THE unusual weather this month has meant a huge fall in the number of accidents and injuries from tripping over on ice or snow, writes Becky Procter.

But ambulance crews are still being kept busy with medical conditions caused by the damp atmosphere.

Redditch paramedic Frank Knight said crews had not seen the expected annual influx of broken hips and wrists.

But he added patients with medical conditions such as heart and chest problems were being dealt with in high numbers due to the wet weather.

He said: At the moment, the problem everywhere seems to be the floods, although they are not as bad in Redditch as in Worcester.

And in view of the weather, we are seeing a lot of people affected by the damp weather.

The weather is so unusual for this time of year and if it does get worse, the type of calls we get will change.

Mr Knight said crews were usually being called to deal with a number of elderly residents who had fallen on ice.

He said: I remember when I first started working for the ambulance service and we used to get a lot of snow but when you compare it to the weather we get now, it's so different.

The normal winter accidents and injuries are not evident at all at the moment and we're not dealing with the level of falls we'd normally expect.