BBC Ambulance documentary shows West Midlands lifesavers

The inspirational actions of paramedics tending to patients in the Black Country have been screened on television.

Terry Billingham is tended to on his living room floor within minutes of him going into cardiac arrest

The dramatic and graphic footage shows the life-saving intervention crews made to a 75-year-old grandfather in Rowley Regis, who went in to cardiac arrest.

While the documentary, called Ambulance, also aired the heart-warming moments a high-risk expectant mother from Stourbridge give birth to her son in her bedroom.

The first episode of the eight-part series which was shown on the BBC last night promising a 'behind the sirens insight', centred around West Midlands Ambulance Service, which is one of the busiest services in the country dealing with 3,000 calls a day.

Terry Billingham went into cardiac arrest at his home in Rowley Regis, around 8.30pm on Saturday, March 11.

His wife Joan made a desperate call to 999 and was advised how to give him CPR by the call handler.

Meanwhile paramedics Katie Linford and Sarah Watson were dispatched from around five miles away and arrived at the home within minutes.

The documentary captures their heroic actions in trying to revive Terry on the living room floor, ironically while Casualty is on the television in the background.

After he had been in cardiac arrest for an agonising 26 minutes they managed to get a pulse to the visible relief of his wife Joan looking on.

After paramedics manage to gain a pulse, Terry is transported to hospital.

Wife Joan and daughter Tina are in disbelief as they sit in the back of an ambulance.

For Katie, it was one of the rare occasions she has witnessed a patient survive a cardiac arrest.

She said: "I get nervous. I try and keep it under wraps but deep down this person's life is in your hands and it is your responsibility not to get it wrong.

"Programmes on TV and reality are quite different things.

"People will get their hopes up because of things they have seen on TV where their loved ones have CPR and they are brought back to life and it is all happy, but the chances of that happening are quite slim.

"I have been to 15 cardiac arrests and only two survived long enough to be discharged home."

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Describing the moments Terry 's life was in the balance whilst he was being tended to, she added: "All your adrenaline is going because it is now or never. You have got to do absolutely everything because as time goes on the chance of survival decreases."

Anxious moments between Joan and her daughter Tina, as they sit in the back of the ambulance, were also shown.

Joan said: "We were only talking about the holiday today and what we were going to do and what we’d planned to do."

Tina replies: "This don’t happen to us does it? It happens to other people, not us."

At 9.17am the previous day a crew had to attend a home in Pedmore, Stourbridge to a 25-year-old woman in advanced labour.

Paramedics considered transferring the expectant mother who was considered high risk due to previously having a still birth.

But they made the decision to deliver at the home and the baby boy arrived in the world healthy and happy.

The family in Stourbridge celebrated the birth of their baby boy on television.

For paramedic Natalie Greaves, it was particularly poignant having gone through complications in the birth of her daughter Jessica, who is severely disabled having been starved of oxygen.

She said: "I know what starvation of oxygen can do. I know we have only got that ten minute window."

She added: "What a privilege, I was the first person that held that baby, it’s an amazing feeling. To pass a baby to their mum is just lovely."