Episode 6 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 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'll pop him off to sleep with an anaesthetic.

..and town centres into helipads.

-Where am I going to land?

-Just behind you, Tim.

And every day, the Helimed team's skill, speed and courage

is saving lives.

Today on Helicopter Heroes.

A faithful pet comes between an unconscious dog owner

and her rescuers.

We've had to use some of the Bite Back spray, the dog spray,

to just get it away.

Pilot Chris battles through the snow to reach a dangerously ill patient.

I can drop you off, there, guys,

but I don't think it's clever to stay.

A drunken driver flees the scene of an accident.

The shock will hit him today. He'll know he's killed that person.

Get a dog and you've got a friend for life, or so the story goes.

And the bond between pet and owner can be remarkably strong,

as the emergency services sometimes find out at first hand.

Sharing life in a landscape like this

makes many dogs more than pets,

they're workmates and faithful friends all in one.

But high in the Pennines today,

the Helimed team are about to deal with

a patient who already owes her life to her canine companion.

We're going to a patient

who has collapsed up on the top, towards Todmorden.

Bit of a strange one, really.

Sounds... I think he could be potentially very, very poorly.

Unfortunately, he's out walking with his dog,

and his dog won't let anyone near him to assess,

so we're heading out that way.

Fortunately Andy's been trained in fighting dangerous creatures.

Yeah, I've got two Chihuahuas,

so I'm well trained in the art of dog attack.

2,000 feet up on the hills above the mill town of Todmorden,

walkers have come across a dog

standing guard over its unconscious owner.

-So, we got the wind farm at one o'clock.

-Got it.

Joan Nadin's faithful collie Rowan knew she needed help,

but when police arrived, he feared for his owner's safety

and went for the officers.

To help Joan, they had to spray him with animal repellent,

and now he's on the run.

And Helimed 98, about to let down at Todmorden.

But paramedics James Vine and Andy Armitage

are now more concerned about Joan.

Hiya, mate. You all right?

She's still unconscious, nearly three hours after she collapsed.

Hiya, sweetheart, are you looking at me?

That's it. Open your eyes for me.

-How are we doing? What's happened?

-She can't speak.

-Her arm was rigid towards the back.

-Her legs have been stretching out.

Yeah, this arm was rigid at the back.

You squeeze my hand, my love. It's the ambulance service.

Squeeze my hand. Squeeze.

They've nothing to go on.

Her conditions is potentially very serious,

and it's feared that chilly temperatures

may have made that even worse.

This is a remote place. It was lucky Rowan attracted a party of ramblers

to the path where Joan lay.

I was just walking along and I saw the dog,

and then I wasn't sure whether it was a sheepdog just hanging out,

and then I thought, "Maybe it's a deer."

But as I got closer, I could see, sort of, clothing, and I thought,

"Maybe the dog's been dumped, it's got a blanket or something."

And as a got closer, I realised

there was someone next to the dog, unconscious.

-Everything's fine.

-The M6, mate.

The dog was really agitated, so, erm, I phoned the police.

Understandably, Joan's dog isn't keen

to come anywhere near a police uniform.

Her dog was quite protective of her,

so I've had to use some of the Bite Back spray,

the dog spray to just get it away.

Tried lassoing it, but failed miserably.

What's your name, my love?

What's sore, my love? What's hurting?

Without their patient's medical history,

the team must work through the possible causes of her collapse.

Nice and still.

It could be diabetes, a stroke or a brain aneurysm.

Can't really get a good ECG, James, but it's ticking away,

70 beats a minute. Deep breath in, my love.

So it's not her heart - but without her explanation of the symptoms,

they have an impossible task.

She must have been here a while, I think, in't she?

What is clear is that Joan urgently needs the care and diagnostic skills

only a hospital can provide,

and without them, her outlook could be bleak.

Medicine is now so sophisticated,

it's easy to forget that just a few decades ago

people were dying from conditions

that today don't even require a stay in hospital.

But there are still some routine problems

that can kill if you don't have prompt treatment.

Winter has the Yorkshire Dales in its grip.

this is not the time or the place to be seriously ill.

But in the hill town of Settle,

a young woman is fighting for her life.

Doctor has been out to see a young lady,

and said he thinks she's got appendicitis.

Now, since that time, the patient apparently has deteriorated.

It's been upgraded to an emergency.

It's a potentially fatal condition,

as it bursts, the contents of your intestines

leach out into the abdominal cavity

and cause poisoning, they basically poison the patient from the inside.

20-year-old Charlotte Barton has been seen by her GP.

She urgently needs an operation. But her condition is deteriorating.

It's feared her appendix may now have burst.

That process, once something bursts, to becoming critical

is just a matter of hours.

So, you know, if it's actually burst now, the clock's ticking.

Their patient is at least 40 minutes from surgery by road,

longer if the snow gets worse.

But it could also ground Helimed 98.

Pilot Chris Attrill is concerned.

We've got a couple of fronts coming in from the north and west.

-How much further have we got to go?

-Four miles, mate. But it's not that.

It's the time you're sat on the ground, sorting everything out,

and then we say,

-"Right, get the brollies up, we're not going anywhere."

-Yeah.

I can drop you off there, guys, but I don't think it's clever to stay.

Hello. Hello, Charlotte. So, what's the problem, then?

-Pains down here.

-Uh-huh?

-And how long have you had those, sweetheart?

-Since last night.

-Roughly what time last night?

-Don't know.

-Seven?

Charlotte is in agony.

Does that hurt that side?

Does that hurt that side, as well?

So you've had a period where it got worse,

and then it suddenly went away?

OK.

And is it starting to get worse again now? Yeah. OK, sweetheart.

Graham isn't showing it, but he's very concerned.

She has clear symptoms of a potentially lethal condition.

She has had an episode where it's got worse, eased off,

which is probably when it's popped,

and then started to get bad again now.

Clearly ruptured appendix, patient is fully conscious, however,

erm, but it's a good 45 minute road transfer.

I'll give Leeds a call, if they are happy to accept,

I'll get back and just confirm that with yourself, over.

Chris is keeping a weather eye out, and he doesn't like what he sees.

Not the best, no.

We're not going any further west, put it that way.

Right, I just need to pop a needle in your arm, is that all right?

Yeah, and then I can give you some painkiller, OK? Is that OK?

All right, darling?

-Oh, you going to be fine.

-Don't worry, everything's fine. All right?

Her condition's so serious,

Helimed 98 will by-pass the nearest hospital,

and fly her direct to surgeons in Leeds,

IF they can get off the ground.

That's the only hospital we can fly to

cos of the poor visibility with the snow.

The only problem is at Leeds,

surgery goes to St James's, which is another Hospital in Leeds,

so she might have to be transferred from the LGI, but it's still

better than a 45 minute road trip, especially in this weather.

The weather's closing in.

And Charlotte's life could depend on this flight.

When I was a copper, the hardest thing I had to do

was tell a family a loved one had been killed in an accident.

I can still remember the awful feeling of knocking on the door

with news that would ruin lives.

But every year, 2,000 families

have to live through the agony of a road death.

This is the story of one of them.

The cards are still up at Helimed headquarters.

It's the first day of 2012, the sales are starting

and paramedic Darren Axe faces the worst of all starts to a new year.

There are four people in the vehicle.

So if one's sustained injuries enough to cause death,

then the potential is the others will be badly injured as well.

Helimed 99 has been scrambled to the Stanningley bypass,

a busy route between Leeds and Bradford.

-You see where that grass is, where the blocks of flats are?

-Yes.

-I can stick it there.

-Yeah, OK.

There's only one ambulance on the scene,

so they're going to need a pair of hands.

The driver of this blue hatchback is dead.

His wife is fighting for her life,

and ground paramedics are determined to save her.

Leeds Helimed 99 now letting down.

But this is no ordinary accident.

This Volvo hit the hatchback at high speed from behind.

What happened next horrified witnesses.

The people that was in that car ran off up that banking,

along with the driver, so God forgive them.

How can you leave somebody like that and a person at the other side?

Paramedics become hardened to the realities of death on our roads.

But the timing of this accident,

and the missing driver's callous disregard for his victims

has shocked everyone.

Do you need help?

She's agonal breathing,

she's got a heart rate of... it was 140.

She was stuck out there. There's a fatality over there.

The guy, the driver, came up to the car.

He came up to me.

He tried to open the door first,

and I said "Leave it, fella."

Then he tried to grab her off me, like, go in.

And he ran.

Then he went over there. Seen somebody down there.

The shock will hit him today, what he's done.

When he sees it on TV, he will know he's killed that person,

and maybe seriously injured another life.

How can you do that to somebody? To somebody's life?

Do you want us to drop on to the carriage way,

-or do you want to load and go?

-I think we're going to load and go.

Do you need me to do anything for you?

I think we'll just go.

Despite Helimed 99's speed, driving the female passenger to hospital

is going to be faster than going by air.

She's critically injured.

I'm happy if you are, Colin.

The West Yorkshire Police helicopter is searching

for the missing occupants of the Volvo.

Less than three hours into his first shift of 2012,

Darren Axe is coming to terms with another patient he could not save.

Happy New Year.

Going in here, mate.

Patient's obviously unconscious,

having some cardiac issues as well,

so we've attempted some resuscitation on the scene.

The hospital is less than a mile away.

Where we've landed, it's fairly high,

and we would have had to relocate,

which would have added time on to the transfer,

so we have assisted the crew, loaded her into the ground vehicle,

and she's on her way to hospital.

One of those details that you seem to get every year

where somebody's going to get bad news.

Helimed 99's returning to base, but on the ground,

paramedics are fighting to keep 65-year-old Dorothy Metcalf alive.

Sadly, it's a battle they lose.

She's certified dead on arrival at Leeds General Infirmary.

The new year was only 11 hours old

when David and Dorothy Metcalf were killed in a horrific car crash,

on the notorious Stanningley bypass between Leeds and Bradford.

Even those who are used to witnessing horrific scenes

of car crashes found this one particularly harrowing.

It was a high speed crash.

David and Dorothy Metcalf both died at the scene.

They were in a Fiat, the other driver in a Volvo.

Eduard Mereohra has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving,

and was remanded in custody until January 10th.

The funeral will take place next week.

A week after the accident, 300 people turn out

for the Metcalfs' funeral.

David was a retired electrician.

His wife spent much of her time looking after their grandchildren.

The man who killed them was drunk.

The problem with these type of details,

is they are always tragic incidents.

People totally unsuspecting,

you know, going about their business,

and then are run into by a drunk driver.

I can't pass judgment on it, but it is just so needless.

Unfortunately, the relatives that are left behind

after a tragic fatality,

it's something they'll never forget or even get over.

The Metcalfs' son Clive is now dealing with the trauma

faced by 3,000 families a year in the UK.

The aftermath of a fatal road accident.

Simply visiting his parents' deserted home is painful.

I answered the phone, and said "Happy New Year",

and he just said to me, "I don't know how to say to this,

"but your mum and dad have just been killed in a car accident."

And it was just, like, the whole world froze and went numb.

It was surreal.

No-one knows where the Metcalfs were going on January 1st.

What is certain is that they were driving within the speed limit.

Dad being dad was probably doing 45 to 50, rather than 60,

and this car has just come through doing 100, 120mph,

and hit them from behind.

The Volvo went straight into the back of my dad's car,

and it just cartwheeled down the road.

By coincidence,

the TV presenter who broke the news of the new year accident

to the county where it took place,

is a close friend of the couple's son.

He's seen the toll their deaths have taken on Clive.

I've seen him since the funeral.

I think he's coped very well with it.

I mean, clearly it hit him quite a bit after the event.

I think it hit his sister immediately.

I think she really found it difficult to cope,

and I think the strength of the family

had a great deal to do with keeping them all together.

But I think the effects of losing his mum and dad

in the way that he did, probably sunk in after two or three days.

But fatal accidents take their toll on the emergency services too.

We're all very aware of the point at which you reach the limits

of the skills that you have, and that there's still nothing

we could do to assist them at the scene.

Eduard Mereohra was an illegal immigrant

who'd spent New Year's Eve drinking heavily.

Four months after the crash,

his victims' family arrived at Leeds Crown Court to see justice done.

Eduard Mereohra was asked if he was guilty or not guilty

and he pleaded guilty to two counts of death by dangerous driving.

We are grateful that plea has been given.

Clearly he's robbed us of Mum and Dad

and we want him to spend as much time inside for that

as we can possibly get.

The driver was jailed for nine years and the judge ordered him

to be deported to Moldova, but that's little consolation

to the friends and family the Metcalfs leave behind.

High in the Pennines, the paramedics are dealing with the difficult case

of a dog walker found unconscious by ramblers.

Squeeze my hand, my love, it's the Ambulance Service.

Squeeze my hand. Squeeze!

On the windswept moors above the town of Todmorden,

dog walker Joan Nadin's at the centre of a medical mystery.

She's been unconscious for nearly three hours

after collapsing on a remote path

and paramedic James Vine can still see little sign of a response.

-What's your name, my love?

-What's your name?

What's your name? Open your eyes. Open your eyes for me, chicken.

Open your eyes. What's your name?

Their patient's vital signs are good but James and his colleague Andy

fear her collapse could be a symptom of bleeding in her brain.

It's a theory the first rescuers to arrive have already had.

We've got to her.

We can see that her left arm was in spasm behind her

and she was unable to speak, which we thought could be signs of a stroke.

But the hunt is still on for the woman's dog.

It was guarding its owner.

We've got two chaps with dogs trying to catch it for us,

but it's running away from them.

One, two, three, lift. Everyone happy?

We've definitely got no ID, nothing on this lady, have we?

Do you want to keep hold of bag or take it with us?

Take it with us. There's no value in it.

Maybe one of the officers

will be able to get some information out of it.

The team still doesn't know who its patient is.

-Can you say your name for me? Do you know what's happened?

-No.

You've had a fall while you've been out walking the dog. The dog's safe.

At last, she's showing signs of responding,

but she's still very confused.

-What's your name?

-Joan.

-Joan, what's your surname?

-Nadin.

-Maiden?

-Nadin.

Nadin? Nadin.

James knows that she may have been up here

since early this morning. He's concerned for her family.

Is there anyone at home?

-I don't know.

-Do you live with anybody?

-My husband.

-Husband. What's the telephone number at home?

What James and Andy still don't know is what caused Joan to collapse.

If she was walking her dog up here, she must be physically fit.

Just run her through the system,

see if there's owt like this before or anything?

Has she a serious but undetected medical condition?

Has the doctor ever said you're diabetic?

It's a mystery only hospital doctors can solve.

On initial taking of her blood sugars,

they seemed within the normal range.

But as we've retaken them again, they're a little bit low.

We're going to give her some glucose intravenously.

Hopefully that will raise her blood sugar levels up.

However, she does need a bit of a check over.

98 Airdesk, lifted scene, over.

'Roger, James. Thanks.'

Joan's being flown to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary,

a few miles from her home in the Pennine town of Todmorden.

Doors, pilot, safe-locked.

In the next hour, tests will show whether Joan's sudden collapse

was due to diabetes or something more serious.

One thing is certain, if it hadn't been for her dog,

she could still be lying unconscious on the moor,

and despite a police search, he's still missing.

A ruptured appendix kills thousands of people every year

in the third world, but the weather means patient Charlotte Barton

may face the same fate in rural North Yorkshire.

Snow's already lying on the Pennines above the market town of Settle,

and more is on the way.

If Helimed 98 is grounded, it may cost Charlotte Barton her life.

The signs and symptoms are suggestive

that her appendix has actually possibly ruptured

because her abdomen's become quite rigid

which is a sign of peritonitis.

I'd suggest that she's getting to a more critical condition,

so at the moment she's stable but obviously we don't want to wait

till she deteriorates.

Charlotte's ruptured appendix is slowly poisoning her body.

There's no time to waste

and walking is the fastest way to get her to the chopper.

We were supposed to be going to the gym today, joining the gym,

and she rang and said we weren't going.

She'd been up being sick all night and she'd got pains.

That was the start of all this.

The roads around her home are already treacherous.

Pilot Chris Attrill must get his patient to Leeds

and find a way through the blizzards.

He's smiling, but tense.

Not quite as bad as we had as we were approaching in.

It seems to have eased off a little bit but at least

we're going away from it once we set off back towards Leeds.

-How's the pain doing now, darling?

-All right.

Would you be prefer to be rid of it?

Right, let's have a look at this arm now.

Just going to go out.

The opposite direction.

Air ambulance pilots are governed by strict safety laws.

Flying into the sort of conditions found in a blizzard

is strictly illegal.

It doesn't matter how seriously injured their patient is,

the safety of the chopper and crew must come first.

Air desk 98, over.

-98, go ahead.

-We've now got moderate sleet at LBA, over.

If the bad weather has reached Leeds Bradford Airport,

it's not looking good.

Cut the corner a tad,

any problems we'll roll right down into the low ground.

There's a real risk this flight will end in an emergency landing,

leaving Charlotte and the crew stranded in the Dales.

I've got that, mate. I've got the power lines 12 o'clock as well.

-What a yucky day.

-Got the horizon and beyond it, so we're good, mate.

How's your pain now, Charlotte? Is it gone?

-It is still there.

-Do you want me to try and get rid of it completely?

But the skills that kept Army veteran Chris

and his passengers alive through conflicts in Iraq and Bosnia

are on Charlotte's side today.

That should be it on the nose.

There's the ambulance.

We're just circling the landing spot now.

We'll be going down.

They've beaten the weather.

Surgeons at St James's Hospital in Leeds are already scrubbing up.

They know that even with modern drugs and treatments,

a ruptured appendix is a potential killer.

Charlotte's appendix is removed just in time.

She's treated with antibiotics

and kept under observation for several days,

but after a week she's sent home,

lucky to survive a medical emergency

that stretched the Helimed team to the limit.

Once it's burst it releases things, poison into your body.

It gives you different illnesses from there, I think.

It's all about getting it out quickly.

They got me down to Leeds within 15 minutes or so.

If I'd have left it longer to ring the doctor,

then it could have been worse without getting to hospital quicker.

Now, back to the Pennines

where the Helimed team is dealing with one of the most unusual cases

it's ever handled, thanks to a family pet.

Helimed 99 is heading for Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

where it's hoped doctors will be able to find

the reason for dog walker Joan Nadin's collapse.

Paramedic Andy suspects his patient may be diabetic.

She's a little bit confused,

but initial check of her blood sugars is absolutely fine.

But as we've got her into the air and rechecked the sugars,

which we would normally do, recheck baseline observations,

it's become apparent that her blood sugars are low.

And she seems to be responding to the glucose which he's given her.

Did they send anything out to screen?

Do you know what you're coming for?

Nearly 2.5 million people in the UK have diabetes,

and Joan is now able to confirm she is one of them.

-Insulin dependent.

-I am insulin dependent.

-BM initially was six.

Are you insulin now, are you? OK.

Sorry. BM was 2.6, she's had 200 of glucose.

But paramedic James fears Joan's diabetes is not her only problem -

he wants doctors at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

to carry out tests to rule out something more serious.

Over the next 24 hours, Joan is detained in hospital.

Doctors eventually come to the conclusion that

an imbalance in sugar levels was all that triggered her sudden collapse.

The next day, she's released -

and allowed home for a reunion with her faithful pet.

I had actually eaten half an hour before the incident happened,

and I had taken what I thought was ample carbohydrates.

And, I mean, how it happened is beyond my comprehension,

because I don't remember hardly anything about it at all.

-What's your name, my love?

-What's your name?

I do remember coming round and I do remember

when they were shouting at me

and trying to get me conscious and everything.

I thought I'd done everything I should have done,

and everything went wrong.

Rowan and Joan are inseparable.

He can even sense when her blood sugar levels are falling.

Rowan is actually aware of when I'm going low,

and he does actually start jumping up at me.

And he does start alerting me to the fact I might be low.

But I just wasn't in a state to sort of pay much heed to him,

because I think I just fell unconscious very rapidly.

After his brush with the law, Rowan ran three miles home.

My husband had gone out looking for him,

my daughter had gone out looking for him,

and he did actually come back on his own, he was sitting on the doorstep.

He's a family dog, and we all love him to bits.

And the longer I've known him, the more fabulous I think he is.

He's the wisest dog I know. He would have protected me, I'm sure.

And I'm pleased to tell you Joan

and her pet have no plans to give up their walks on the moors.

But Rowan is now - understandably - a little wary of police uniforms!

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