BBC viewers were left moved by new show Ambulance, which goes behind the scenes of the life-saving service.
The show follows a day in the lives of the North West Ambulance service, from the operators taking hundreds of 999 calls, to the ambulances going out on the field to save lives.
The show makes for a emotional viewing, focusing on category one emergencies, which need to be handled quickly and are often heartbreaking for the teams dispatched.
Early on in the show, we meet Gordon, an elderly man who called 999 about his wife Shirley, 82.
Gordon, an elderly man who called 999 about his wife Shirley, struggles with tears as the couple is being transported to the hospital (pictured)
Shirley (pictured) is struggling to breath and gasping for air when the paramedics arrive at the couple’s house
Paramedic Jade is disheartened after depositing the couple at hospital, as she knows the prognosis does not look good for Shirley
Later in the episode, 999 operator Laura Pilling (pictured) struggles to contain her tears as she instruct a caller with a CPR technique
Gordon has found Shirley in her bed, gasping for air, unable to breath. Jade and Johnny are dispatched to the scene as their ambulance was located six minutes away from Gordon and Shirley’s house.
Gordon’s heartbreaking call to 999 is heard in the documentary.
‘She’s gone to bed tonight,’ he starts off, ‘I can’t wake her up, I can’t talk to her.’
‘She’s sort of breathing in and it’s like she’s… Her mouth’s full of something but she’s not being sick’, he cries.
At the end of the segment, Gordon can be seen tenderly holding his wife’s hand while she is in hospital
It is revealed at the end of the episode that Shirley passed away five days after the ambulance call, with Gordon by her side
Things don’t look good for Shirley when Jade and Johnny finally arrive at the couple’s house. They’re met by a distraught Gordon who can’t help but cry as the crew tends to his wife.
‘Come on darling,’ he can be heard saying as he takes her from the bed to the floor, following the 999 operator instructions, ‘don’t fight, don’t fight me. Please,’ he begs.
Gordon, who managed to remain calm while on the phone with the operator, breaks down when Jade and Johnny arrive at the couple’s house.
Gordon answers a few of Jane’s questions, explaining that he was sleeping when he was woken up by noises coming from Shirley’s side.
After the paramedic treat Shirley at home they ask Gordon to put his clothes on and to accompany them at hospital (pictured)
Shirley (pictured) gets better in the ambulance, and Jade tells Gordon she can hear him. In an emotional moment, the distraught husband reveals they have ‘no family and no relation’
‘I can’t tell you anymore,’ he says, his voice breaking.
Meanwhile, the team assesses the situation and tend to Shirley, who is lying on the floor, her jaw clenched and her mouth foaming.
It appears that the elderly woman is not suffering from a cardiac arrest as the team initially thought, but something that resembles a brain seizure.
‘You’re ready for a cardiac arrest, and then it’s not a cardiac arrest,’ Jade explains in a voice-over.
On the way to the hospital, Shirley can be seen blinking her eyes and seems to be aware Gordon is with her
‘With your training you just deal with what you’re seeing,’ she goes on.
‘We’re not trying to diagnose, I’ll just treat what I see and I think, “I have no idea what’s going on with this patient,” am just doing what I can.’
Once stabilised, Shirley is put on an ambulance to the hospital, and an emotional Gordon goes with her.
During the drive, Shirley seems better, and opens her eyes. Gordon waves at her, but quickly resumes crying. He reveals to Jade, who’s still tending to Shirley, that they don’t have relatives.
‘We have no family and no relations,’ he sobs.
Jade and Johnny reflect on the experience after depositing Shirley and Gordon at the hospital, where the elderly woman will be treated.
Viewers took to Twitter to express their devastation at the story, with one writing: ‘Gordon and Shirley breaking my heart’
Agreeing, another added: ‘Watching Ambulance. Why do I do this to myself? Gordon is breaking my heart.’
‘You feel so helpless,’ Jade says, rubbing her eyes after the emotional moment.
‘I can’t say anything to Gordon because I don’t think the outcome is going to be nice,’ she tells Johnny.
‘You can’t say “I hope she’ll be alright,” because I feel she’s not gonna be,’ she adds.
Unfortunately, at the end of the programme, we learn that Shirley died five days after the ambulance call, with Gordon by her side. They had been married 44 years.
Viewers took to Twitter to express their devastation at the story, with one writing: ‘Gordon and Shirley breaking my heart’.
Agreeing, another added: ‘Watching Ambulance. Why do I do this to myself? Gordon is breaking my heart.’
‘Oh I’m afraid. Love this programme but it hurts’, another said.
But the team doesn’t have time to give in to emotion. Six hours into the night shift, 96 category one calls were made, and Jade and Johnny are back on the road.
Later on in the Ambulance episode, Johnny (pictured) and Jade, tend to another family in need of help. A distraught daughter (pictured) called about her 87 year old mother, who has dementia
Loretta (pictured) fell from her bed, to the floor. She does not seem in pain, but gave her daughter a fright
The next day, Johnny and Jade are called to another house where a crying daughter called about her 87 year old mother who has dementia.
The elderly woman is called Loretta, and when the team arrives, she is laying on her bedroom floor.
‘She won’t have carer,’ the daughter, whose name was not revealed, says, ‘I’m a total carer.’
‘Today I just found her,’ she starts before being overwhelmed by the tears.
Johnny comforts her before returning to Loretta.
After the paramedics ask her a few questions, the woman reveals that her mother’s dementia has been progressing quickly.
One of the people taking calls in for the North West Ambulance Service is phone operater Laura Pilling.
Laura is seen with her headset on instructing a caller on how to do first aid.
The caller is panicked and doesn’t know what to do to help their loved one.
‘I just don’t want him to die,’ they beg on the other side of the line, clearly shaken up.
As she helps the person on the other end of the phone to count between breaths during mouth-to-mouth, Laura becomes emotional and starts to cry.
The elderly woman does not want carers, but her condition is progressing rapidly, and she might not have a choice anymore
The daughter (pictured, unnamed) is visibly shaken up by her mother’s state, and listens as Jade and Johnny tell her it’s time to get some help
‘Don’t give up,’ Laura encourages them, ‘that’s it, keep going for me,’ she adds, as her voice breaks.
Another 999 call handler comes over to her desk to support Laura until paramedics arrive at the scene.
The young mother-of-two appeared on ITV’s This Morning ahead of the show’s new series.
Laura admitted: ‘You’ve just got to keep going and give the advice that you can.
‘When you become a 999 call handler you get six weeks training where you learn the procedures and then you sit with a mentor to help on calls, but then you’re flying solo.
Another phone operator comes to help Laura Pilling as she struggles to deal with a particularly emotional 999 call
‘It can be hard to separate yourself from work, but we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t go home and think about what we heard.’
The young woman revealed she was now studying to become a paramedic.
It is revealed that during the thirty-six hours featured in the programme, the North West Ambulance service received 9.488 calls, 159 of which were classified as category one.
Ambulance’s new season starts tonight at 9pm on BBC1.