Episode 1 Helicopter Heroes

When the people of rural Yorkshire dial 999,

help can be a long time coming.

The Yorkshire Dales are as beautiful as they are big,

but if you're seriously injured in a landscape as gigantic as this,

your life is on the line.

But in the remotest parts of Britain's biggest county,

they look to the skies for help.

Look on your left, Mac, can you get in that grass field on the left?

Yes, mate, go for that.

From high drama in the Peaks, to high waters in the Dales,

the Helimed team is at the heart of almost every rescue.

Bringing 21st-century medicine

to some of Britain's most isolated communities

and saving lives against the odds.

On Helicopter Heroes today...

A bizarre rescue for the patient whose staircase could kill her...

One of the strangest jobs I have ever been to,

it was very, very strange.

The team drops in to save a little girl badly hurt on the beach.

She's landed on her front, she's got a frontal lobe contusion.

She's cried throughout, mate.

I turned away for one second and when I turned back round,

she was going over the edge and she fell flat.

And the four-legged friend who landed his master in hospital.

The dog gets a bit excited and was pulling and pulled him off his feet.

Yorkshire's paramedics have to be ready for anything,

from a moorland farmer with a broken leg,

to a complicated, life-threatening illness,

but sometimes, a case comes along

that stretches their skills to the limit.

When the alarm goes, firefighters expect the unexpected.

But today's emergency in the town of Goole is unique.

They've been called out by an ambulance crew

dealing with 78-year-old Joan Smith.

She has a rare condition called a dying heart

and if she's moved, it could kill her.

Joan's trapped in a first-floor bedroom.

The lady's obviously having trouble arresting

if she goes out horizontal, so...

..we're going to slide her onto the platform of the aerial ladder,

drop it straight down, transfer her onto the gurney

and then it's going straightaway back to the hospital.

'Hello, Helimed 98, picking up shortly...'

But the plan is risky, which is why Helimed 98 has been called in.

It's carrying flying doctor Andy Pountney.

He'll be on hand to resuscitate Joan

if her heart stops during the operation.

If somebody's flat, it can cause them to go off.

They say they have to get them on the board and lift them, right round

and they said they didn't think it was stable enough. They thought they were going to cause her to arrest.

'Looking at the address, there's a school at the rear of this property,

'that's what the clinical supervisor on scene

'advised as an appropriate landing spot for you.'

'The grid reference I gave you is the one you should be heading for.'

'Look on your left, can you get in that grass field?'

'Yes, mate, go for that. Yeah.'

Their patient is dangerously ill

with a heart rate of just 15 beats per minute.

It should normally be between 60 and 100.

OK, just relax.

Joan's had a complete heart block.

This is where nerve tissue around the heart's natural pacemaker

is damaged, meaning it's unable to send electrical pulses

to the main ventricles to keep the heart pumping.

Unless the rest of the heart can be stimulated,

Joan's brain and other vital organs could be starved of oxygen.

This lady's heartbeat is far too slow,

so we need to try and speed it up a bit.

We've tried to do that by giving her drugs and that hasn't worked.

What Andy is going to do is pace her,

so he's going to electrically induce a faster heartbeat.

Small pads on Joan's chest are sending electrical pulses

to her heart to keep it beating.

It's still dangerously weak,

but they can't afford to wait any longer.

The difficulty is, the staircase is too steep,

two turns, too winding,

so you can see, the fire service have got a platform up to this window,

we've got on a long board, which will keep her nice and flat,

her heart rate is really slow, so if we sit her up,

basically we don't want to sit her up.

We're not going to bother strapping her on, we'll put her on,

the paramedics are ready, straight down to the front

-and then we'll get her onto the stretcher.

-That sounds fair enough.

They're about to move Joan.

If one end of the stretcher is a few inches higher than the other

she could die. And there's another problem.

They'll have to tilt her to reach the window.

No-one knows what effect that may have.

As you can see, we're pretty tight between these two doors.

It's a rigid board so obviously there's no bending in it.

Ready, prepare to lift - and lift.

Potential problem we're going to have here is this door,

we might have to tilt her a little bit to get her out.

Dr Andy is carefully monitoring Joan's heart.

If she goes into cardiac arrest here, resuscitating her will be

almost impossible.

All right.

But Joan's heart is continuing to beat and she's out.

Part of the town has been sealed off and her rescue has become

a local attraction.

-OK, can we stop at that?

-Stop.

But the Helimed team's attention is all on the patient.

-Drop and then...

-Yeah, we will.

Yeah, there we go.

Andy, you just take that.

An electric shock every second is keeping Joan alive.

But for paramedics Al and Matt, it's time to leave their patient.

Their job is done.

'One of the strangest jobs I've ever been to.

'That was very, very strange.

'We looked at flying her'

but it's probably not really much quicker to fly her.

By the time we've got her here to the aircraft, got her loaded,

got an ambulance to meet us at the landing site at the other end,

the advantage of the quarter of the time to fly will be a bit outweighed

by the ambulances either end, when she's already in the ambulance.

She's ready to go.

What Joan needs now is a pacemaker surgically implanted in her chest.

Surgeons at Hull Royal Infirmary can do it

but first paramedics have to get her to hospital alive.

For patient and rescuers alike, this will be a long journey.

2013 was the summer many families wondered why they'd paid to

go abroad on holiday,

when temperatures reached up to 30 degrees Celsius here in the Dales.

But the outlook wasn't as bright for some trippers.

If you're off the beaten track

and in trouble, this is the emergency service you need.

The UK has 48 mountain rescue teams, all independent charities

and all volunteers.

Last year they rescued more than 1,500 people

but one in five wasn't in the wilds at all.

And today, they've been called to a National Trust attraction.

Brimham Rocks, just north of Harrogate,

attracts thousands of visitors each year.

They come to explore its bizarre rock formations

but every summer, some go home by ambulance.

The next thing is whether or not they're going to clear our bit of

real estate for us where we normally land.

-Nice day for it though.

-What, for falling off rocks?

Yes, always a good day for falling off rocks, mate.

You think bikers are stupid -

hanging by your fingernails onto a sheer rock face, that's stupid.

24-year-old Sam Slater was at the rocks on a day out when he fell.

Now it's feared he has a serious back injury.

He's 20 feet off the ground and reaching him will be difficult.

You're up to your left, guys. In you go.

Right then, how are you doing?

Right, first of all, unfortunately, your picnic's going to have to move.

-How are you doing down there?

-Comfy.

-Had better days?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Sam's dad and brother saw what happened.

We were just climbing about eight foot up and he's just tried to

put his foot in a ledge, what a five-year-old's just gone through,

and he's just fell, I'd say seven or eight feet

and landed straight on bone at top of his back,

just above his backside.

-It's my back.

-Yeah.

-Don't shake your head, keep your head nice and still for me.

-All right.

I was trying to catch him, but because he was above me

'but he didn't fall to me, he fell away and I couldn't get to him.

'Having said that, if I'd fell, I'd have done a lot more damage as well.

'It's a nightmare.'

Sam has a very severe lower back pain.

It feels like I've got pins and needles in my legs.

Brimham's rocks were all shaped by wind and rain.

Formations like the Dancing Bear, the Eagle

and the Gorilla are fun to explore

but now they're a major obstacle in the battle to get Sam to hospital.

Right then, we'll give you a bit of morphine now, then.

'He's landed in a really awkward spot of the rocks, very narrow,'

then there's another drop about ten or 15 feet, so we've got to be

'careful that we don't fall as well in the gullies between the rocks.

'It's quite tricky and he's quite badly injured.'

-Does it hurt round here, Sam?

-Yeah.

-Does it? Round that?

-Yeah.

Sam's in so much pain, his legs cannot be straightened

and they can't move him. He's going to need stronger pain relief.

What we're concerned about, he might have broke his pelvis

'and possibly damaged his lower spine as well.'

He's landed flat on his backside, been unconscious for about ten seconds,

but he's complaining of severe pelvic pain and lumbar spine pain.

He's had ten milligrams of morphine, so I was just wondering whether or not

to think about giving him some ketamine, just to get him shifted.

You've managed to land on a particularly small, slanting,

uneven piece of rock, which is raised.

You couldn't have made it much more difficult.

Mountain rescue aren't often needed around here.

Brimham's only a few miles from Harrogate

and the Leeds commuter belt. But their skills will be vital today.

He's fallen probably about ten feet from the rocks,

from one terrace down to another, landed on his bottom.

Obviously there's pain around his pelvis and lower back,

because he's just telescoped down onto his spine

which is quite a significant mechanism of injury.

Shall we roll him towards you a little bit?

Get that end in and slide him up it, yeah? Everybody happy with that?

One, two, three.

The spinal board is a vital bit of kit.

If Sam has a serious back injury, he must be kept still and straight.

Once on the board, the next job is to get him out of here.

That's not really designed, if we tilt it, he will just come off it.

-Manoeuvring. Yeah.

-The whole thing.

-Yeah.

-Lie still, Sam.

-Lie still, Sam.

Sam's securely fastened to the spinal board.

His pelvis also needs to be put in a brace

to prevent any further injury.

We were called in because the casualty had fallen

obviously on that rock back there,

'landed on a high point about ten foot off the ground,

'so we just had to assist him off the rocks, really, so, yeah,

'we manhandled him onto the stretcher and lowered him down the rocks

'with quite a few manpower and quite easily down to the helicopter.'

All right, guys, we need to lift him up to about chest height

and we're going to feed him in feet first and then down to the back of the aircraft.

-How are we doing, Sam?

-All right.

The pain, now, how bad is the pain now, Sam?

It's probably about five at the minute.

I'll give you some more painkiller, OK?

OK? Everything's good. All right, we'll get you off to hospital now.

We'll have a slow journey down, we'll come and see you.

For the Helimed pilots,

taking off from the rocks is fairly routine.

In high summer, the choppers have been here twice in a week,

but Sam's case is more serious than most.

To get off the rocks, we've had to get him onto a scoop,

a pelvic board and immobilise him because of the mechanism

and then put a pelvic binder on, because we think he might have damaged his pelvis

and then we want to take him down to LGI, just because that's the trauma centre

and he's possibly done some fairly significant injuries.

Doctors at Leeds General Infirmary have been alerted

and specialists are waiting to X-ray his spine.

His fall could have lifelong effects.

This is Sam, 24 years old, two hours ago fell off Brimham Rocks.

He's landed on his backside.

And the results are just as serious as paramedic Graham feared.

Sam has broken his lower back.

But thanks to his treatment on the rocks and gentle

removal by mountain rescue, he has a good chance of a complete recovery.

I challenged myself a little bit too much, I think,

shuffling round some rocks and I just lost my footing.

A month later and back at his home in Rotherham, Sam has made

remarkable progress. He's already back on his feet.

'I had fractured the T12 bone, which is at the bottom of my spine'

and just a clean break, straight through,

straight through the middle of my bone.

Sam's back may never totally heal and he's been warned as he gets

older he may have a weakness in his spine.

For the next few months he's going to have to wear this body brace

and undergo weeks of physio.

'My dad reckons I'm going daft as I'm getting older.'

It's been nearly every year

since I was five years old and never had a grazed knee or anything.

At 24 years old, I've fallen and ended up breaking bones.

So I must be getting daft as I'm getting older,

losing my common sense.

The Yorkshire coast is a summer playground for thousands.

From the crowded beaches of Scarborough to the ancient streets

of Whitby, visitors come by the coach load to cool off by the sea.

And today, the crew of Helimed 98 is off to the coast too.

The usual yellow chopper is in for repair

so paramedics Lee Davison and Paul Kilner

are using a hired-in helicopter.

What are we looking for exactly?

Are we looking beach or a park or anywhere?

We don't really know what we're looking for exactly, do we?

-RADIO:

-Just go over to sea

and I'm sure you'll see on the beach,

with the site that they've prepared for you.

In the busy seaside town of Filey,

a young girl has fallen 15 feet off a promenade wall.

Lovely day here in Yorkshire. The place will be absolutely packed.

It comes into play about safety,

about obviously trying to put the helicopter down on the beach,

which is probably going to be very, very busy.

And the whole safety aspect that goes with that,

compared to if the crew maybe have the patient

on the back of the ambulance,

moving them to a more secure site,

where we can land and it's not so busy, you know?

Ah, yeah, they've got it marked out there.

Can you see the four guys in blue?

-I can, yeah.

-Yeah, yeah.

Pilot Andy Hall is landing on the beach.

It's been cleared by lifeguards.

The Helimed pilots only land on beaches as a last resort.

Sand and saltwater can damage engines

and if there's a breakdown,

an incoming tide can swamp the aircraft.

GIRL CRIES

She's landed on her front. She's got a frontal lobe contusion.

She's cried throughout, mate.

-Slit her head, frontal lobe.

-Right.

From there to there.

Kayleigh is very distressed.

She was walking along the promenade above with her grandmother and dad

when the accident happened.

She was leaning over the banister and she got told to move away twice.

And then I turned away for one second

and I turned back round,

she was going over the edge and she fell flat.

She was looking through where our other relatives was.

And she just fell through and that was her down onto the sand.

The Filey lifeguards were first on scene

and knew that a fall from that height

could mean Kayleigh could have serious head and neck injuries.

Just made sure that she didn't move her neck or her head.

So just keep her straight and then try and reassure her cos,

bless her, she was quite upset.

And then called an ambulance and got oxygen on her

and just tried to calm her down a bit, I guess.

Despite the risks, pilot Andy has shut down Helimed 98's engines

so they can reassure Kayleigh as they load her aboard.

OK, guys, all right. Yeah, do you want to ease her up

and we'll go to t' aircraft?

We're going in down this side, where t' door's open. OK?

The family's only been in Filey for two days

and no-one expected their holiday to end like this.

-You all right, pal, yeah?

-OK, yeah, just nice and steady.

You're going to go in here. OK?

-She's steady as long as she doesn't catch something.

-There we go! Hello!

Kayleigh is comfortable and surprisingly calm.

Her grandmother, Anne,

will also make the short flight to hospital in Hull.

We've stuck her dummy in, which has stopped her screaming.

The land crew initially were worried about giving her it

cos she was drifting off to sleep a little bit.

But if she's a lot calmer, it's a lot easier for everybody to manage.

Pilot Andy's preparing to take off

from what's a very busy landing pad.

The tide's going out.

Lifeguards and the coastguard are keeping the public away.

When we depart, I'll have to rethink it

and maybe get some people cleared away but, yes,

it's very safe for flying here.

Lee's keeping a close eye on his little patient

for any signs of a head injury.

Her sleepiness is worrying.

She's asleep at the moment, yeah. Just keep an eye on her...

Her oxygen content and everything

and make sure that her pulse rate's OK and what have you.

So she's nice and calm now,

it's easier to manage when she's like that, you know,

and stops her getting so distressed about everything, as well.

Helimed 98 is taking Kayleigh to the nearest trauma unit

at Hull Royal Infirmary, 30 miles away.

Go the same way, love. Yeah, give me your little hand out.

Just to make sure you're all right. There's a step there.

KAYLEIGH STARTS CRYING It's quite steep. Just take your time.

-Aww!

-Gran's here. Here we are.

There we are, love.

-Nowt like a good old dummy.

-Yeah. Works a treat!

-OK, everybody happy?

-Yeah...

-OK, there we go.

They've initially, on scene,

not been able to manage to get any type of immobilisation on her neck

because of her being so distressed.

So they've left it off.

She's had a sleep, haven't we, in t' helicopter

and we've just took dummy out as we were landing

and she woke up again.

In the next hour, Kayleigh will undergo X-rays and scans

on her neck and head.

A 15-foot fall is serious for an adult,

life-threatening for a toddler.

There we are!

The Yorkshire Dales were created

by rivers draining the rain-lashed hills of the Pennines.

Now, these waters help put the National Park on the angling map,

attracting fishermen in pursuit of trout and even salmon.

But when one needs help, finding them is far from straightforward.

That little village is Dishforth. This is Dishforth Airfield.

The River Swale is 70 miles long

and somewhere on its banks is an angler in trouble.

Finding him is a huge task for local paramedics,

not for their colleagues with a bird's-eye view.

-Hello, there.

-Tell me what you've been up to.

-Oh...

-I think I've broken me ankle.

-Right.

-I just...

-What's occurred?

Well, I was scrambling down the bank,

-just to have a little fish in this area...

-Yeah.

..and me right leg slipped and me left leg,

-just, I went over on it.

-OK.

-Just try and get your boot off, then...

-OK.

and we'll get you some pain relief.

How long have you been down here, then?

I got here about four o'clock this morning.

The River Swale is reputedly

one of the fastest-flowing rivers in England

and with large shoals of fish, like barbel,

it's very popular with fishermen like Philip.

Except today, he nearly ended up in the water himself.

This was a likely-looking area

so I just thought I'd drop down here and have a couple of casts.

And I just slipped on the banking

and me left foot went from under me

and just bent round.

There was a horrible crack and here we are.

Philip's nearly eight fields from the nearest road.

His injury is painful but not serious,

so paramedic Darrel plans to fly him

to the waiting land ambulance.

This chap,

he's been fishing since about four o'clock this morning

but he's got two lines going

so he's been sort of walking between both.

And what's happened is he's been going down this banking, here,

and he's gone over on his left ankle,

heard a crack and then he's not been able to move it

and he's got sudden pain.

So we suspect he's got a fractured ankle.

So what I want to do is I'm going to support your foot

and Andy'll just bob the splint underneath.

-I tell you what, I'll support that.

-Yeah, go on.

-Yeah.

Oh, you're doing... That's fine, yeah.

This is not the usual method of getting a patient to the chopper

but Philip's keen to do it himself.

You all right? Good man.

-Philip!

-Philip, who much gear have you got?

You know you've got your fishing rod there?

Fishing rod there. Well, just about 100 yards upstream...

-Past that bush?

-..there's another rod and a bag.

Fishing rods can cost hundreds of pounds,

and Philip has two.

It's no wonder he doesn't want them to get away.

Take your boot over there.

Come back for that. That's it.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Philip's ankle is broken.

But after a few months' rest, he'll be back on the river bank.

On the banks of a much bigger waterway, the Humber estuary,

doctors at Hull Royal Infirmary have successfully completed

a rather more complex medical procedure.

24 hours after she was brought in by ambulance,

fighting for her life,

Joan Smith has had a pacemaker fitted to her heart.

It means that within a week, she's fit to return home.

When I realised, when I came home,

what had happened and from the pictures that people have taken,

I was amazed!

It's the first time I've ever been in the paper!

Me husband's got the brunt of it

because he's been stopped in the street everywhere he goes.

Embarrassed at first,

that I'd been the cause of so much commotion!

But I was glad to see them,

cos I didn't know a thing about it

and I realise how good they were

and how everybody's helped and what a good team everybody made of it.

Thanks to Joan's large windows,

the Fire Brigade was able to lift her and her stretcher

straight out of a bedroom and onto a platform.

Otherwise, they'd have had to take out the panes.

Since I've been home, I've been all right.

They've told me to take it steady

and I have done.

And I've been just mooching around at home,

trying to do a few things, and gradually it's all coming back.

And I'm beginning to get around more, now.

I haven't been out yet, but I'm all right at home.

On the sun-drenched coast of Yorkshire,

another of the Helimed team's patients is also out of hospital

and desperate to continue her recovery

by building as many sand castles as possible.

Despite plunging 15 feet from the prom at Filey,

two-year-old Kayleigh had no serious injuries

and her gran was able to take her back to their holiday caravan

the following day.

All I could see at the time was the graze on her head,

but with the coastguards putting her on the spinal board,

I really thought that there was something up with her back.

'They done a cat scan on her

'and the scan came back all clear.

'Just the graze on the head

'but because she'd fell from such a height,

'they wanted to observe her overnight

'and they kept her in the hospital.'

You want a cone, Kayleigh, or an ice lolly?

Doctors say Kayleigh was very lucky to survive the fall.

If she hadn't landed on soft sand,

this story may not have had such a happy ending.

While in hospital, she nearly fell out of the bed three times.

Kayleigh just being Kayleigh and climbing.

Kayleigh's just back to normal

and being the normal Kayleigh that she is

and I'm glad that's the way she is.

I've never experienced anything like it before.

And I hope I never have to go through that again.

By the time Kayleigh returns home to Scotland,

the bump on her head has all but disappeared.

But she won't be the last casualty

on Yorkshire's holiday coast this summer.

The Helimed choppers are packed with modern safety devices,

from computerised engine management systems to impact-absorbing seats.

But there's one simple life-saver that's as old as aviation itself.

Paramedics Al Day and Dave Appleby will be

strapped in for the whole flight and today they'll be discovering

the consequences of failing to buckle up.

We've got reports that we have someone trapped with serious injuries

and that's all we've got at this moment in time.

If he's still trapped when we get there, we can obviously get him

to where he needs to be, which is more than likely going to be

a major trauma centre.

Five people are hurt after a head-on collision

but one is much more seriously injured than the others.

Helimed 98, just got an update from the scene.

At the moment we're looking like query fractured ribs,

fracture to the left arm, right side abdo pain, a head injury

and as yet they've not got access to check the lower half of the patient. Over.

That's a roger, received.

There seems to be a load of traffic all

stopped in a gap in between some trees, can you see it?

-It's right on the nose.

-Oh, yeah, visual, yeah.

HS98, overhead scene to land.

The accident's blocked the road near the village of South Kirkby.

Driver Nick Sykes had just stopped at a shop nearby.

He'd forgotten to belt up again.

We've got a 41-year-old gentleman who's basically

been travelling about 35 to 40mph.

He's not been wearing his seat belt.

There's blood on the opposite side of the car,

so he's come right across the car.

Windscreen's bull's-eyed.

A little bit diminished air entry just at the tops there,

believe he's got a fractured rib just with a mark

-and crepitus around the fourth or fifth space.

-Right, OK, yeah.

30 years ago these injuries would have been routine in a road

accident. Now, they're rare.

His legs are all right, hopefully his pelvis might be OK.

He's been like a washing machine, really.

He's literally just rattled around in the car.

-Have they got him on board yet?

-Yeah.

He's on a board, just this gentleman just there.

Paramedic Dave used to be a copper

and has given out tickets for failing to wear a seat belt.

He's about to find out why.

Are you all right, Nick? Can you hear me?

My name's Dave, I'm one of the paramedics on the air ambulance,

all right?

Because you've had a good throw about there, mate, you've got some

injuries. We're going to take you in the air ambulance, all right?

We'll get you on the helicopter

and get you warm and get you sorted, all right?

Nick weighs nearly 20 stones.

Paramedics are concerned that his size could be masking other,

more serious problems.

He's got a variety of potentially serious injuries.

Because he's got lots of them, we are a bit concerned.

-Is it this area here you were talking about?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. OK.

He's got a chest injury, which can have problems with your breathing.

He's got a possible pelvic injury.

If your pelvis is fractured, you can lose your entire blood volume

into your pelvic space and that can kill you.

-One, two, three.

-'He's got a head injury.

'Now he seems to be fairly with it, but any deterioration in the level

'of consciousness with a head injury after an accident is very serious,

'so any one of those three things potentially could be a fatal injury.'

-We're going that way.

-Yeah.

He needs looking at, sooner rather than later.

He's been thrown about in the car because he's not had a seat belt on.

-Just slide out of the way.

-Just slide out of the way.

Just slide out of the way.

-Nick, relax this arm.

-We'll leave you with paramedics, Nick.

Right, thanks very much, lads, all right. Much appreciated.

Nick's daughter Kirsty has arrived to comfort her dad.

There's never a good day to have an accident

-but this certainly wasn't it.

-Just ask Nick how old he is.

-41.

-41.

Today, it's his birthday.

His birthday. Have you been out for a special birthday meal as well?

-Not yet!

-He was going to.

-Is that where you're going?

-That's what we were going to do.

-Oh, dear.

For firefighters this has been an unusual emergency.

Most accident victims are now pinned in their seats,

not trapped in the foot well, like Nick.

The plan now is just to make the scene safe.

He's been handed over to paramedics.

I'm sure they'll take good care of him medically

so our job is done, really.

HS98, listed en route to Northern General.

Nick's being flown to hospital in Sheffield, where he'll face

a long series of operations followed by an even longer recovery.

For the Helimed team it's been a revealing insight into

road accidents as they once were.

30 years ago, hardly anybody wore seat belts.

It was seen as a bit of an unnecessary thing, you know,

but now it's very, very unusual.

I mean, you know, in this case the chap wasn't wearing a seat belt

but the vast majority,

it's really unusual to go to an accident now where people aren't,

and it clearly has saved thousands and thousands of lives.

The car stops suddenly and you carry on.

Your body's fluid, so the fluids move around and that's exactly

what happens and of course if you do get a massive injury of that kind,

there's very little the likes of us or anybody can do about it.

Cycling across Yorkshire's dales and moors

isn't for the faint-hearted.

Inclines that strain every muscle

and go on forever are just around the next bend.

But heading downhill can be even more painful.

Helimed 98 is heading up into the Dales.

Keen cyclist Darrel Cullen is about to meet another

rider in need of help.

Hi, morning.

Betty Higgins is on holiday from Australia.

-She's had a fall off her bike.

-OK.

-She's got what looks like a dislocated elbow.

-Elbow.

-Just about to give her some pain relief.

-All right.

It's a bit painful, but she can't move it at all.

-She's wiggled her fingers.

-OK.

She and her husband were cycling

high in the hills near Settle when she came off.

Betty and I are doing the Way of the Roses

and we left Settle earlier on this morning and accomplished all

the big hills and so forth, but coming up this slight incline here,

she changed down and the chain slipped and jammed and of course,

being very heavy touring bikes with pannier bags, it went over and she's

landed on her elbow and it appears that she's dislocated her elbow.

We're away from home for about 11 weeks and this is the first week.

Can I just take a little look at that?

-Can I just er...

-Woo!

-My apologies, lovey.

Pop that up there, then, Tanya.

What we'll try and do, Betty,

if we can, is once we've got you more settled, we'll try

and stand you up and walk you down to the helicopter. Yeah?

People have been stopping left, right and centre

and the helicopter's just turned up, it's a great response,

all within half an hour of the incident occurring.

And we're out here in the middle of the fields, which is amazing.

The coast to coast ride is going to have to wait.

Betty's on her way to hospital.

OK, ready, steady and up we go.

-That's better.

-Better?

-Yeah.

-OK, so far, so good.

-Yeah.

-I hope there's a hole in that fence somewhere.

-There is, there's a gate.

Oh, phew!

We were just planning on having a casual ride through the Dales

and we were enjoying it immensely, it was fantastic weather,

fantastic day, but an unfortunate accident.

The plan is to airlift her down to Airedale Hospital

where we'll be met by a land crew who'll then take her into A&E

for the relevant X-rays and treatment she needs.

Betty's detour to hospital spells the end of her cycling holiday

ten weeks early.

These are souvenir snaps they never expected to have.

Betty's elbow requires surgery

and leaves her unable to ride a bike for weeks.

She and her husband enjoy the rest of their holiday in the UK

on four wheels.

But Betty is not the last cyclist to come to grief this weekend.

Just been crashed out to a detail.

Sounds like the second cyclist of the day,

just near Osmotherley in North Yorkshire.

A cyclist sounds like they've got bilateral wrist fractures,

so it sounds quite serious.

So we're just getting there as quick as we can, hopefully just

over the hill and into James Cook again with this patient.

A cyclist who's suffered two broken wrists suggests

they came off at high speed.

Somebody down here just to the right. Ambo on scene.

Down below, yes.

Where did she go down?

She came off on that curve there.

I think she came down the hill just a bit too fast and then finish there.

It's terrible, isn't it, this gravel?

We were having a very nice bike ride to Hornby and back,

training to do a charity bike ride next weekend

and daughter and boyfriend said they'd come out

and we've had a lovely ride.

Unfortunately just on the way back, a little bit too fast down the hill

and of course, the gravel,

and I think she just pressed the front brake rather too fast

and went flying over the handlebars.

25-year-old teacher Hannah Hughes works in London,

but she's staying at the family home in North Yorkshire.

Roger, thanks for that. We are just moving to the aircraft now.

Now, she needs extensive plastic surgery.

You're fine, don't worry, you're doing really well.

We're just going to pop you on our helicopter

and then in five minutes we'll be in hospital.

-Oh, no!

-We'll get everything fixed.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to see anything except the ceiling.

All those beautiful views, eh?

Oh, they are really good, I've seen them!

As well as her facial injuries, Hannah has broken both wrists.

She's in considerable pain.

But the family are trying to keep her cheerful.

Just relax that arm down, OK?

Hannah may also need dental treatment

as a result of her impact with the road.

She is being flown to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough,

which has a maxillofacial unit which specialises in injuries like hers.

Its doctors have already been alerted to Helimed 98's arrival

by paramedics Lee and Darren.

Hannah will have to undergo months of surgery

to rebuild her broken wrists and damaged face.

But here at James Cook, she is in the very best hands.

A little bit bumpy as we go down, Hannah, OK?

Although she was wearing a helmet, it didn't give her much protection,

it collapsed backwards into her face and she's landed

and taken the brunt of it across her nose and mouth.

It's made quite a nasty mess of her upper jaw and pushed her teeth back.

Here at James Cook, they've got some of the best maxfax people

and they'll get on top of that straightaway

and hopefully she'll get her smile back.

Spring has turned to summer before Hannah can return

to the family home on the edge of the North York Moors.

And she still has a long convalescence ahead.

Some of her injuries were so severe,

surgeons had to use titanium plates to repair them.

It's going to be a long summer holiday for Hannah, who is missing

her London school, despite get well messages from colleagues and pupils.

With my arms, my left hand,

I can move it a bit,

but it's just a fracture and not too bad. But the right arm is just...

they said it was like cornflakes.

Even now, Hannah's treatment isn't over.

She still has to return to James Cook Hospital for yet more surgery.

In two weeks' time, they are going to see the arm again

and put some more pots on it.

Then hopefully I should be a bit better by then.

And then maybe a couple of more weeks,

I might be able to go back into school and probably not teach,

but I'd like to be able to see the kids and just...

Yeah.

Hannah is not the only Helimed patient

taking the long road to recovery.

Months after the head-on crash that almost killed him,

Nick Sykes is still living with the effects of his accident.

He's paid a high price for forgetting to put on his seat belt.

Top to bottom, I got a broken nose, 11 broken ribs,

seven this side, four this side, I got told.

I snapped my humerus, the scar starts somewhere down here.

And ends up here. All the way down.

Ready? Lift!

Nick had just popped into the shops

when he forgot to put his seat belt back on.

Less than a minute later, he crashed.

It scared me.

After a certain point and I could think about myself

and what was wrong with me, it scared me,

because at that point I started hurting.

And then when you're in a hospital, in a high-dependency unit,

you can't do anything for yourself. That's when you start to think...

well, like a silly thing like wearing seat belts,

would I be here in this position, as bad as this if I'd have done that?

But, yeah, I was lost for a little bit.

It was just being plucked from a car and I found myself in hospital.

You know, it was just a total shock.

These hills were made to share.

And man's best friend is welcome here as long as he's on a lead.

But occasionally, the Helimed team comes across a patient

who's been let down by his four-legged friend.

With more than 1,000 miles of footpaths, the Yorkshire Dales

is a popular destination for ramblers and their dogs.

But taking the family pet out into the great outdoors can be

a painful experience, as paramedic Darrel Cullen is about to find out.

-What's your name?

-Al.

-Al. Are you normally fit and well?

This family day out has ground to a halt

and Jenkin is in the doghouse.

We were walking down this slope and my dog suddenly pulled me.

And I stumbled and just fell heavily on my leg and heard it snap.

Alan and the family were enjoying a hike near the Ribblehead viaduct

in Yorkshire's Three Peaks,

when Jenkin bought their day out to a painful end.

Point your toes straight up back towards me.

We were coming back, having done our walk, going to the car

and unfortunately the dog gets a bit excited and was pulling

and pulled him off his feet. And we both heard a crack.

And that was it.

The leg went.

-Is it about five, the pain, out of 10?

-About six.

-Five or six, OK.

Just let me know if that gets better then.

I'm going to give you five milligrams

and then we'll give you some more if needs be.

Jenkin's walking partner is starting his journey to hospital.

His four-legged friend is yet to find out the consequences.

There were no walkies for several months.

You've got to look at the patient's injuries

and decide which hospital best suits those injuries.

But you've also got to bear in mind where the patients live as well.

It's probably equidistant between Airedale Hospital

and over at Lancaster.

But the patient lives in Yorkshire, so it's better for them

to go in the right direction for home.

If it were not for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, it would

have been very difficult for land crews to reach Alan.

So, while his injury is not life threatening,

Helimed 98 was his best chance of a speedy rescue.

Doctors set Alan's broken bone and sent him home in plaster.

Jenkin's pleased to see him, though the feeling may not be mutual...

for a while.

And you'll be pleased to hear that Alan is now back on his feet,

and Jenkin, well, he's no longer in the doghouse.

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