'We're dying of cold': Group stuck in lorry make desperate 999 call to Cambridgeshire Police
Listen to audio of the 999 call released by Cambridgeshire Police
A group stuck in the back of a refrigerated lorry made a desperate 999 call to ask for help from police with the final 1% of battery on their mobile phone.
The group of 12 people, including pregnant women and five children between 15 and 17, told police they had been banging on the side of the lorry for hours to be released but could not alert the driver.
The man who called did not know where the lorry was and could only identify it as having an image of grapes on the side, leading to a search across Cambridgeshire for a vehicle fitting the description.
It was tracked down at Alconbury Weald almost an hour later after a member of the public heard banging from the lorry and called police.
When police opened the lorry, they found people inside "squashed at the top of pallets of fruit".
In the call, made at 8.44am on 23 August, the man tells the call-handler: "We are dying... Can you help us please?"
"The lorry is cold... we are dying by cold.
"We don't know where we are."
The call-handler reassures the man that officers are out looking for the vehicle, and the man urges her to hurry, adding that there is a pregnant woman on board.
"She's pregnant... It's hard, it's cold... She's dying," he tells her.
The group had been on board since midnight the day before, they said, and had been knocking on the side of the lorry for up to three hours.
The driver of the lorry was initially arrested on suspicion of human trafficking but later released with no further action. The children were taken into police protection.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Police said it was not yet known where the group had travelled from.
Cambridgeshire Police said: "The man had just 1% battery left on his phone and was concerned for the welfare of everyone on board.
"Thankfully we managed to locate the lorry in Alconbury Weald and found 12 people, including five children aged between 15 and 17, inside squashed at the top of pallets of fruit.
"Everyone was checked over by the ambulance crew, given food and drink and we’re pleased to say no one was harmed."
Cambridgeshire Police are continuing to investigate.
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