2012 is the 75th anniversary of the 999 system in the UK, and it's a system creaking under the weight of the British public's emergencies. 999: What's Your Emergency? is a unique series, filmed over an intensive 10 week period with all the emergency services in Blackpool: police , fire and ambulance. But this is unlike any other emergency based series. These films capture the entire process from the moment a call is taken at control to the deployment of the services on the ground. With rig technology inside the emergency vehicles to multiple crews on the ground 24/7, 999: What's Your Emergency? captures in a unique way the issues that face Britain today - from the emergence of new drugs, the despair of domestic violence, the way we parent our children and those, from whatever background, who slip through society's safety net. With unique access to the services and the control centres that deploy them, this is the job seen through the eyes of those at the emergency front line. Raw and un-mediated, compassionate, yet tough minded. This is Britain in extremis.
This episode follows how Blackpool's emergency services deal with incidents involving people from outside the town. With 13 million visitors each year, Blackpool is Britain's most popular seaside resort. While the older generation come to re-live the town's heyday, younger visitors - particularly those on alcohol-fuelled stag, hen and birthday weekends - are more likely to trouble the emergency services.
Watch Now:AmazonThe work of police in Northamptonshire, where, with resources stretched to breaking point, officers are struggling to meet the increased demand on their services.
Watch Now:AmazonThis edition focuses on the growing lack of respect officers face on the street, with a mass confrontation between teenagers in Northampton having worrying implications for PC Allan Whenmouth. A 15-year-old is arrested for assaulting a police officer in Corby town centre, while rookie PC Wioletta Britten reveals she experienced her first assault after working on response for only a few months.
Watch Now:AmazonThis programme focuses on relationships. When things go wrong, more of us than ever are dialling 999, asking the emergency services to pick up the pieces and protect us from those we used to trust. An increasing number of 999 calls involve relationship disputes, but they're never easy to resolve. The emergency operators are inundated with petty, non-emergency calls, ranging from people falling out over what they're watching on telly, to others arguing about computer games and who gets to keep the kitten when they split up. But domestic arguments often erupt into violence - last year cases of domestic violence increased by an astonishing 35% within a single year. Cases include a man accused of punching his girlfriend outside a pub, while another man is left with a serious wound after being stabbed in the stomach with a broken bottle. Meanwhile PC Claire van Deurs Goss meets a heavily pregnant woman who claims to have been assaulted by her partner, but refuses to press charges. Another woman has been head-butted by her ex-boyfriend. For the emergency staff, it's heart-breaking that children are often caught up in their parents' fights, with some as young as six calling 999 for help. Paramedics Paul Atherton and Mandy Jenkinson are a couple as well as being life-saving colleagues. Paul's been popping the question for years, but will Mandy finally give in and say yes?
Watch Now:AmazonPCs Bryony Hancock and Charlotte Wilson are called to a Saturday night lovers' tiff in Crewe before heading to help a woman who's been assaulted in her home by her partner.
Watch Now:AmazonThe mother of nine year old Taleah calls 999 to report that her daughter has been racially abused by two 11 year olds while out playing. It's the first time that Taleah has ever heard the N-word.
Watch Now:AmazonThis edition focuses on knife crime, with police in Northamptonshire having seen an almost 70 per cent increase in such incidents over the past five years. After a man is threatened with a knife in Aldi, PC Brett McKenna and a Taser team go to arrest the perpetrator and search his flat, while PC Steve Cheatham attends the scene of a reported stabbing on a a residential estate in Corby.
Watch Now:AmazonFollowing the emergency services as they deal with incidents related to the large military population in Wiltshire, with mental health problems a big issue as well as the fights between soldiers and civilians. In Swindon, a 24-year-old in basic training is arrested and brought into custody on suspicion of carrying out a totally unprovoked attack on a 76-year-old widower.
Watch Now:AmazonExploring the link between poverty and rising crime when a 14 year old reports a break-in at her home where jewellery and watches have been stolen. Also, a shoplifter admits he has been driven to extreme measures in order to survive.
Watch Now:AmazonIn Swindon one burglar is caught red handed, stealing frozen food from someone's freezer. Food bank use in Wiltshire has tripled over the last two years; is increasing poverty driving an escalation in burglary?
Watch Now:AmazonThis programme focuses on how women in our society are changing; whether it's putting themselves in harm's way as members of the emergency services, or the increasing number of women the 999 system is having to deal with. Female emergency service workers reveal their motivations for doing the work that they do and the challenges they face on a daily basis, while the programme features young women for whom drink, violence and law-breaking have become commonplace and a perverse source of pride.
Watch Now:AmazonWiltshire Police receive three times as many reports of voyeurism and male exposure as any other force in the UK. This episode meets Wiltshire's police officers to examine sexual crime.
Watch Now:AmazonIn the last five years, Wiltshire has experienced a 63 percent increase in offences committed by women. The police face extraordinary levels of violence as they deal with this female crime wave, including an attack on a single girl by a gang.
Watch Now:AmazonThe documentary focuses on the demands placed on the women and men who answer people's cries for help. As an ambulance crew answers a call to a heart attack, call handlers guide the victim's daughter through administering CPR. A nine-year-old boy is coached through a terrifying situation when his mother suffers a diabetic emergency while driving, and a father-to-be is instructed how to deliver his baby over the phone.
Watch Now:AmazonA look at how both the haves and the have-nots are being affected by crime. In Crewe, PC Matt Ambrose is called to the home of an elderly woman who has had nearly £10,000 of her life savings stolen from her bank account.
Watch Now:AmazonIn Northamptonshire, police are called out after a vicious attack on students. And two constables need back-up when attacked with a pool cue by a man who refuses to leave a pub.
Watch Now:AmazonPolice are called to the scene of a vicious attack by teens. A man is assaulted driving in the early hours. And at a break-in, two officers find themselves outnumbered by youths.
Watch Now:AmazonSouth Yorkshire Police attend a suspected sexual assault outside a nightclub and a case of indecent exposure on the street. A man is arrested on suspicion of domestic rape.
Watch Now:AmazonCameras focus on the five per cent of the UK's families who are collectively responsible for a staggering amount of the nation's crime - 50 per cent of criminal arrests. Police are dispatched to apprehend a drunk young man outside a nightclub. Some members of his family have amassed 193 arrests and 111 convictions between them.
Watch Now:AmazonThis episode meets Cheshire's police custody staff, who deal with everyone from people accused of terrible crimes to others who see the cells as a welcome break from other challenges
Watch Now:AmazonThis episode asks the police, ambulance and fire staff what they really think about the jobs they do. With more and more social problems falling to them, the emergency workers frequently question how much of their work is made up of actual emergencies. But time and again they reveal how proud they are to be protecting us from each other and from ourselves.
Watch Now:AmazonWith alcohol-related incidents in the UK costing the emergency services nearly £3 billion a year, this episode features people who risk ruining their own - and other people's - lives for the sake of a night out.
Watch Now:AmazonIn the UK, 1.6 million people are dependent on alcohol, and alcohol misuse directly costs the NHS £3.5bn a year, with admissions to hospital due to drinking doubling in ten years. Up to a fifth of ambulance call-outs are alcohol-related, but one paramedic reports that some weekends three-quarters of his patients are affected by booze. Sometimes ambulances are called simply because the patient is too drunk to remember where they live or want a taxi ride home. And middle aged, middle class professionals are at as much risk of ending up in an ambulance thanks to drink as the young and irresponsible or long-term alcoholics. Cases include a middle-aged executive who's drunk so much he's become incontinent, covering himself, the paramedics and ambulance in urine and faeces; a woman who's passed out after a day at the races; a 28-year-old who's lost everything through drinking; and a woman having a psychotic episode brought on by chronic and long-term alcohol abuse.
Watch Now:AmazonThis episode explores the impact of loneliness, as the emergency services deal with everyone from elderly people who need someone to talk to, to teenagers struggling with the pressures of social media
Watch Now:AmazonThe work of police and paramedics in Cheshire, following incidents from the moment a 999 call is made to the arrival of the frontline police and paramedics. In this episode, a 20-year-old girl has returned home after a night out, collapsed in front of her parents and stopped breathing, while one man calls the emergency services to say that a naked stranger his mother met at a punk gig has fallen down their stairs
Watch Now:AmazonEpisode Ninja is a small business run by one person.
Pro memberships help fund servers and new feature development!