It’s been a dramatic and emotional week on the Cobbles of Coronation Street as the Underworld factory roof collapsed, leaving many lives hanging in the balance and ending in tragedy for one of the street’s residents. Medical Hire were privileged to be involved in filming the spectacular scenes.
The storyline, which has been simmering in the background for some time, began when factory owner Carla Connor learned that the roof was in a poor state of repair. But instead of replacing the roof altogether, she instructed builder Gary Windass to simply patch it up for the cheapest price possible.
Things began to backfire for Carla though in Monday’s episode when the factory workers began a protest against her plans to outsource production. In an attempt to save their jobs, the workers locked themselves in the factory, refusing to come out until Carla listened to what they had to say.
But as Sally Metcalf and her sister Gina climbed the scaffolding onto the roof to display their protest banners, disaster struck, and the factory roof gave way. Sally plummeted through the crumbling roof to the factory floor below, with Gina left watching helplessly from the scaffold platform above.
In last night’s episode, the full extent of the roof collapse was revealed, and it wasn’t just Sally’s life that was left hanging on the line. The rest of the Underworld workforce were trapped inside beneath the rubble too.
Within minutes, the street’s residents saw what had happened and came rushing to the factory to help. But on entering the building, it was clear that the situation was still various precarious as live electrical wires were swinging around, water was escaping from burst water pipes, and sections of the roof were still crumbling and falling down.
The emergency services quickly arrived, and everyone made it safely out of the building. All except for one resident, Rana Habeeb, who nobody knew had been at the factory when the disaster happened. Returning to the factory to fetch her bag before heading off to her wedding, Rana was trapped by a huge pile of debris and was left in a critical condition.
Rana’s whereabouts was eventually realised, and the emergency services rushed back into the building to try and save her. After a precarious moment where another large section of the roof came crashing down, the paramedics eventually reached Rana and started to treat her. But as they did, she knew she wasn’t going to make it and so fiancé Kate Connor made a run for it inside of the factory to be by her side.
Due to get married that day, Kate and Rana said their vows to one another inside the factory, but very soon after, Rana sadly slipped away. The paramedics tried to revive her, but sadly it was too late for her.
Medical Hire were thrilled to be involved in the filming of this week’s dramatic episodes, providing medical and paramedic equipment for scenes with the emergency services.
Much of the filming took place on a spectacular purpose-built set, with fantastic stunt-work making the scenes look completely realistic and amazing.
The Medical Hire team supplied a wide range of paramedic equipment including paramedic responder bags, foil blankets, wound dressings, tourniquets and a variety of consumables. The team also supplied spinal boards, neck collars, head immobilisers and stretcher straps.
For the filming of Rana’s final scenes, Medical Hire provided oxygen bags, oxygen cylinders and oxygen masks, plus a defibrillator which sadly couldn’t save her life.
The storyline continues on Coronation Street on ITV as the residents face the aftermath of the disaster and the investigation into the cause of the roof collapse begins.
For more information on medical equipment and advice for TV and film, call 0113 2628000.
(*Images courtesy of ITV)