heavy roller seems to have gone over both legs, quite high up,

and we're querying fractured legs, probably pelvis as well.

Have you got pain anywhere else? Or is just across the middle bit?

-My back.

-And the bottom of your back?

John had had the maximum amount of morphine

the paramedics are allowed to give him.

But he is still in considerable pain.

It's my right leg as well.

HE GROANS

Is it hurting there at all where I touch you?

It's not hurting there at all.

When he is motionless, his pain is now under control,

but even when the smallest effort is made to move him, it's agonising.

You got a hold there? OK, we're going to roll.

Ready, steady, and roll.

-Sorry, John, sorry, John.

-Sorry, John.

Relax, mate, just keep breathing.

Remember that gas and air, all right?

Nice, deep breaths, all right?

John needs something stronger,

and unfortunately, the paramedics are out of options.

They only have a limited number of drugs at their disposal.

-What did they say about basics?

-Trying to get somebody.

Paramedic Darren decides to seek help from the local hospital.

He's calling Hull Royal Infirmary.

Our choices are simple - either we need to give him more morphine,

to move him, which may or may not work,

or we can come and collect a doctor from the department

who can bring ketamine and give the patient a dose of ketamine

so we can remove him.

The hospital agrees to dispatch doctor to its helipad.

The flight to pick him up will take just few minutes.

Every minute John remains at the scene of his accident

potentially makes his condition more difficult to treat.

His life could depend on this dash to hospital.

Helimed 98, we've lifted and en route.

Hull Royal ETA is four minutes.

Most of us have heard horror stories

of people being injured on holiday abroad,

and travel insurance is a multi-million-pound industry.

But you're just as likely to become a casualty on a break in Britain,

as one Scottish holidaymaker found out this summer.

Taking a break at a theme park sounds a great idea.

That's what the Mason family from Dundee did,

and these are the holiday snaps to prove it.

But Granddad Ian's stay at Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire is

about to end painfully, in the park's swimming pool.

-RADIO:

-He's now complaining of C-spine tenderness.

He can't move his head or neck at all.

Nearest ambulance is 40, 4-0, minutes away.

Helimed 98 en route, behind the line of traffic.

It's just a 12-minute flight

from the Helimed's new base at Topcliffe airfield

to the North Yorkshire attraction,

a place paramedic Andy Armitage knows well.

I've been myself lots of times. A few years ago now,

very busy, they've got a zoo there, lots of big animals,

and some quite good rides. I didn't realise they had a swimming pool.

I think that could be on the campsite area.

With the rollercoasters towering above the Yorkshire scenery,

it's certainly a place that's easy to find.

Wee-hee, Flamingo Land!

-Well, the obvious place to land is right next to it.

-On the grass.

Yeah, don't land in the lions. See, lions down there now.

But sadly today, there's no time to enjoy the park.

Are they inside still? Nobody's come out?

Andy's patient is in pain and unable to move.

He's jumped up from the bottom of the pool and dived through a ring,

and then gone back into the water head first.

Went straight to the bottom

and smacked the top of his head on the bottom of the pool.

So, jumped up, gone through a ring..?

He's jumped up while he's been in the pool.

-He's come out a bit far?

-Yeah, he's come out of the water,

then gone through a hoop and gone and hit his head on the pool.

There was this big inflatable ring, and he jumped, he dived in it

and cracked his head.

Keep your head still. Don't nod it or anything like that.

He just jumped over it, like, dived in the hoop.

It's like a big inflatable ring and he dived in it

and he cracked his head off the bottom of the floor.

-He says it's four out of ten, your pain.

-Uh-huh.

-And you don't want anything for it?

-No.

He's already been examined once, by the park's own medic.

Unfortunately, it is a common diving incident, where people aren't aware

of just how deep the water is or where the bottom is.

I've done a full examination,

found he's complaining of pain in his neck,

so as a precaution,

I've collared him and dialled for the 999, ambulance.

Ian Mason could have broken his neck.

People have been paralysed in accidents like his.

And it's already been a bad week.

Well, we've been here since Monday, weather's been absolutely atrocious,

we've been flooded, moved pitches three times,

and it's just been a disaster from day one.

I just can't wait to go home now.

We're going to use the spinal immobilisation, so if this chap has

hurt his neck or his spine,

then we'll not move it and cause any further injuries.

So, to do that, basically, we put him on this sort of rigid board.

It splits in half, so it's easier for us to put under him,

without having to do log roll.

Ready, steady, roll.

We're between several major urban areas.

We've got Middlesbrough to the north, Hull to the south

and York to the west.

Having a fast response via the air ambulance is pretty vital,

considering we could have several thousand people here

at any one time.

There can be injuries, medical complaints, all sorts going on.

So having that back-up there is always a bonus.

-We'll be off.

-Are you going to phone them,

or are they going to phone you?

-We're going to phone the hospital. I'll be on the phone.

-OK.

It'd better be nothing serious, cos you'll be driving me in the morning!

Give Granddad kissy bye-byes.

Hi, Sister. It's Andy, one of the paramedics off the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Just booking in a patient we're bringing in from Flamingo Land.

He's been diving in a pool and he's hit his head on the bottom.

He's got some C-spine tenderness, he's got central neck pain, basically,

and radiating to the right side of his neck.

Rather than a drive of over an hour from here to hospital,

Ian is soon flying for treatment to a trauma centre

with specialist spinal facilities in Teesside.

50 miles away, back at the theme park, Ian's family starts packing,

while at James Cook Hospital, Ian is sent for a series of X-rays.

When I got to the hospital, they say,

"Well, we're going to have to X-ray you." So they X-rayed me

from the side, from the back,

and then through my mouth.

And they says, "It was just sort of like whiplash, it's just...

"You've your neck, and you just need to work it.

"Take painkillers." And after two or three days of the painkillers,

the pain started to go away.

So now, two weeks on, the pain has subsided, and back at home in Dundee,

the Masons' holiday photos are a permanent reminder

of this unforgettable holiday from hell.

The place was fine, it's just that everything went wrong.

Before I went, I had to buy another car to get there,

and when I got there, we got flooded twice,

and I lost my phone, locked the keys in the car,

and then to top it all, I had the accident.

Back to the case of Leighton and his mum,

knocked down as they crossed the road

near their home in the market town of Colne.

Two helicopters are involved in their rescue.

Can you remember what happened? You can't?

Minutes after his mum took off for hospital,

nine-year-old Leighton is about to follow her, aboard Helimed 99.

This lad's had quite a nasty accident.

He's been knocked down by a car

at quite a high speed. He's got a head injury,

and his left femur's gone.

So we're going to take him to the same hospital

his mum's going, which is the LGI.

-Keep your eyes out for wire.

-Yeah, I am doing, no probs.

Leighton is on the way to be reunited with his mother.

They are minutes behind the other chopper.

At this moment in time, he's looking a little bit drowsy, which is

probably the morphine, but we need to get him X-rayed,

as he's had a big bang to the head.

And for such a little lad,

they can seem that they are managing everything brilliantly,

but then, it's like falling off a cliff.

So, I want to get him there as quick as I can and get him checked out.

There is only room on the hospital helipad for one helicopter at a time,

and delaying Leighton is not an option.

Unfortunately, we set off not too long after the previous helicopter,

and as I understand it,

they are currently still waiting on the pad at the LGI.

So, I've called up, told them that we are inbound,

and hopefully he'll be clear by the time we arrive.

Over Leeds, pilot Andy can see the other helicopter is still there.

Here's what's going to happen, OK?

He's going to have to come back for his paramedics,

so the best thing is if he lifts now, I'll drop you off,

then I'll clear the pad and go back Leeds, and when you call me,

I'll just come back and pick you all up.

-Just lifted now.

-Yeah.

With precision timing,

the helicopter that brought his mum to hospital makes way

for the Yorkshire team and her poorly son.

For me, it's a first, trying to get two helicopters onto one pad...

As you might be able to hear, my helicopter is flying around,

waiting for me to get back on.

But hopefully, when this helicopter moves,

he can pick me back up so we can head back to Manchester.

Paramedic Dave is keeping his nine-year-old patient talking.

Your head's hurting? What, at the front, or just all over?

-Back.

-At the back?

But he's still concerned.

This is Leighton, he's nine, he'll be ten next month.

He's been hit by a car.

Looking at the damage, it looks like his left femur's gone.

The next hour will be critical for Leighton,

as the doctors subject their young patient

to a catalogue of scans and X-rays,

while another team cares for his badly-injured mum.

Saving lives is all about teamwork. On the air ambulance,

most days there's 40 years of medical knowledge

and thousands of hours of flying experience.

Together, that knowhow can make a real difference to its patients.

98, just lifted and en route back to location.

Pilot Andy Lister and paramedic Darren Axe are carrying

a very important passenger -

a hospital doctor - with the drugs to ease the agony of farmer John Bird.

He's is so much pain after being run over by an agricultural implement

weighing two tonnes, he can't bear to be moved.

-You OK back there, Doc?

-Yeah, I'm fine, thanks.

You get a good view. Thanks for coming out and helping us.

This guy has had a full 20 of morphine.

He's hemodynamically stable.

But every time we try and lift him onto the board, he's just in agony.

It's about a five or six tonne piece of farming equipment

that's run over his legs and pelvis.

Just move that a tiny bit there, John.

It comes right through, into the top of my back.

Local paramedics were quick to call in the air ambulance.

Despite their proximity to Hull,

transporting a patient with pelvic injuries

across a bumpy field would cause unnecessary suffering.

This face mask just sits over your mouth,

and we'll just get someone to hold the purge valve,

and all we need to do is

just keep taking nice, slow, steady, deep breaths, all right?

His pain's quite well controlled at the moment.

It's just when we try and splint him

or get him packaged to move to the hospital,

or onto the air ambulance, it's causing him extreme discomfort.

So we've called for a doctor to come out

and give him something a lot stronger,

where he's not going to feel anything.

98, back on the ground.

This is a welcome sight for John and his rescuers.

Helimed 98 is carrying the drugs and the knowhow to ease his pain.

He's been out and about, doing some farm work.

The trailer has rolled up onto his right hip,

and it's rolled back down.

He's complaining of pain in his right hip

and the right side of his back, going down to his buttocks.

To help stabilise their patient,

the paramedics will wrap John's abdomen in a pelvic splint.

This will help restrict the movement of any broken bones,

which could cause further damage to fragile internal organs.

Are you happy with the height of that one? Or do you want it lower?

It needs to be lower.

Doctors are permitted to give

much higher doses of morphine than paramedics.

It's hoped that now John can bear

the painful process of being lifted onto the stretcher.

I'm going to give him three or four minutes.

As much purging of that as we can do.

When he starts to go all tingly and that,

we're just going to roll it

literally just far enough to get the board under.

Hopefully, when the two have been stabilised, then we're steady away.

Sam gets the team organised.

Any lack of coordination when moving John will only cause more suffering.

Just with your other hand, like a C-grip, that's cracking.

Doc, have you got that leg? Have you got this leg, mate?

In one swift move, John is rolled onto the stretcher.

He can now be given another short burst of pain-relieving gas and air,

before he is moved to the chopper.

-That wasn't easy, was it?

-Oh, it was terrible.

Tell me about it.

We've given him so much morphine now that we've had to hold off

the ketamine, and we've given him a bigger dose of Ventinox.

Hopefully, that's relieved his pain. We've able to get him on the stretcher

-and remove him to the aircraft.

-Don't drop me, don't drop me.

With the light fading fast, John is loaded into the chopper.

We've got a 50-year-old gentleman that's been run over

by a piece of farm equipment.

He's complaining of pain in his right hip and lower back,

possible neck injury, possible pelvic injury.

Racing the setting sun, it will take Helimed 98 five minutes

to get John to Hull and its trauma unit.

Darren and Sam know their patient is very seriously injured,

and accidents involving farm machinery are notorious

for further complications, like infection.

Right, Doc, thank you very much for your help,

we really appreciate it, you coming out.

Cheers, guys. Have a good shift.

It's be ten days before John is off the danger list at Hull Royal.

As the team feared, his pelvis is fractured,

and he has dislocated his right hip -

injuries he remembers only too well.

It just all happened so fast. I could feel...

I could feel my bones... Well, I could hear them crunching,

and I could feel things crunching as it came up.

And then obviously as my hip came out from the socket,

I felt a big snap and a tugging, and with that, it was on my pelvis.

And, um... It just happened so fast.

I mean, as everybody said, if it had been another split second,

or millimetres, I wouldn't be sat here today.

John's now recovering from major surgery at Hull Royal Infirmary.

Because his thigh bone and pelvis have been separated in the accident,

repairs involved a complicated procedure,

with a frighteningly-high risk of failure.

Once something's been taken away from your body,

you only have a limited amount of time

before your body starts to reject it.

The anaesthetist came, and he said,

"I'm only giving you a 25% chance that your hip will survive."

He said, "You've a 75% chance that you're going to lose your leg."

So, you know, time was the absolute essence, it was critical for time.

And, you know,

that was where the helicopter played a major part in it.

Ever since man learned how to climb trees,

people have been falling out of them,

and scarcely a week goes by without someone needing the Helimed team

thanks to an oak, an ash or an elm.

2,000 people earn their living from Yorkshire's woodlands.

But since petrol-driven chainsaws went on the market,

the country's become a home to tens of thousands of amateur lumberjacks.

-It's a bloke out of a tree, or something?

-Yes.

Is it? Bit grisly, then, possibly.

I think it was an access issue, as well.

And in this weather, paramedic Darren is already wondering

how this could have happened.

It's raining quite heavily at the moment. You would think that

people would think twice before trying to scramble up a tree

when it's absolutely throwing it down with rain.

OK, the road that we got in front of us, I reckon that's that farm,

just in front on the nose now, that's where we need to be.

He's at a farm, is he?

A paramedic road crew has just got to 42-year-old Michael Midgely,

who's in agony after falling from a tree on his remote farm.

-We've got a sheep in this field.

-This field here?

-Yeah, this one here. To our left now.

-Oh, what, one sheep?

He's gone in t'corner.

-I'll just keep an eye on the sheep.

-Crazy, crazy sheep.

I thought you were going to squash the sheep!

No, no, the sheep will get out of the way, if it's got enough sense!

-This is Michael.

-OK.

-He thinks he landed feet first.

-I definitely landed feet first.

He heard a crack as he landed, and a horrendously sharp pain

straight into the back of his ankle.

-What it feels like is my heel, it's going to explode.

-Right.

We were just cutting down the hedge, putting up this new fence,

and then that tree was in the way, so we just cut it down.

But the tree fell, and the ladder collapsed under him,

and he fell on off, and blood splurted out of his ankle.

The ladder was against there, but as it fell,

I'd got a chainsaw in my hand, so what happens is,

as the branch was going, the saw got stuck,

So I didn't want the saw to come back on me, because it was spinning,

so I tried to push the saw away, lost my balance and went. Ladder went afterwards.

-And did the branch come down behind you?

-Branch went first.

-That went forward, and I sort of went straight down.

-Good job, then.

What's your pain score now?

-Out of ten?

-12.

Being in such pain, Darren's keen to give Michael morphine.

His tattoos suggest he's not scared of needles.

That's a nice bit of ink, that. Who did that for you?

-Sheffield guy.

-Oh.

So, the amount of needles I've had in that arm...!

They always say it's the colouring-in that hurts,

but it isn't. That outlining hurts most.

Darren should know - he has an arm tattoo himself.

The gentlemen's been using a chainsaw, cutting some branches,

and I think the branch has given way

before he's finished cutting it,

which has sort of lodged him off balance,

The ladder's come from underneath him.

He's managed to ditch the chainsaw, luckily,

and he's come down on his feet. He's got an isolated ankle injury.

Open fracture, we do believe.

-Stay nice and still, Michael, for us.

-Not moving.

His ankle is so badly injured, the bone is sticking out.

And despite two dressings, it's still bleeding.

Lift your foot a minute, all right?

All right, Michael, we're just going to strap your leg up a bit.

-It's bleeding quite heavily, actually.

-Ah, for crying out loud!

-Keep taking that in.

-Still got a good...

With injuries like this, people have known to lose a foot

if the blood supply is cut off.

Yeah, Roger, we've got a 42, 4-2, year-old male.

He's fallen 18 feet out of a tree.

So, with the family sheep now out of the way,

a flight to hospital on Helimed 98 is Michael's best chance

for a full recovery.

Don't worry, mate, we won't drop you. We only drop people on Sundays.

Michael's flown to hospital in Doncaster,

where surgeons operate on his foot and his ankle.

He's soon home, but it'll be a while before he's up a ladder again.

Of course, you don't have to fall out of a tree

for one of them to hurt you.

Today, on a road in East Yorkshire, there's been a bizarre crash

after a huge falling branch landed on a car,

leaving its driver trapped in a roadside ditch.

-RADIO:

-Roger 98, another emergency. We've got a male.

He was driving along, a tree branch has fallen in front of the vehicle.

It's left the road and is currently on its side, in a ditch.

It's not the kind of day for branches to be falling off.

There is a bit of wind, I suppose.

-The wind has picked up.

-But it's not exactly gale force, is it?

He's complaining of neck pain,

and it looks like he might have an injury to his arm.

We believe there is a doctor on scene who requested air support.

So, we're going to go down and see if we can assist in any way.

It looks like the traffic has been diverted down here.

Low right, one o'clock.

Helicopters have trouble with trees too.

They are a major cause of crashes among inexperienced pilots.

Army veteran Chris Attrill knows to give them a wide berth.

We're over the trees at that road, mate.

You're clear of the trees to the rear, mate.

And you're good out to the right and to the rear.

What's happening with the patient?

Coming down the road, unluckily, one of the tree branches come off,

-straight onto his windscreen.

-OK.

He doesn't remember anything from when the tree hit the windscreen.

He's left the road and bounced off this tree.

No windscreen or cabin by the time we got here,

it was completely crushed.

It's hard to imagine that all this has been caused by nature.

Their patient has just been cut out of his overturned car,

and the seriousness of the crash is clear to see.

He's possibly been knocked out by it, and could have sustained

other injuries. The crew are just about to

get him out of the vehicle. So we're just going to have

a quick look at him on their stretcher now

and decide whether we should take him by road

or for us to fly him out to Hull.

We know that branch has fallen, hit his windscreen.

Yeah, he can't remember much after the branch landed on the car.

Engineers have now arrived to start clearing the road,

and it's going to be a big job.

Each of these branches weighs more than the car they landed on.

His main problem is C-spine pain, but if he's got no deficits,

then he's probably better off by road.

Although they suspect this driver could have serious injuries,

the accident happened a short drive from Hull's main trauma hospital,

so he's going to travel there by road

while the emergency tree surgeons get to work here on the roadside.

Nearly 350 square miles of Yorkshire is woodland.

Nearly two million individual trees.

From the ancient remains of woods once reputed to harbour Robin Hood,

to spruce plantations barely a decade old,

forestry is a major industry, but if you go down to the woods today,

you'll find they are a playground too.

I was on that branch over there, and she was climbing,

and her mum called her, and when she was putting her phone back,

after she put her phone back, she fell, she just... She fell.

Tree climbing, it must be the start of the summer holidays.

They're in the trees, mate.

Yeah, you can see the kids waving there. Near the goalposts.

First I knew about it was her friends ringing home,

ringing my mobile,

saying that she's fallen out of a tree and rolled down.

And it was quite high, and they'd rung the ambulance.

We have a tendency to over-exaggerate, but she has fallen

from the very top of that tree over there, Dad.

I think she's landed on her right thigh.

Her right thigh has definitely gone.

Rebecca Scatchard had been exploring these woods with her friends,

and it was actually a call from her concerned mum which led to her fall.

We weren't sure if she was just, like, unconscious or anything.

So, we ran up to her, she was just, like, crying.

She was screaming a lot, and she wouldn't move.

She's been down here all day, they've had a picnic.

Been playing with a ball, Frisbee, skipping rope and everything.

There used to be a swing down here, it broke.

And she decided to climb a tree.

And fall off.

Can we have traction splint, please, mate?

She's got a badly-broken leg, and the paramedics are also worried

about her back.

It supports your leg and it takes the pain away, essentially.

Paramedic Ben Anderson was the first to get to her.

He used to fly with the air-ambulance team.

Now he has to reassure his worried patient

that this is the way she needs to travel.

-Will the helicopter crash?

-Like I say, I did two years on it,

I wouldn't have gone in it if I thought it was going to crash.

Hey, I'm a right scaredy cat, and I went on it.

I promise it won't crash.

We're going to keep this leg straight so it doesn't waggle about,

because when it waggles about, it hurts, doesn't it?

Paramedic Darren is going to fit a specialist traction splint

to Rebecca's leg, an ingenious device that will not only support,

but also straighten her broken leg.

-SHE MOANS

-Sorry, I'm not moving it.

But getting it in place is a painful process.

We got one on. The second one coming up, mate.

And ready, steady, lift.

She was just already laid on the floor.

You can tell from her clothes that she tumbled

when she had come out of the tree.

Initially thought, "Well, I've been to plenty of people

"falling out of tree in parks,

"it's very rarely over the patient's own head height."

But I think we can safely say she's gone about 30, 25 foot there.

When she's landed, I think she's landed purely onto her leg.

Her thigh muscle has definitely gone, you know, so...

It's a closed fracture,

but we've given her plenty of morphine and got her on her way.

It's broken, you don't need to look at an X-ray.

You're going to have a nice pot.

-All right?

-Can people sign it?

Yeah, they can sign it.

-You can even have a pink one if you like.

-Yay!

Yeah, OK? Super. Right.

So, just minutes after gravity pulled her down to Earth,

Rebecca and her mum are heading back up through the trees.

They're both being taken straight to the regional trauma centre in Leeds.

It's clear where Rebecca got her concern about flying from.

Her mum vowed this was something that she'd never do.

I was frightened stiff, but it was very nice.

I've never, ever gone in a helicopter, never.

Now that I've been in one, brill, absolutely brilliant.

Under different circumstances, I hope!

They do a very good job. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

But doctors at the LGI make a shocking discovery.

Rebecca's injuries are much worse than anyone suspected.

She's broken two vertebrae in her neck, as well as her thigh bone.

She spends much of her school holidays in hospital,

undergoing a series of operations.

But six weeks later, she's back with her friends in her local park.

It's called a halo, and it's keeping my neck still, because I've broken

two vertebrae that's in my neck, C-6 and C-7.

There's two bolts here, and two bolts in the back of my head.

And then it goes all around the back of my head,

it goes down here. There's a belt round here,

and it goes all around there. Goes round my shoulders as well.

Since her accident,

mum Dawn thinks Rebecca's tree climbing days are over.

We'd been in hospital five days, and I came back in

and I went to look at the tree

and told it off for throwing her out!

But Rebecca won't come back in, and I don't think that the girls...

They won't be going near the trees.

Rebecca will wear the metal frame for a number of months.

Her neck is still very fragile.

If I was to bang it again, it could do more damage,

and then I won't be able to... I might be paralysed.

Won't be able to do anything.

Rebecca might be changing her playground in future,

but she certainly won't be changing her playmates.

I just love them to bits, I can't ask for any more.

If they weren't there, I don't know what I'd have done.

And you'll be pleased to hear that

all those patients, touch wood, are on the mend.

Now, a flight in an air ambulance is just the beginning

of a long and painful recovery

for many of the Helimed team's casualties.

At Leeds General Infirmary today, doctors are dealing with two patients

from the same crash, mother and son.

Nine-year-old Leighton Cowdry's head did this to the windscreen.

Hit the car with his leg, hit it with his head.

There's a dent in the apex, which takes a bit of doing.

Now, doctors must determine

what damage the impact has caused to his skull.

Delivering his patient into the skilled hands of A&E consultants is

a moment of relief for paramedic Dave Appleby.

But he still has his concerns.

He's in the right place now, he's got a full trauma team here

that are paediatric-trained as well.

So, they've given him a full top-to-toe examination.

Bearing in mind what's happened to him,

he's obviously going to need a scan for his head.

And also, he needs treatment to his leg.

That needs completely straightening and fixing.

Dave's job is finished, and it's time for Helimed 99 to return to base.

Within the hour, Leighton's mum is undergoing orthopaedic surgery

at the LGI.

Her son follows her into theatre.

The following morning,

Emma wakes up to find their accident is headline news.

There was a car just there. There's nowt I could have done, nothing.

I could see loads of people around me,

and the first thing I thought about was Leighton,

"Is my baby all right?"

They were all telling me that he were fine, but I couldn't see him.

So obviously, I weren't convinced that he were

until I actually did see him.

All she wants now is to see her son.

And the reunion means a wheelchair ride down two floors of the LGI

to the children's ward.

-I was hit on my head.

-I know. I love you.

Leighton is sedated and recovering from surgery.

And Emma is still in a lot of pain.

How's your leg? Are you not good at walking?

The good news is Leighton's head injury turned out

not to be as serious as his badly-broken thigh bone.

They'll both take some time to recover.

But they're alive, and after an accident like this,

that's as much as anyone could ask.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd