‘I know it,’ the pilot replied. ‘I can get us down there fine.’

‘RPU will clear an area for you. What is your ETA?’

‘I have visual on Shoreham Power Station chimney. I’m two minutes west of it.’

‘Two minutes, A-Firm.’

Instantly Julian Turner focused his mind. A car versus any human being was never going to be good news, let alone a child. It was sheer luck for the boy that they were so close – if anything could be done for him, this Air Ambulance, which was to all intents and purposes a fully equipped mobile Emergency Department, would give him the best chance.

It was against the regulations to unclip his harness before landing but, as they flew over the city limits and started to descend, Turner placed his hand on the buckle, at the ready, so as not to waste a split-second when they were down. Immediately following a major trauma, there were two critical time frames for the victim: the Platinum Ten Minutes and the Golden Hour.

The Golden Hour was that crucial first hour during which a severe trauma patient arrived in a hospital, when the team threw every resource they had at them to understand the extent of their injuries and do all they could to keep them alive. Because if they could get them through that hour then they had an increased chance of saving them.

The Platinum Ten Minutes was all down to him and the paramedic – so long as the victim wasn’t trapped. If he assessed they needed urgent hospitalization, their task would be to stabilize them and to ensure they moved them safely, then get them off the scene and into the helicopter within ten minutes – to give the victim as much of the Golden Hour as possible in hospital.

Boy versus car.

Blunt force versus a robust but fragile human.

Turner had done a PhD on the subject of trauma as well as having written a series of articles for The Lancet, the widely respected medical journal, on the subject of blunt trauma. He was now writing a medical textbook on the treatment of trauma victims.

The subject that interested him greatly was the amount of impact a human being could sustain and live. He had an opportunity to study it through the victims of accidents he came across in his current work with the Air Ambulance, as well as through forums of trauma doctors and collision investigators around the world.

A straight fall of fifty feet onto a hard surface was the maximum the majority of normal, healthy adults could survive, and that was if they landed feet first with bent legs. Falling from significantly higher than that, the odds reduced to ten per cent. Beyond seven storeys, any fall onto hard ground would be fatal. Lighter, more supple children had a slightly better chance.

He had a particular interest in road traffic accident injuries. Wearing a tightly fitting seat belt, without allowances for crumple zones, the maximum sudden stop an adult human could survive, in theory, was a 60 mph impact – two cars head-on at 30 mph each. Any higher speed and there would be massive rupture damage to the internal organs. The spleen, kidneys, liver and heart would all tear their restraining tendons, and the brain would ricochet around inside the skull, causing severe internal damage.