Ambulance

In this first episode, one of the 187 calls West Midland Ambulance Service is dealing with at 20:31 on Saturday night, is from a distraught wife whose husband has suddenly collapsed - his heart stopped - on their lounge floor, the TV is still on. The call hander must stay cool-headed and coach the woman and her daughter over the phone in how to do CPR whilst ambulance crew Katie and Sarah race to help. Of the 15 cardiac arrests Katie has attended in her career as a paramedic, just 2 of them have survived long enough to return home. By midnight, Saturday night drinking is beginning to show it’s impact as calls pour in to the control-room, the nerve centre of the service, reporting numerous fights and violent attacks. Controller Glennis has to juggle her time between trying to help a crew who’ve been searching for an elderly man who’s fallen in an alleyway for half an hour, and a high priority call for a street brawl with reports of a man being badly hit with a baseball bat. In an episode which begins with the life of a man in jeopardy, paramedics Natalie and Nat face an agonising decision of whether to move a woman in advanced labour, or face the risky prospect of delivering the baby at home knowing she’s already had a stillbirth. In just two shifts, the staff of the West Midlands Service have faced life, death, and resurrection. “Sometimes, between life and death stands a paramedic” says Nat.