Trucking Hell

In episode one, in Hertfordshire, rookie recovery op Euan is tasked with rescuing a ten-tonne rigid. Its rear nearside wheel is stuck deep in muddy water after the narrow country road it was travelling on gave way under its massive weight. The truck is tilting dangerously and could easily topple over onto its side so Euan needs to quickly find a solution before it sinks any further. There's barely any room to operate and to add to the pressure, a long queue of traffic quickly forms. Euan's plan is to lift the rear end of the rigid and hoist it towards the road, but one wrong move could leave this rescue mission dead in the water.

In Northumberland, Alpha recovery op Kev and trainee op Ian go into battle with a massive unit and trailer that's lying slap bang in the middle of a busy roundabout just off the A1. The driver's attempt to turn around went seriously wrong, leaving the tractor unit marooned in muddy ground and the rear trailer wheels wedged across a traffic island. They need to get the road cleared quickly but the tractor unit's not giving up without a fight, and Kev and Ian struggle to gain enough traction to move it off the muddy embankment.

Just outside Northampton, Crouch recovery op Stephen attempts to shift a fully-laden artic. Severe engine failure has left it marooned in a layby on the A43 dual carriageway. With rush hour fast approaching, Stephen needs to put a plan into action pronto but with the half shaft located on the road side of the vehicle, removing it will leave him incredibly exposed to the traffic roaring past just inches away. Any lapse of concentration by a driver could be catastrophic.

A toppled tanker loaded with liquid chicken guts needs rescuing, a refrigerated truck stranded on a busy road is leaking water, and an artic has smashed into two lampposts.

Alpha Recovery send a crew to a challenging, energy-sapping recovery - a fuel tanker has rolled down a steep, muddy hill and landed on its side. A huge digger is needed to flip it over.

After a telegraph pole truck gets stuck down a narrow country lane, Incident Manager Steve requires a very special bit of kit, The Unitrak: a custom built recovery vehicle, which runs on tracks to enable it to access areas other vehicles can't. Being totally unlike anything else to drive, it's a huge test for Steve's maneuvering skills negotiating a slippery and muddy field just to get to the truck. The difficulties don't end there, with winch apparatus having to be operated over a hedge and darkness descending, which means in the heart of rural Herefordshire, this complicated rescue must be executed by the light from the vehicles and torches alone.

Operator Daniel faces his first ever coach rescue job, after a 56 seater gets stranded on the biggest roundabout on the motorway network, on a junction between the M25 and A1(M). With four lanes reduced to two, traffic is relentless, giving Daniel terrifyingly little room in which to work. Right next to an active lane, he must try to remove the coach's half shaft, but with a very thorough paint job having seemingly secured the nuts around it extremely tightly, Daniel has a problem. He must solve it quickly, as there's huge pressure to get the closed lanes open again.

Near Newcastle, veteran operator Kevin comes across a septic tanker wedged in construction aggregate dolomite at the entrance to a building site. With expensive pumpwork on the truck's underbelly, Kevin must exercise supreme caution as this is a rescue which must not be rushed.

In Buckinghamshire, a lorry stuffed with mattresses hits a low bridge and limps to Little Chalfont's station car park where Lantern veteran recovery op Steve declares the curtain-sided trailer structurally unsound, in need of cutting down and flat packing. That can only happen with the mattresses removed - but a replacement lorry on which to put them won't arrive until the following day when incident manager Daniel takes over.

Once the mattresses are off, sparks fly as a disc saw cuts through heavy metal and a crane crushes, rather than lifts the damaged frame. But even neatly stacked, this trailer won't lie down. Its fifth wheel attachment is bent and without it straightened it's going nowhere.

On rural Derbyshire's A615, a Ford Fiesta has crashed into a field. Crouch rookie recovery op Paul soon discovers he can't extract it because between the wrecked car and the road lies an unexpected wall and Paul's tow truck doesn't have a crane. While rush hour traffic builds behind his Slidebed, Paul puts his faith in the battered Fiesta's structural integrity to winch it closer to the wall and wait for help to arrive in the form of a craned truck. When it does, the race is on to get the car out and both recovery trucks out of the way of the increasingly impatient morning commuters.

And on the A66 near Scotch Corner Alpha's Aidan needs to find an off-road four-wheel drive Trakker truck with a blown engine turbo. When he does, it's blocking a slip road in a dangerous spot but despite the risk of traffic speeding by just feet away, Aidan bravely goes under the casualty vehicle to remove its half shaft and finds an elusive air valve so he can take control of its brakes.

It's a different type of recovery for the team at Alpha Recovery as they head out to Northumberland national park for a marine mission. They've been tasked with hauling a three-ton passenger ferry out of the icy waters of a lake so it can be repaired. A straightforward job takes a turn for the worse as the crew battle rocks and wind, and to complicate things further the skipper is struggling to guide his vessel's bow onto a three-inch landing strip on the towing cradle. It's all hands on deck to get the ferry safely off the lake.

On the outskirts of Loughborough rookie Crouch driver Lloyd finds himself driving backwards down a country lane in search of his next job. A massive tanker is stuck in the mud and the only way out is with a winch. After some serious pulling Lloyd frees the stricken driver and his load, but he still has to navigate his exit in reverse. The twisting track proves too much, and the driver gets stuck again. Luckily Lloyd is still on hand to save the day once more.

In the South East Steve has been called to a car park where a botched parking job has left a seven-ton medical supply truck wedged deep in mud. Its axels are sunk in the soft ground and the truck is perilously parked between two trees. With the public milling around Steve must work quickly and carefully to winch the vehicle out of trouble without causing any damage to the bodywork or danger for passers-by.

A 44-tonne gravel lorry careers off the A697, plunging down an embankment, and Gary must pick up the pieces. In Croydon, Stu has a complex recovery: a bin lorry is stuck in deep mud.

A 26-ton tanker gets stuck in a waterlogged verge on the busy A5, fully loaded and leaning to one side. Plus, moving an ageing double decker bus that's been immobile for eight years.

Two coaches which tried passing each other on a narrow snowy lane come to grief, and a bin lorry stuck in mud is in danger of keeling over.

In Northumberland, Alpha Recovery stalwart Kevin's got his hands full winching a tanker out of a muddy ditch on a country road. His load is leaning perilously close to an ancient dry wall. If Kevin gets the angle of his pull wrong, he might collapse the bricks. On top of that he's handling the rescue solo on an open road which means he is both winching, steering, and watching out for passing cars.

On the outskirts of Coventry, the Crouch team have been called to an industrial yard where a skeleton trailer has snapped in half, leaving its seven-tonne shipping container sitting at an awkward and dangerous angle. It's a tough rescue and space is tight, so the team decide the only way to pick up the container and broken trailer is with a huge crane. After rigging up with four heavy chains, Steve controls the lift from his sky-high position in the crane. He's relying on Ben to be his eyes and ears on the ground, looking out for any danger.

In Hertfordshire, incident manager Sean has been called into action attending a job that needs a specialist vehicle. A bin cage truck is mired deep in mud far down a narrow lane. A previous crew tried to reach it with their wrecker, but soon realised a smaller rescue car was needed. Sean arrives in his 4 X4 Land Rover with a pint-sized but powerful winch line. He rigs up the truck to his vehicle's winch and uses a tree as his anchor point, but as he tries to pull the truck to safety it soon becomes clear the truck is pulling his car into the mud.

Three veteran recovery experts struggle with a terribly trashed truck, and a rescue effort gets off to a bad start when the driver realises he is facing the wrong way.

Gary leads a complex mission to rescue a burnt-out low loader and cabin In the Scottish Borders, while Stu battles with a broken-down bus blocking a mini roundabout in Watford.

Alpha Recovery's Operations Manager Gary assembles a crack team to take on a tipping lorry. A 46-tonne artic has veered into a verge on a busy A-road and is going nowhere without some help. Highways have closed two lanes but the third is still open and traffic is streaming by. Gary and the team must carefully coax the lorry out, using two wreckers and four winch lines. But with little room to work there is a danger of this long lorry rolling into the live lane.

In Hertfordshire, another lorry has lost its way. Tight turns convinced the driver to turn back but the tricky conditions caused the wheels to get caught in slippery mud. The massive truck it now wedged in, without a hope of getting out. Lantern Recovery op Stuart must come to the rescue. But getting through claustrophobic country lanes proves a challenge for him and his 32-tonne wrecker. Once on scene Stu swiftly realises that this rescue will not be straightforward.

And on the M11, Heavy Recovery hero Merrie must make it her mission to miss motorway traffic when she is tasked with towing a broken-down truck. The 32-tonner is sitting on the hard shoulder. The brakes are locked on and it is going nowhere fast. To make matters worse it has a heavy weight crane attachment, making moving it a mighty proposition.

A £300,000 supercar has left the road and crashed into a Surrey wood. Incident Managers Daniel and Sean are searching for it and are amazed to finally discover the Ferrari Spider F8 in a copse surrounded by a roundabout. Mysteriously, there is not a path of downed trees after the accident, so the lads must whip out a chainsaw and cut their own route. Once they hook on, it is a test of the boys' winching skills married to the power of their mighty Heavy Wrecker.

In Leicestershire when a major fire rips through a pub, Recovery Op Mark is dispatched to rescue a car stranded next to a wall that the Fire Brigade warn is likely to collapse. It is a dangerous situation for Mark, but to keep himself as far from harm as possible he sends in a state-of-the-art piece of kit. Looking like it is straight out of ‘Thunderbirds' The Eastract is a remote controlled all terrain recovery vehicle, but can it lift the marooned motor clear without being crushed by the wavering wall?

In rural County Durham Recovery Op Aidan must recover a 14-ton Road Sweeper from a farmyard - but there's a problem. The machines' brushes are touching the ground so to save the client a ‘canny penny' Aidan needs to make sure they are protected. Worse still access is tight, and he must figure out how to get his wrecker and the casualty back up the bumpy farm track.

On the M25, Recovery Op Jordan hopes that the artic he must rescue is parked away from dangerous passing traffic. But it is not, and the hair-raising hard shoulder lift and shift is a terrifying test of nerve.

The Alpha team have been called to a burning truck full of bricks on the A69. When they arrive it soon becomes clear the job is going to be far from straightforward as the fire has destroyed the air brake system and melted the rigid at its rear. Operations Manager Gary's only option is to manually unhitch the rear wagon and release all the brakes by hand, but the fire ravaged carcass means that every step of this recovery will be a challenge. To make matters worse, the fuel tank has sustained considerable damage, leaving gallons of diesel dangerously exposed.

In Hertfordshire Lantern Recovery Incident Manager Sean has been pulled away from HQ to rescue a tipper truck that has run aground. He has a challenge ahead as it is far down a private lane resting precariously against a fence, the wheels are sunk deep in mud and there is little space to turn. Sean's only option is to position his wrecker some distance from the casualty and then perform a challenging central pull using soft strops.

On a busy stretch of the M42 outside Birmingham a fully loaded Sprinter Van has limped onto the hard shoulder. The rear differential is broken meaning the van can no longer be driven, luckily Crouch Recovery op Joe has his flatbed truck at the ready. Joe needs to work quickly and carefully because he has busy rush hour traffic thundering past, making this a risky rescue.

The Alpha Recovery team face a huge challenge as a double decker bus has rolled onto its side, and in the Midlands, a car transporter has become bogged down in the grounds of a venue.

A tipper truck sinks into deep mud on an isolated farm track, a car has crashed onto an embankment, and a lorry breaks down off a busy roundabout in rush hour.

In Warwickshire. Dave Crouch comes to the rescue a tipper truck stuck in deep mud on an isolated farm track. And a 26-ton truck breaks down beside the London Eye.

A bin lorry has come off a country lane, its wheels slipping in mud, and a box van trailer with has been uncoupled and left with the front supported solely by its landing legs.

When a driver transporting booze decouples at a lorry park, his trailer's landing legs are swallowed by porous tarmac, pushing Jordan and Merrie's recovery skills to the limit.