LAND-LOCKED Herefordshire tops the list for life threatening emergency incidents involving water.

The county, with neighbouring Worcestershire, experiences the largest number of calls to the Ambulance service for help in such cases compared to any similar county.

Each year ambulance men and women are called to assist people in distress in floods, canals, rivers, brooks, culverts, drains and sewers.

Now Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service is leading the way in training an elite band of its own staff to bring the swiftest help to sick people trapped or stranded by water.

Until now paramedics, often first on the scene, have been unable to treat patients in water situations until they have been brought to land.

Station Officer Malcolm Price, the ambulance service locality manager in Hereford, said this could result in the treatment of a patient being delayed.

"If a person is trapped in their flooded home and suffers chest pains, or out in the water in a boat they are entitled to the same emergency treatment as a person on dry land,'' he said.

The situation has been highlighted by serious flooding in both counties in recent years with a forecast that this will continue, and more often.

Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service is developing its own Water Safety Strategy to put them in a position to offer people a better service, on the spot.

Based on the theory that water should not prevent treatment ambulance staff are well in to training to achieve this.

Training centre

This week some of them will be at a white water training centre in Northampton, later they will return to cope with riverside conditions in the same area.

Station Officer Price said they were not providing a rescue service, they would continue to liaise with other emergency services such as the Fire Service and RNLI.

But to be successful in water emergencies and to treat patients quickly ambulance staff had to be educated on the dangers of water.

Flows could be relentless, powerful and in flooding, unpredictable.

The effect of a medium flow was equal to one and a half tons of pressure, like being pinned by a mini car.

Despite one's natural instincts it could be wrong to plunge into water in a rescue bid, creating even more problems.

Each incident had to be assessed taking into account the risks to both ambulance officers and patients.

"Sometimes harsh and difficult decisions have to be made over the risk of life,'' said Station Officer Price.

Front line ambulances in Herefordshire have already been equipped with life jackets and throw lines and staff trained to use them.

Special water safety teams from the service's 200 work force are being trained for the new service, the initial aim being three teams of seven.

Part of their equipment includes dry suits, helmets and boots and they all have to be inoculated against the risk of waterborne hepatitis or Weils disease from rats.

The West Midlands Strategic Health Authority has given the ambulance service £30,000 to help get started and managers are looking for sponsors in the two counties for extra support.