Striking paramedics rushed from their picket lines to save a patient having a cardiac arrest.
The Mirror watched as a crew dropped their placards and jumped in a van at Anfield ambulance station in Liverpool, Merseyside.
Their colleagues told us that they had to leave immediately to go to the emergency callout despite being off work for the industrial action.
They told us army personnel who had been drafted in to help cover the gaps during the strike needed assistance on the life or death callout.
Colin, a paramedic who only wished to give his first name, told the Mirror: "They're going to a cardiac arrest.
"Some people from the army are helping out while the strike is on but they shouldn't have been called to that.
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"They need some assistance so our guys are going out to help. They're not meant to be working but even on strike we won't leave someone in need."
The Mirror is speaking to NHS workers on the picket line up and down the country today, as up to 25,000 ambulance workers go on strike in a bitter dispute over pay and patient safety.
One striking paramedic told us he has been forced to apologise to the families of three people who died waiting for her to arrive in the last six months alone.
While another said the pressure on the health service was “constant” and increasingly colleagues will find themselves stuck in a queue at hospital unable to hand over patients.
Paramedics, call handlers, drivers and technicians from the Unison and GMB unions are taking part in staggered walkouts across a 24-hour period.
A crunch meeting between doctors' leaders and Health Secretary Steve Barclay is set for tomorrow - after the Tory minister cancelled it so he could appear on TV.
Addressing the current pay negotiations, Mr Barclay told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I met with the unions again on Monday, I'm meeting further with the doctors' unions later today.
"We want to work constructively with the trade unions in terms of this year's coming pay review body."
But the BMA tweeted: "We see that Steve Barclay has told BBC R4 Today programme he is meeting with doctors later today.
"Actually he cancelled the 9am meeting we agreed so he could do media, and a further meeting is not yet agreed.
"Hopefully it will be soon."
The BMA's chair of council, Professor Phil Banfield said that BMA representatives had rearranged commitments in order to meet with the minister.
"He cancelled the 9am meeting we had all rearranged our commitments [for] so he could do media and a further meeting is not yet agreed," he wrote on Twitter.
The union later confirmed the meeting had been rescheduled to Thursday morning.
