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It's the weekend, and the start of another 12-hour night shift for the North West Ambulance Service. A call is received for a 43-year-old male patient who is unable to speak. Crewmates Jane and Sam are the closest available ambulance and race to the scene. They find a patient with signs of a stroke who needs urgent treatment at the closest specialist unit.

In control, the service has 198 ambulance crews actively responding to incidents across the region, and a high proportion of the calls they are receiving are drug- or alcohol-related.

Ambulance crew Jane and Sam are five minutes away from a 60-year-old male, who is believed to be a street drinker, suffering a seizure on the street. They find the patient conscious, with a badly infected leg ulcer that desperately needs medical attention. The job leads apprentice emergency medical technician Jane to open up about her experiences caring for two children living with disabilities.

Fourteen miles away in Preston, crewmates Mandy and Lauren have just dropped off an intoxicated teenage patient at hospital, before being dispatched to a 24-year-old male suffering a mental health crisis. Following an assessment, the decision is made that the patient needs to be seen by the mental health team in A&E.

A call is received from Lancashire Police for an 18-year-old male who has taken ketamine. Advanced paramedic Shaun is dispatched alongside crewmates Mandy and Lauren.

Jane and Paul are then sent to an ongoing call for a 75-year-old patient with difficulty breathing. While en route, the call is upgraded to a category one emergency – the most life-threatening – and an update from control confirms the patient is in cardiac arrest. The job is made all the more challenging for Blackburn-born-and-bred Jane as she knows the patient’s family and becomes overwhelmed with emotion after the decision is made to terminate resus. ‘We go into people’s houses, sometimes in the midst of much grief, and we’re the ones they’re looking at. Just by being there and showing that you care, I think it’s a massive help.’

In control, the team are nearing the end of their 12-hour shift when a 999 call is received for a woman giving birth in a car. Advanced paramedic Shaun is dispatched and arrives on the scene to find a healthy baby girl has been delivered successfully in the passenger seat.

This episode demonstrates the variety of challenges faced by the ambulance service across a busy weekend shift, with limited access to out-of-hours services and an increase in alcohol- and drug-related calls. We see the two extremes of life on the front line, as paramedics hold the hands of those most affected through the very worst times of their life, but also, in one case, the most life-affirming moment of birth.