Episode 11 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 are seriously injured in a landscape as gigantic as this,

your life is on the line.

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

they look to the skies for help.

Look on your left, 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 heli-med 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.

Today on Helicopter Heroes, there is a major rescue operation

after a farm worker is trapped in his potato-picking machine.

He is trapped by both legs and his arm.

The engineers are actually dismantling the machinery around him.

At the seaside, a man is swept into the waves.

When he's regained consciousness, he has swum back in.

He has just broken up with his girlfriend,

now he has written off his dad's car.

He was already upset when he was driving.

And pilot Ian finds himself dealing with a nervous flyer.

I will give you, say, 500 feet, how's that?

That is the lowest he can go.

The days when one man and his dog could run a farm have long gone,

even here in the Yorkshire Dales.

Today's farmer relies on horse power to bring the harvest in,

and nowhere has technology taken more of the strain

than in the potato fields.

500 square miles of the UK

are planted with potatoes every year.

Machines like this pick a billion pounds' worth of crops each autumn.

But machinery has added to the risks

of what was already Britain's most dangerous job.

And today a major rescue operation is under way

near the market town of Tadcaster in North Yorkshire.

A farm worker has got caught in a potato-harvesting machine.

Initially we were told he was caught by his arm,

but the crew's got on scene now, we've been told that

he has been caught by an arm and both legs.

It can be quite complicated because you have got crush injuries

and the laceration injuries from the machinery itself.

It is potentially quite serious. He will definitely be going to LGI.

Pilot Andy Lister wants to land as close as possible to the patient.

Do you see that mound running to the top of the field?

-That might be the best place for me to put it, actually.

-Yes.

There are wires across that field.

You see where the gap is in the hedge?

-It is a bit firmer there as well.

-That is the best option.

I think it makes more sense than anywhere.

-Do I need to go up there?

-One arm trapped, conscious, breathing.

-How long has he been here?

-Since 6.30 this morning.

-6.30?

-Has that leg been in there since 6.30?

-Yes.

-Right.

Farm worker Darren Taylor was trying to clear a blockage

-when he was trapped.

-Hi, Darren, I am Graham.

We're going to get you out of here.

We will get you down to the LGI, all right?

Everything is going to be good, OK, mate?

It may take us a little while because you have been here for so long.

The machine was still running when a workmate found Darren.

He had been trapped more than an hour.

The fire service and the engineers

are actually dismantling the machinery around him.

We need to do that quite cautiously because he has been trapped so long.

But obviously, we need to get him out as quickly as possible.

Balancing up the best options for doing that.

The engineers who maintain the picker have been called in.

They know Darren.

Now they are working against the clock to free him.

That femur is bent over the thing.

His pelvis has probably gone, as well.

Darren, are you still with us, darling? Yeah? OK, sweetheart.

His blood pressure is going up. We need some more oxygen, please.

Occasionally we do get accidents of this nature

where people do get trapped in farm machinery.

Certainly on this occasion it is a very large piece of machinery

and the casualty is well and truly stuck with it.

You all right, Darren?

Things are a little unclear at the moment

but it seems quite likely, the nature of the injuries,

we will be transporting the casualty directly to the LGI.

Fortunately, we have got one of our doctors

who has arrived on the scene as well.

He will be escorting us through the journey.

What we don't want to do is release that lower leg.

If you can just leave that just until...

The paramedics are concerned that Darren's condition

may deteriorate further when he is finally freed.

The danger with actually releasing him,

obviously he has got the injuries there so we could be

releasing pressure onto a wound that will allow it to bleed freely.

So we are going to have to monitor that, we have got

tourniquets in place already

to apply should that be the case.

Graham at the moment has got cardiac monitoring on.

They're monitoring all his vital obs

and they are prepping for the worst scenario.

They have got airway rescue equipment up there

should they need to start resuscitation.

It's starting to hurt again.

It's starting to hurt again? OK, I can do something about that.

He is receiving the strongest possible painkillers.

Thankfully, amnesia is a side-effect of this drug.

Darren won't remember much from now on.

You may even just go out of consciousness

and you won't remember it, but that is probably a good thing. All right?

They are about to free Darren, but his life is still in real danger

from the toxins building up in his trapped limbs, all from blood loss.

The next few minutes will be critical.

Wrapping up warm is second nature

when you live in the Yorkshire Dales.

You can get snow up here in April and frost in June.

Hypothermia kills someone in these hills almost every year.

But sometimes there is a story of survival against the elements

that surprises even the heli-med team.

Should be intersecting the train line very soon

and then the eastward branch of that will be the way to Whitby.

-The way to Whitby.

-The way to Whitby.

I am sure there is a song in there somewhere.

One of the perks of being a flying paramedic is that panoramic views

of some of Yorkshire's most breathtaking scenery

come with the job.

And few sites are more inspiring than the historic port of Whitby,

home, according to the book, of Dracula, who brings in

holiday-makers attracted to the darker side of the town.

I thought they were all Goths in Whitby. It's like Goth Central.

During the week, they are all very civilised.

On the weekend they feel the need

to dress in black and paint their nails.

And lay on gravestones and wear top hats.

The cliffs of the Yorkshire coast soar up to 600 feet above the waves.

This is a treacherous shore, pounded by the North Sea,

some of it only accessible by boat.

And the clifftop paths make walkers vulnerable,

with regular landslides and rock falls.

Few survive a fall here, but the crew of heli-med 98 is

about to meet someone who appears to have defied those odds.

There is a big car park you could land in there, isn't there?

Does it look like there are people at both ends?

At both ends they're trying to block it off for us.

We are going to round out a little bit.

Hiya, you all right?

-This gentleman was out walking this morning on the cliff edge.

-Right.

This chap has fallen off the end of the cliff, just over there.

Slipped off. Been hanging on about three o'clock this morning.

He couldn't hold on any longer and he slipped off into the sea.

Become unconscious.

When he has regained consciousness, he has swum back in.

A couple has found him this morning while walking the dog.

Paramedic Al is concerned

that his patient may have internal injuries from his fall,

and people who have been immersed in the sea can also suffer

a rare condition known as secondary drowning, where inhaled water

leads to death hours after the victim has been rescued.

Local lifeguards are amazed by the man's survival,

and so are the first paramedics on scene.

The plan is to fly their patient to the trauma unit

at the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, 20 miles away.

Pull the stretcher across a bit and then we can slide him straight up.

And then just feed him on.

He doesn't feel particularly cold but we will do his temperature.

Obviously we're just wrapping him up in our big sleeve...

You'd expect him to be absolutely freezing, wouldn't you?

Pilot Steve knows this coast well.

He lives close to the beach and if his story is true, the patient's

survival appears to be a rare happy ending to a cliff fall.

It is September, when the water is at its warmest,

and that has probably saved the man's life.

Just coming into land at James Cook.

'Roger, thank you.'

Tests at James Cook will reveal the truth -

and it turns out that the man has indeed been fortunate.

He has few significant injuries and goes on to make a good recovery.

Without one of these, life for many Dalesmen would be almost impossible.

It is a combination of tractor and trailer,

sheepdog and family runabout.

Quite simply, the quad bike is a vital part of every farming family.

But those machines can bite.

For nearly 1,000 years,

Bolton Abbey has been at the centre of one of Yorkshire's great estates.

Its monks have long since gone, along with the roof, but its ruins

are now a popular playground for the people of nearby Leeds and Bradford.

On a summer's day, hundreds take a trip out for its riverside views.

But today, the road to the abbey has been closed,

with traffic backed up in all directions.

It's another lovely sunny day in Yorkshire.

We have had particularly nice weather over the last week.

The motorcyclists will all be out, the roads are fantastic.

You've always got to be careful.

The tourist traffic ground to a halt when 73-year-old Stanley Boothman

was found slumped at the side of the road.

He was herding sheep on the steep valley sides

when his quad bike turned over.

He managed to stagger several hundred yards to the roadside

to raise the alarm.

If he hadn't made it, he could have died.

-He may be in the back of that ambulance.

-Yeah, potentially.

Sloping ground on the other side, mate.

If they can get traffic through,

we may as well just land in the field.

There is an officer on my side stopping traffic.

He has stopped the traffic.

-Let's just put it in the field.

-Flipping heck.

The lady was a paramedic who was passing, saw him.

Several motorists stopped to help Stan,

and luckily for him one of them knew exactly what to do.

A lorry had pulled over.

We were just on our way to the park and obviously my wife is

a paramedic, so we saw the old fellow and we pulled over.

It's her job, obviously, so yeah, just trying to keep him stable

until they arrived, really.

He has gone off it a couple of hundred metres away

and he has had a walk down and luckily someone has seen him.

He has got quite significant nasal injury.

Stan is struggling to breathe.

Paramedic Daz needs to alert facial reconstruction surgeons

at the Leeds General Infirmary

that they are about to have an emergency to deal with.

All right, Stan, you are doing really well. Well done.

-You'll feel a lot of muddling, OK?

-Ow!

-What's hurting?

Where's it hurting, Stanley?

Stanley, where is it painful? Is it the lip?

Is it your lip? Your nose.

-Just relax, pal.

-Stan has lost a lot of blood.

They need to move quickly to get him to hospital.

He is showing signs of deteriorating.

We will have you sat up in a minute.

A drip is replacing lost blood

but his injury is clearly making it harder for their patient to breathe.

-Sit up, Stan.

-We are nearly there, OK?

Once we get you in the helicopter.

All right, Stan, last ten yards

and then we will keep you sat up bolt upright. OK?

Dales farmers need to be fit to work these hills,

especially when, like Stan, they are in their 70s.

-That has helped him survive a terrible accident.

-Two, three, lift.

It was his determination that made him

stagger to the roadside for help.

His good fortune to be found by someone with medical training.

Are you all right there?

Yeah, very fortunate. Very proud of her today.

I just checked his radial pulse and checked that he was alert

and knew what was happening. And then just sat with him,

gave him comfort while we were waiting for the ambulance.

There was not that much to do, when you don't have any equipment.

Just make sure he was all right.

-It has got to go another half an inch.

-You are fine, you're fine.

You're in. He has got quite significant max-fax injuries.

He has torn his nostril from bottom right up to the bridge of his nose.

His nose is quite significantly smashed and broken as well.

He may have some Le Fort fractures in his face

where his teeth on his maxilla are free-floating as well.

There is significant blood loss with that.

So once Andy's suctioned him out a bit more to get rid of the blood,

we're going to transfer him as quick as we can to Leeds.

-All right.

-Stan, you're not falling.

You can't go any further that way, mate,

because there is a big thing in your way. We can't sit you back.

When I get in, I am going to be holding you up.

Heli-med 98 is making way for the holiday traffic and heading

back down the Wharfe Valley towards Leeds and the General Infirmary.

If the speed of the helicopter was going to be used for anything,

this is the kind of job that it comes into its own for, really.

We need maximum speed to get him there because we are going to

have difficulty with his airwaves if he starts to deteriorate on us.

From the heart of the Dales

to the centre of Yorkshire's biggest city

takes just seven minutes.

That's it, Stan, we have got you.

Drop that back. Keep going. Sit him as high as you can, lads. Hang on...

Yeah.

Hello. I'm Daz, one of the paramedics. This is Stan.

He has been ejected from a quad bike.

He has gone down a 45-degree angle into a ditch and he has been

ejected and smashed his face on what we think is the front of the bike.

We have got a big C problem

because he is bleeding quite significantly into his airway.

We have got an airway problem because also we have got that blood in there.

Breathing difficulty because of that also,

but he has remained emo stable while he has been with us.

He has managed to crawl probably about 70 or 80m after coming

off the bike to get back to the main road before somebody has found him.

So he has been there some time.

Potentially now probably about a litre or more of blood

that he has lost.

For the heli-med crew, it is a short journey.

For Stan, tough farmer though he is,

this is just the beginning of a long road to recovery.

He's taken to theatre for surgery.

Eventually he is sent home to the Dales,

but several months later he still has difficulty speaking.

One of the many casualties of the vehicle

that is now the main form of transport for the moorland farmer.

Getting from A to B in some parts of Britain is easy.

But if you live here in the north-east of England,

one route dominates most road journeys.

The A1(M), or the Great North Road,

links the capital with Newcastle, Scotland and beyond.

It is the region's only major motorway,

and for the heli-med team, it's a familiar destination.

Going to the A1(M) for reports of a car that has come off the motorway.

Obviously there's a driver,

and a one-year-old child in the car as well.

As yet, we don't know anything more than that.

The smash is in trees beside the motorway.

The car is invisible from the air,

but ground units have already arrived.

Got it. Forward corner of the police car.

OK, we will have to put it on the far side of the trees.

-Happy with that?

-Yes. 98 landing on scene.

The hatchback clipped another car before it careered into the trees.

Now the driver is trapped inside.

27-year-old Dean Brooke made a mistake that injures

thousands of motorists every year.

After his car came to a halt, he undid his seat belt

and fell five feet onto the passenger door.

Is everyone out? Are there still people in there?

-There is just one guy in there. There is only one casualty in there.

-OK.

I believe he has just come off the carriageway,

gone down into the tree, the car's on its side.

He is in a bit of an awkward position.

He has released his own seat belt

so he has dropped down into the car but the car is on its side.

He is lying against the side door and the roof.

He is upset initially because he has split from his girlfriend

so he was already upset when he was driving. Then he has crashed.

He has got pain on the right-hand side of his neck and the

right-hand side of his chest and his right shoulder and his right knee.

The firemen are going to take this side off and we will see...

999 calls are often confused.

The one-year-old child reportedly involved in the accident

was in the car clipped by the hatchback. Thankfully, he is unhurt.

I was driving and the first thing I saw was,

I thought the guy was overtaking but he had left himself short.

And then he just spun round and just went straight into there.

-Into the bottom there.

-How are we doing, Dean? Dean?

How are you doing?

Paramedic John is concerned that Dean may have serious injuries,

but until he is freed, it is hard to diagnose them.

To make matters worse, his patient doesn't like needles.

He is refusing to have a cannula.

The crash was witnessed by other motorists who stopped to help.

I went down the embankment,

and when we got down there he was unconscious.

But he started to move his legs.

So another guy was at the top of the embankment

and I asked him to come down and we pulled the front screen out.

And then we could talk to the gentleman

who was trapped in his car.

All right, Dean? I know you're fed up, aren't you? To say the least.

-But we can do our job best if you just help us out of it.

-Yeah.

-All right? Do you feel tired?

-Yeah.

Dean is also suffering from another condition

that's a factor in many accidents.

He is emotionally distressed.

He said he had broken up with his girlfriend today and he was...

I think he has been upset travelling up the motorway

and he was concerned about the other car he had hit

and were these people all right, as well.

Bit of noise, Dean, don't worry about it.

Dean has borrowed his dad's car and now it is a write-off.

Because his rescuers fear he may have a spinal injury,

the roof must come off.

Brilliant, chaps.

Right, let's get a sheet on.

Another accident risk is worrying the police.

The hard shoulder of the A1 is a dangerous place

and, with vehicles roaring past at 70mph, good Samaritans

and the emergency services are very vulnerable.

We have shut lane one of the carriageway at the moment

just to allow the emergency services some safe working area.

We are trying to establish at the moment if the air ambulance

is going to need to land on the carriageway,

which will necessitate a complete carriageway closing.

I don't like needles either,

but it's better than pain in your shoulder, isn't it?

Dean's artwork must have involved an awful lot of time

in touch with a needle,

but he'd still rather endure the pain than have intravenous drugs.

Hold on, Dean.

Right, cheers.

Pretty good, really.

It's a bit steep down there, that's the problem with it.

But I think he came out all right, no problem.

Ready, steady, up.

HE GROANS That's it.

Their patient is going to hospital by road.

It's safer for everyone.

The emotional effects of an accident can outlast the physical ones

and, after his break-up,

Dean must face a difficult recovery without his long-term girlfriend.

But Dean finds an unusual form of therapy.

It is two months since the accident

and Dean is making a fighting comeback.

'Three fractured ribs and a suspected dislocated shoulder.

'I was very fortunate not to receive any more injuries.'

Dean admits it was a lapse of concentration that led to the crash.

And it turns out that splitting up with his girlfriend

wasn't the only thing on his mind.

The day started off with me having a row with my girlfriend,

which then obviously led to me being upset.

I was in contact with my mum.

I spoke to her about going and meeting her at Centre Parcs.

I thought they was at Sherwood Forest because that's the only place

that I'd ever been at Centre Parcs with my mum and dad.

So I drove all the way to Nottingham only to realise that they was

in Penrith in the Lake District, which topped off a pretty bad day.

'So I'm driving back quite emotional.

'That obviously led to a lapse in concentration which then

'led to the high-speed collision I was involved in.'

It wasn't one of my proudest moments, let's put it that way.

Onwards and upwards, as they say.

And Dean's no softie.

He is now preparing for a cage-fighting competition.

The rolling acres of North Yorkshire are a playground for thousands.

From hill walking to golf, shooting to show jumping,

someone will be doing it.

But few pastimes involve getting quite as close

to the landscape as this.

Motocross is a sport that is half biking, half flying.

At speeds of around 80mph, riders are often launched

up to 20 feet in the air by landscaped jumps.

It's no wonder accidents are common and injuries can be serious.

We're heading down to Doncaster in South Yorkshire

to a motocross track in Osterfield,

which is right next to Doncaster Robin Hood Airport.

The accident's happened at a big jump near the start of the course.

Ground paramedics are treating the victim

but driving him out of here would be agonising.

If you imagine the amount of forces required to break that bone,

you then start thinking it's probably a serious impact

that the body's gone through.

The heli-med team is used to being called to this track.

It attracts riders from all over the North and Midlands.

Sadly, we see it a lot.

Age varies, cos there's kiddies from four and five-year-olds

riding Motocross nowadays, right up to middle age as well

so, yeah, we've got a varied range and we've seen it quite a lot.

Teenage rider Ryan Watson is in severe pain.

Paramedics fear he has broken his thigh bone

after coming off his bike in mid-air.

Going over this, they're jumping 15 foot in the air.

-He landed and then bounced again.

-Toppled the bike.

The bike followed on.

He's stopped there and the bike carried on and ended up in the burn.

-Hi.

-Hello. What do they call you?

-Ryan.

-Ryan.

-Ryan.

He's gone over the top of the bike.

He said he was going at some speed

cos he's an expert or something, so...

Ryan is 19 and a motorcycle mechanic.

He drove more than 50 miles from his home in Nottingham to compete today.

Now it seems his season is over.

Right, Ryan, I'm just going to have a listen to your chest.

I want you to take some big, deep breaths for me, all right?

He came over this here which is got quite a high kick on it

and he came down probably nose-heavy

and sort of just tumbled over, flipped over a couple of times

and landed down here. His bike landed over there.

So, head's OK. He'd still got his helmet on.

Yeah, he had his helmet on. I took that off.

Right, I'm just going to lift your foot up, all right?

HE WHIMPERS

-Where did that hurt?

-My hip.

-Your hip.

Nothing in the middle of your leg?

-No.

-You can feel me touching and it's not hurting.

-No.

Ryan's broken his collarbone

but paramedic Matt is not sure about his leg.

Feels like my leg's in the wrong place.

His pain seems to be further up.

He suspects his patient has a broken pelvis.

Now I've examined it, I'm not sure about his femur.

The lack of pain in his leg confirms Matt's suspicions.

How's that pain now, Ryan?

This device will prevent broken pieces of bone moving

and damaging internal organs.

It is a common problem with pelvic fractures.

Right, Ryan?

Keep going with that gas and air. I'm going to pull this quite tight.

It's probably going to hurt, OK? But it needs to be tight.

The pain should slowly go away when it tightens up. Do you understand?

Do you want to hold on to that? Which is your bad arm?

It takes a lot of force to break the pelvis,

especially in a fit teenager.

But Ryan's fallen a long way

and the team can't rule out further serious injuries.

How does that feel now?

More comfortable now we've stopped moving you?

HE GROANS

Yeah?

-Chances are it's either a dislocation or some kind of fracture.

-Yeah.

The right leg is splaying out slightly. No swelling there.

The plan is to fly Ryan to the Northern General Hospital

in Sheffield, but it's a difficult walk across rough terrain

to reach the chopper. They'll need volunteers.

Use your left arm and hold on to your right one for me.

There'll be some more of us then, won't there?

Can we get a few at either side, guys?

-Did anybody see him as soon as he'd come of?

-Yeah.

Were he talking to you straightaway?

Ryan is an up-and-coming rider in a risky sport and he always knew

today's event could end like this.

All right, Ryan? Are you all right?

That doesn't make the pain any easier to bear.

Heli-med 99. Just left the scene. En route to Northern General.

Approximately eight minutes. Over.

'99. Yeah. Roger that, Matt. Many thanks.'

Heli-med 99. We are on the ground at Northern General. Over.

Ryan is now minutes from X-rays and scans.

We've had lots of pain relief on board.

He's calmed down a lot en route.

Beauty of this one is we had to get him comfortable before we even

thought about moving him, especially with the rough terrain of the track.

But I think he's going to miss tomorrow. Not sure.

If it is fractured, he could be out for a good few months

and then, with some rehabilitation, a couple months after that.

So it might be another six months out of it.

And doctors confirm Matt's diagnosis.

He has fractured his pelvis.

His injury keeps him out of the saddle for the rest of the season.

But he's determined to return to his high-speed sport

as soon as his hip has healed.

Back in North Yorkshire, the fight to free farm worker Darren Taylor

from his potato-picking machine is reaching its climax.

Right, what I want to be careful of is that leg that is over

the bar there. If it's open. We need to be ready with any tourniquets.

Could you get a thermometer, cos he's been here a while,

and find out how cold he is?

The last thing I want him to start is getting hypothermia as well.

Flying doctor Andy Pountney has been monitoring Darren's condition.

The rollers have just been cut out that his legs

had gone between and his arm had gone between.

So at the moment, he's still kind of in the machinery

but he's not actually physically pinned any more

so he's going to have some very extensive injuries to his legs

which we'll assess once he's down to the floor.

When you're crushed for any length of time,

when you're released, you can

suddenly get a lot of poisonous products released from the tissues

into the bloodstream and that can be a very serious problem.

Darren's been heavily sedated but moving his crushed limbs from

the rollers that have held him for nearly two hours will be agonising.

I'm just going to give him

a last shot of ketamine before we shift him.

-All right. Fair enough.

-This will make it... This will be 50.

-Yeah.

He is free at last.

Put his belt line on the top of there, yeah?

Well done. Now we just have to get you sorted on here

and we'll get you off, all right? Won't be too long.

But Darren's not responding to his rescuers.

Darren? Darren? Darren?

Look at me. Darren?

Get going, lads. Right, slide.

There's no time to waste.

It'll be easier to revive him on the ground.

If you just walk down.

Walk either side of the stretcher. Yeah. Walk down. Just walk down.

But, slowly, Darren starts to respond.

For paramedic Graham Pemberton, it's a moment of relief.

He has been caring for Darren, reassuring him

and encouraging him for an hour.

I'm assuming you've been told about

this trapped patient that we are bringing in.

He's out of the harvester now.

We're just about to load him onto the helicopter.

His injuries-wise, he's got significant partial amputations

to his left arm below the elbow, his right ankle and has left thigh.

There is significant tissue damage to his left thigh.

You all right?

This rescue has affected Graham deeply.

Just keep walking. Keep walking.

He has got life-changing injuries there.

He is almost certainly going to lose two, maybe possibly three limbs

there at varying degrees.

It's shocking, really, but, you know, these things happen.

-Feed it in.

-Don't put the weight all on the end of the stretcher for me.

He'll survive it, or should survive it, but it's just going to be,

like I say, life-changing injuries.

And he's only 44. So it's sad.

HE MUMBLES

What's wrong, mate?

-Pain.

-Pain? I know. I know.

We've pretty much given you as much as we can, though, mate.

-Just go back a little bit.

-Looking clear. Clear to the left.

Wires, short wires across there.

Darren is being flown the ten miles to Leeds and its trauma unit.

Heli-med 99 will be there in just over five minutes.

99. Lifted scene. En route LGI. 99, over.

The friction caused by the machine's powerful rollers has burned his legs

making his crush injuries even harder to treat.

The team knows his outlook is bleak.

-They were cauterised.

-Yes. Horrible wounds.

They've been cauterised by the machinery.

The rollers have continued rolling

and the friction cauterised the flesh.

It stopped him bleeding to death,

but dead tissue, he's going to lose one.

He's going to lose that lower leg.

He's going to lose his left leg from the hip down.

He'll probably lose his lower right leg and his lower left arm.

The trauma team at the Leeds General Infirmary has called in

orthopaedic surgeons to assess his wounds immediately.

There is little prospect Darren's legs can be saved.

But there's a chance he will retain his left arm.

He and his rescuers will find out in the next ten minutes.

Heli-med 98...

No matter how urgent the emergency, the calming presence of Captain Ian

makes sure the heli-med team gets to its patient safely.

He learnt to fly in the Army and he brings military precision

as well as a cheeky sense of humour to the cockpit.

We've got one going around and one downwind.

We've got the one going around. Lift after him.

Today's case involves a teenage girl badly hurt

after a fall in remote Rosedale.

INDISTINCT

..when this shout came in.

INDISTINCT

..You mean you was having a cup of coffee?

Yes.

We know little about the incident

other than a patient has fallen from a height unknown

and they've got some form of otoneurololgy -

they're not able to feel their lower limbs.

We don't know if there's anybody on the scene yet.

I could do with finding out. This road going across is this road here.

We've only got two miles to run.

That's what I mean - over the top of this hill there.

Ground paramedics are treating a teenager found confused

and in pain by a road near her home.

-There's a crew there, ambulance at one o'clock.

-Yeah, visual.

Landing in the heart of the North York Moors demands care.

From the local wildlife to low-flying RAF jets,

Ian must take every hazard into account.

If he moves out of the way, I will land somewhere near there.

But the team doesn't know one of its pilot's other skills

is about to come in handy.

A 16-year-old lass called Grace, taken a tumble while running.

She's clearly lost her consciousness, lower back pain,

-and she's no feeling from her right...

-OK.

No worries.

-How are you doing? Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello, Grace.

-GRACE: Hi.

-She's been running and she was found right in at the side

of the track by neighbours who use this road.

She wasn't unconscious when they arrived

but she wasn't totally with it at all.

In terms of your leg, whereabouts do you lose complete feeling?

If I were to work my way up your leg...

If the team's patient looks familiar, that is

because she has needed them before. This was Grace five years ago.

She hurt herself when she slipped

on an ice slide in the school playground.

Doctors could find little wrong with her,

but the accident was to be the start of a chronic problem with her leg.

All right, we'll get you loaded onto the aircraft.

We'll get you some gas and air on the aircraft.

It will be a short flight to hospital.

It will be a lot better. It will be at least an hour on the road.

There is nothing to worry about. It's nice and smooth. It's very safe.

-We don't fly very high. We've got some experience.

-I can't see, can I?

-No, you can't.

-That's OK, then.

-You'll just see the roof.

The team is trying to keep Grace's spirits up.

-Am I going to have somebody in the back with me?

-Certainly.

-Good.

She is a nervous flyer, but her rescuers don't find out

how nervous until she gets to Heli-med 98.

I can't. I can't fly. I can't do it. I can't fly.

SHE SOBS

Do you want to come round and just have a chat with her, Grandma?

You can go as a familiar face.

GRACE SOBS

Listen to me. Just keep calm. You'll be absolutely fine.

Captain Ian is not used to nervous passengers.

But his diplomatic skills soon bring Grace back down to Earth.

-You are a frequent traveller with the Air Ambulance, are you?

-No.

-I flew to Florida.

-All right.

-So if you're going to assure me

you're flying a lot lower than then, we'll be happy.

-We will be a lot lower than that. How about we compromise?

-OK.

I'll give you 500 feet.

-How's that?

-That's... No.

-That's low.

That's the lowest he can go.

-Trust me.

-But we're not going to be anywhere near the clouds?

-No.

Trust me, I'm a pilot.

Ian prides himself on his smooth flying.

But few of his patients are as sensitive as Grace.

He'll be making sure there are no sudden changes of course

on the short flight to the James Cook Hospital.

-Then we will do a gentle left turn.

-Yes, clear left.

We'll keep smooth.

She's got some back pain now. Whether or not that's exacerbated

an old injury which is causing a reoccurrence of this

or this is completely separate and an isolated new incident,

the only way they will be able to accurately tell

is to get the patient checked over and assessed in A&E.

The last time the heli-med team was called to Grace, her injury

was not serious enough to fly her.

But it's hoped tests will now get to the bottom of

the recurring problem with her legs.

Happily, she is soon on her way back home to the Moors.

Grace is yet another patient from the countryside who has been

able to enjoy big-city hospital care within minutes of an accident.

The heli-med team covers 6,000 square miles,

much of it moorland and dale, but thanks to its two helicopters,

no-one in Yorkshire is more than 20 minutes from a major trauma centre.

And sometimes speed alone can save the life of a patient.

At Leeds General Infirmary, farm worker Darren Taylor is about to be

assessed by orthopaedic surgeons.

It's just 15 minutes since he was released from

the potato-picking machine that crushed both his legs and an arm.

This is Darren.

Half past six this morning he fell into a potato harvesting machine,

on the top of it. His legs have gone through the roller, and one arm.

I've no concerns about his C spine.

The mechanism would suggest he's gone in limbs lower first.

-And it's just caught him and stopped.

-Right.

Injuries-wise he's got,

if you look here, that arm there below the elbow.

-OK.

-This round his pelvis...

Doctors find that friction burns to the bones of Darren's legs

means there is no alternative but to amputate them.

He undergoes an operation lasting several hours.

Then infection sets in and he spends several weeks in intensive care.

But slowly he recovers.

You work on them machines all the time. It's second nature.

But this particular day I just slipped and it got me.

'I could hear fire engines coming. They came.'

And then I heard somebody saying, "All right, Daz, I'm here.

"We'll get you out."

And then obviously it was the lads from Grimme.

It was the maintenance engineers who serviced Darren's picking machine

who probably saved his life.

Despite the stress of seeing his terrible injuries they dismantled

a series of rollers trapping his legs in little over an hour.

It's a job that normally takes three.

-How are you?

-Yeah.

-Hey up.

And today they've come to visit the man they saved.

'I presumed he'd be stuck in some manner,'

but not what I was actually faced with when I got there.

'I looked under the machine and I saw an arm sticking through.'

I thought, "Right, I know what I need to do,

"let's just get on and just do it.

"Let's just treat this like a normal job."

'We started taking the machine apart, nuts and bolts, and then we got'

to the point where we cut the machine because it would be faster.

One of the firemen asked me

if I was OK and I said. "I'll be fine, let's get Darren out

"of this machine and then I'll worry about what's going to happen next."

'They tried many methods of their own to get Darren out'

and none of their tools were made for the job of handling thick steel,

which is what the harvester is made of.

'I was just concentrating on this arm. I thought, "That's it.

'"He's just got his arm stuck."

'Then I turned round and saw two legs sticking through the machine'

and that's when it really...got me going and got the heart racing.

I thought, "Right we need to do this quick

because obviously this is pretty bad.

'After he was put in the helicopter

'and he'd taken off, then it hits home what you saw.'

It was tough afterwards, but it's better now

and it's a lot better from seeing Darren today as well.

Seeing how he's getting on with it.

'If Darren can get on with it then we definitely can.'

Even the paramedics and firefighters

were upset about Darren's predicament,

but the man himself

remains remarkably positive about the future.

'I'm 44 and I've got a little boy and two daughters.'

We live in a really lovely place. At the end of the day I'm here.

I could have been a lot worse.

My arm was badly damaged near the elbow so they've made it

so I don't have an elbow no more. And plates.

My hand isn't working yet,

but they're pretty sure they can get at least some back into it.

I lost my left leg and lost my right leg.

Obviously I don't like it, but they're not going to grow back

as long as I sit here.

I'm going to have to stay in a wheelchair till they do my leg,

but once I get my legs...

I want to be back on a tractor by April if I can.

And I'm sure if willpower is anything to do with it,

that's exactly what Darren will do.

And I'm happy to tell you some good news has come out of his story.

The engineers who helped save his life are now teaching

firefighters how to deal with similar accidents

in the future using lessons learned from Darren's dramatic rescue.