Rescue (documentary series)

Rescue is a six-part documentary series, broadcast on Channel 4 in April 1996. The documentary series showed how transport accidents in the UK, until the 1980s, had undertrained emergency staff, notably in medical knowledge.

Episodes

Episode 2 The Golden Hour

The Clapham Junction rail crash on 12 December 1988, which killed 35 people; Britain's worst rail crash was on 8 October 1952, killing 112 people; survivors Evelyn Hargood and Arthur Collyer; the local firefighters were without suitable rescue equipment; the local hospital was not told of the terrible crash, as ambulance services in the 1950s were often run by local fire services, not the hospital; ambulance drivers were not medically trained, and local residents provided most medical attention; ambulance drivers James Long and Bob Darvell; John Moss, formerly of Middlesex Fire and Ambulance, who borrowed a furniture van to take the casualties; local GP Joseph Lister, who gave pethidine to survivors ambulances contained no medical equipment; the best prepared personnel at the scene came from nearby USAF stations, who brought blood plasma, and other medical equipment; the British emergency services could have taken notice of the USAF approach, but nothing great was learned from the 1952 crash; only in the 1980s were ambulance staff trained in emergency medical knowledge Clapham survivor John Sweetenham; ambulance officers Hugh Chambers and Martin Flaherty; GP Ken Hines attended the scene in 1988; four GPs were brought in by police helicopter.

Episode 4 - Out of the blue

The 737 crash on 7 January 1989 in Leicestershire, with 79 survivors; British European Airways Flight 548 had crashed on Sunday 18 June 1972, killing all 118 on board; Trevor Burke saw the Hawker Siddeley Trident stall, and hit the ground; Colin Sleep former policeman Terry Henwood; ten minutes after the Trident crash, the local fire service had not been informed, as no-one had called 999; former local fireman John Shawyer the local ambulance service knew nothing of the crash for fifteen minutes; Mick Hopper, formerly of Surrey Ambulance Service Heathrow air traffic control had not noticed that the BEA Trident had disappeared from their radar; Bert Wright, former Chief Inspector of Surrey Police, thought the crashed aircraft in the nearby fields was 'part of an exercise' that he had not been informed about; fireman David Fielding, of Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, also believed that the crashed aircraft was perhaps part of an exercise, for training purposes; what shocked the emergency service personnel was the large numbers (around two thousand) of civilians who visited the scene, sometimes putting their children on their shoulders, to watch the gruesome scene; Paul Meek, former ambulance driver; Maurice Foster, of Derbyshire Ambulance Service, was he first to attend the 1989 crash; Bob Salter of Leicestershire Police, who saw the 737 BD92 port wing being on fire; survivor Gareth Jones; within three minutes fire vehicles from East Midlands Airport arrived on the southbound M1, and immediately put out the fire, from sixty feet; a coach with medical students had stopped; fireman David Elliott.

Episode 6 Aftershock

The Moorgate tube crash in February 1975 killed 43 people, and it is unknown why the train driver never stopped; firefighters Brian Goodfellow and Keith Herbert describe that the underground carriage was compacted into a third of the length.

Transmission

The first broadcast was on 15 April 1996.

Publications

An associated book was published by Channel 4, for the series, Rescue: the history of Britain's emergency services, by Boxtree (Macmillan Publishers) ISBN 0752210521 The book was published on 15 April 1996, the first broadcast date.