24 Hours in A&E - Series 9

1 July 2015

Episode 1 - Wednesday 27 May, 9pm, Channel 4

 

The series opener features people suffering misfortune while doing what they love on a perfect summer’s day. The programme includes a first for the series, heart-stopping helmet cam footage of a motorbike accident that sees a father and son rushed to St George’s.

28-year-old Ashley was giving his 53-year-old dad Tim a lift on his brand new bike when a car pulled out in front of them. While Tim is treated for an injured shoulder, Ashley is taken into resus. Doctors are concerned he could have back, pelvis and internal injuries and send him for a CT scan.

Tim waits anxiously for news. He brought up Ashley alone, but like many men they find it hard to express their feelings. “It’s very rare that we’ll tell each other what we really mean to each other,” says Tim. “But he knows. I know.”

77-year-old London ambulance driver Jim has collapsed at the wheel of his vehicle at work, driving into a lamppost. His colleagues at the scene suspect he may have had a stroke and bring him to St George’s. The initial assessment shows that Jim has a lack of vision in his left eye, possibly as a result of neurological damage to his brain.

But treatment is available and, if they get to patients soon enough, doctors can administer a clot-busting drug. But there are risks, so the medics have to be to be sure it’s safe. And Jim faces having to give up the job he loves.

Meanwhile 14-year-old Fabian has fallen twenty feet onto his back from a tree. He hasn’t moved since and has back and neck pain. Medics are worried there may be damage to his spine and he needs a CT scans to see if there are life-changing injuries.

Fabian’s mum Kaye raised four sons one her own. “To be left with four boys on my own wasn’t really what I signed up for. I used to cry a lot at night when I thought the boys couldn’t hear me, but they could hear me it turned out,” says Kaye. “I’ve achieved so much with my boys and I wouldn’t change that for the world. They’re everything to me.”

 

Series Producer/Directors: John Douglas, Dominique Foster

Executive Producers: Hamo Forsyth

Production Company: The Garden Productions