999: On the Front Line

Paramedics treat a woman who has to dial 999 because of pains in her chest and shortness of breath. When a patient is found unresponsive at home and with no reaction to pain, a second crew is called as she needs to be urgently transported to hospital. A patient with low blood pressure is found on the kitchen floor. She needs to go to hospital but it's her mother's funeral tomorrow and she's refusing to go.

A man's tongue swells to twice its normal size, and a postal worker who walks 15 miles a day is on the floor unable to move with painful spasms in his back. An intoxicated patient verbally abuses one of the paramedics, an ECG tracing reveals that a patient is having a heart attack, and a man receiving chemotherapy is running a high temperature and may have developed sepsis.

Paramedics are called out to a young woman who's had a panic attack while driving to work and pulls over in the middle of rush-hour traffic. An elderly woman who feared her son's van was being broken into rushes outside and slips on the driveway. A man in a community centre who speaks very little English is having chest pains. He's on medication for a previous heart attack but has not renewed his prescription.

On the night shift, paramedics are called to a man complaining of a fast heart rate and chest pains. In the back of the ambulance, he claims to have taken amphetamines for several days. When a man is found slumped over a table outside a shop, the owners ring 999. The patient is intoxicated, and the all-female crew must be wary of his tight grip as they treat him in the back of the ambulance.

Paramedics are called to a man under arrest. He's outside in the street and has hit his head, and the police want to make sure he's well enough to be taken to the station. A mum calls 999 when her six-year-old son has a seizure, and a nurse finds her patient in bed with a fever and having difficulty breathing. The paramedics suspect that he may have fractured a rib.