Emergency S2 Ep3: meet St George’s patients Daniil and Jacob
In this third episode, 42-year-old Karl is in Intensive Care at King’s College Hospital following a high-speed motorway accident where his van collided with an HGV. His wife Lulu is coming to terms with the fact that he is being kept alive by a ventilator following traumatic chest injuries. Consultant Surgeon, Ibraheim, and Intensive Care Consultant, Sancho, meet her to give her an update. She asks them “you’re not giving up on him are you?” and Sancho explains he is critically ill but in the best place.
Meanwhile in South East London, Advanced Paramedic Practitioner James is dispatched to 87-year-old June who has lost her balance stepping into a taxi. On arrival, he finds June, lying on the road, supported by her neighbour with an open ankle fracture – “one of the worst” he’s ever seen. James tries to restore blood flow and rushes June to King’s Major Trauma Centre where specialist surgeons need to work quickly to try to save her foot.
In West London, at St Mary’s Hospital, 33 year-old Zoltan is recovering from several traumatic injuries and an emergency amputation below his right knee after being crushed between a van and railings. After complex surgery to his pelvis and an amputated leg, the hospital physio team has been working on his rehabilitation so that he can get out of bed and into a wheelchair to see his young daughters for the first time since the accident.
“Zoltan’s been on an emotional roller-coaster” says physiotherapist Kirsty and after an emotional family reunion, he again faces more surgery to his amputated leg to ensure they can fit him a prosthetic limb to get him on his feet. Surgeon Kshem is worried that “if there’s infection or if the skin doesn’t heal Zoltan may still need an amputation at a much higher level and this can have a huge impact on his ability to walk.”
Former soldier Joe, 61, arrives at St Mary’s having fallen down an escalator at King’s Cross station and losing consciousness. He was at an army reunion earlier that day and drunk half a bottle of vodka. Trauma Consultant Dan quickly sends him for CT scans that reveal a potential skull fracture and bleed on the brain, “people can rapidly deteriorate from brain injuries… talking and walking one moment and then collapse the next.” With Joe’s potentially life-changing head, pelvic and wrist injuries, daughter Kerry is worried most about the head injury “cause everything else is repairable”. In South West London, 20-year-old motorcyclist Daniil, arrives at St George’s by air ambulance after he collided with an HGV. As he’s brought out of the helicopter, he has a seizure on the roof and Emergency Medicine doctor Rich suspects a traumatic brain injury, “a leading cause of death amongst injured patients”. Doctor Rich sends Daniil straight to the CT scanner, alerting neurosurgeons in case he needs an emergency brain operation.
