24 Hours in A&E compilation episode: A Life’s Work
The award-winning 24 hours in A&E returns with a series of compilations featuring some of the most memorable staff and patient stories filmed since 2011 at King’s College Hospital and St George’s in South London – places where life, love and loss unfold every day.
This episode features three patients filmed at St George’s Hospital.
8 year old Billy is rushed to St George’s after being crushed by falling bricks that were being stored on his front drive. As he travels to St George’s, his Dad, Shaun recounts the horror of finding out about the accident…”I was in the back garden..I heard a scream and I wasn’t too sure if it was Billy, when I ran out there it was just horrible, absolutely horrible.”
As he arrives in A&E, Orthopaedic Registrar Niv is called down to resus to assess the extent of the damage the bricks have done “anything is possible at that stage, you just don’t know.” Niv is concerned that the impact of the bricks falling on him may have caused a serious fracture to Billy’s femur that has damaged the nerves or blood vessels in his leg and needs to X ray him immediately.
Whilst doctors assess the X ray, Shaun talks about Billy’s presence in the family
“He’s got this thing about him that he seems to just make someone happy when they’re sad, and that’s what makes him, Billy.”
When the X ray reveals that Billy has indeed fractured his femur he’s transferred to the specialist paediatric emergency department. Doctors need to put his leg in traction ahead of emergency surgery to give him the best chance of walking normally again.
Meanwhile, 28-year-old carpenter Luke has come into A&E with his girlfriend Stacy having cut his finger at work. Stacy claims it looks like a paper cut, but Luke – who has epilepsy – is worried that it might trigger a seizure.
Luke’s epilepsy began three years ago after he crashed his bicycle into a stationary car. He was treated at St George’s then too. He was given a 10% chance of survival and underwent brain surgery.
Finally, Jayden is in with a swollen eye. Paediatric doctors have to decide if it was a fleck of rust that caused it to swell up so violently.
Executive Producers: Emma Tutty, Lucie Duxbury and Spencer Kelly
Producer: Edmund Davis
Film Editor: Alex Kirkland
