London remembers 'spectacular' 2012
12:26am Tuesday 1st January 2013 in National News © Press Association 2013
Thousands gathered to see in 2013
Thousands of people gathered in London to see in the new year by remembering some of the best moments of 2012.
Clips from the 2012 Olympic Games featured in an 11-minute fireworks display over the London Eye.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "What an amazing end to an incredible year. Watched by hundreds of thousands in the capital and millions around the globe, London has proved, yet again, that it can pull off spectacular world-class events in style."
About 250,000 people were estimated to be in the capital to watch the colourful and noisy display, which featured 12,500 fireworks. Many of them waited for hours to secure the best viewpoints on the banks of the Thames, but fortunately it was a dry and mild night.
Rob Haine, 30, a computer game programmer from Wakefield, said: "The display was mesmerising, it was a joy to witness. I had high expectations but they were completely surpassed."
Sandro Benvenuti, 46, travelled from Italy with his wife and two daughters to see the display. "We were waiting for six hours but it was fantastic," he said. "We have fireworks in Italy but those were much better. They went on for longer and the design and special effects were superior."
It was a busy night for the emergency services, with some reporting a huge spike in the number of calls they received.
South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb), which handles 999 calls from Kent, Sussex and Surrey, took 1,544 calls between 10pm on Monday and 4am on Tuesday morning - a rise of more than 20% on the same period last year. On Monday, Secamb officials urged people to use the service wisely and only call when absolutely necessary. Last year a large number of calls were due to people falling over, suffering breathing difficulties or being injured in fights.
West Midlands Ambulance Service saw its peak for 999 calls between 1am and 4am. The service said it handled 1,291 calls between midnight and 5am, a 9% increase on the same period last year, while 638 calls were taken in the four hours leading up to midnight - a 15% rise on the same period the previous year.
A spokeswoman said a large proportion of this year's calls were for alcohol-related incidents including fights, assaults, falls and overdoses. One incident in Stourbridge saw four people rescued from a river after three friends tried to help a drunken teenage girl from the water after she fell down a bank just after 8pm.
