Original subtitles

This programme contains graphic scenes of serious injury and medical care

PHONE RINGS

Queen's ED Resus.

Oh, God.

RADIO CHATTER

He stepped out in front of a tram.

He fractured a limb.

A 13-year-old impaled on a fence. That's going to be a red.

A piece of machinery's hit him in the face.

There's absolutely no space. Oh!

No pulse. Try SOS! That's it.

Can we have another pulse check, please?

Yeah, I've got a pulse.

You guys are awesome.

It's all go, in't it?

Hello, Sir, welcome to Queens.

Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham.

Hey, up, duck, I've chopped me fingers off.

One of the busiest A&E departments in Europe.

Can I have some help?

Now, under more pressure than ever.

The patient from last night is still here.

The last few years have definitely been a lot tougher.

So, he's slung him out the way.

It's OK.

And we just feel like we're battling every day.

But we have to keep going.

We're the right play for the right people. Thank you.

A place where life... THEY LAUGH

HE GRUNTS RHYTHMICALLY

Hi! You all right? Hi!

..love...

I just wanted you.

..and loss...

He's going to go to Intensive Care.

SHE SOBS

..unfold every single day.

Your mum is here.

We can't let the bad times destroy people.

Whatever happens, you've gotta fight.

It's humanity that gets people through.

It's the love.

She's here. Hi, love. Hi, love.

I think we sometimes take the people we love for granted,

and we think they're going to be there forever.

But we need to hold on to those connections,

because you don't know when they're not going to be there any more.

I love you.

I probably don't say it as much as I should.

So, what kind of day are we looking at?

Are we looking at...

We're looking at a nice day. ..people staying at home?

Yes, they're all going to watch the Coronation.

I really doubt that we'll make it to the pub,

they'll be down there. They're not, though, are they?

They'll be in the street, getting on it, waving a flag.

In under two hours' time, King Charles and Queen Camilla

will be crowned at Westminster Abbey.

There's always a buzz around

the department when anything is happening.

It's a nice excuse to make some cakes,

and to celebrate a little bit.

Are you baking? Yes!

They're nice, you know? I've had about four.

Are you a royalist?

No.

How much is it all costing? Shall we Google it?

No doubt we'll pay for it. Yeah, exactly.

To us, it's a normal working day.

The same as Christmas, the same as New Year,

the same as any other day.

Usually it means that we're busier than ever.

We've been over capacity in Resus so much,

I can't guarantee I'm going to have a space.

Times are definitely hard,

and they're different to what they were 2-3 years ago.

There's a lot more patients in

the department who all need attention and support.

So, it's about a five-hour wait.

You've been here three hours, 24.

But it doesn't really matter what's happening in the outside world,

we'll be here.

PHONE RINGS Hello.

Yeah, go for it. Low GCS.

What's that, sorry? Can you give me a breakdown of that?

So, that's E2, V2, and M5, is that right?

Have you got a blood pressure running by any chance?

Thank you, see you in a bit.

It's a 35 techie, and it's flank pain.

SIREN WAILS

A 35-year-old man is being rushed to Queens Medical Centre

after collapsing at home.

The man's mother is on her way to A&E.

It just started to rain out of nowhere.

And my response was, "Well, I need to ring home,

"cos I've got a line of washing out.

"And Richard's bedroom's on the front,

"and it's quite a dark bedroom,

"and he's always got the curtain drawn.

"So, er, he might not notice it raining."

I rang up and I didn't recognise his voice.

I thought I'd rang the wrong number at first.

It sounded like an old man in agony.

I said, "Are you OK?" and he went,

"No, I've got agonising pain every time I breathe in."

And I just said, "Put the phone down and call an ambulance".

When I got to the house and I saw him,

and it was an oh-my-God moment.

He was waxy-looking,

and I just grabbed his wrist,

and I was feeling for a radial pulse.

And there wasn't one there.

And I rang 999 again, and I said,

"I'm a nurse. We really need a paramedic crew now.

"He's really deteriorating."

Going through my head was, "Oh, my God,

"if we don't get help soon, he's going to die on the settee."

I'm just conscious that you don't have space.

We'll make some space.

She can go to X-ray. Yes, please, if that's all right.

What are we getting? So, it's flank pain, tachycardic...

35. ..and a low GCS.

Dr Umar is the consultant in charge in Resus.

A young patient who's collapsed out of nowhere -

that is an extreme worrying situation.

Pain in your flank could mean anything.

It could mean a heart attack,

it could mean something wrong with the bowels,

with the kidneys.

It could mean that you've actually

started bleeding inside your abdomen,

and it needs to be treated and stopped immediately.

CONCERNED CHATTER

We need to get him in somewhere.

I'll get you a trolley. Yeah. Has he got a canula?

Yep. Can I get a nurse in here, please?

Let's get a line in.

Can I get - someone get him on the monitor?

Prep a bag of fluid for me.

And, erm, a bag of fluids.

No, someone's gone to get it. Can I just lay him down?

Where's the monitor? Anything on the ECG at all, people?

Sinus techy on his ECG, with maybe some big T-waves.

Sharp scratch. Flippin' hell, why's he so cold? I know.

Can someone run this gas that's coming?

So, what's the story? Let's go again.

So, absolutely fine this morning.

He began to feel very unwell.

In what way? Pain in his left flank.

Left flank, yeah. But when this pain comes on, it makes him...

Is there anything else, apart from the pain? That looks fine.

Richard hasn't actually spoke,

other than he managed to tell them where the pain was.

Richard? Richard?

Richard. Would you do... Talk to me, matey, what's going on?

..full bloods, including paracetamol? OK.

Richard, you need to talk to me, matey.

Look at me, turn your head around,

and tell me what's going on.

Tired, why? Turn your head around.

Patients, when they come in, if they're unconscious,

if they can't give us history,

that's a very challenging situation for us.

Doctors have ordered a rapid blood analysis to diagnose

what may have caused Richard's collapse.

Abdomen area... 7.22,

CO2 of 8.12.

BM 12.7, lactic 4.7. It's coming.

When you get a blood gas analysis on a patient who's acidotic,

the bottom line is, the circulatory system is affected.

Pressure bag. Any flexes? Yeah.

It means the heart's trying to pump enough blood across the body,

but it's not doing it.

Have a look at his fluid, and then, have a look at his kidneys.

The worst-case scenario is, all your organs have started failing

one after the other.

Well, he's throwing up, so let's just get him on the side, people.

THEY STRAIN LOUDLY

I was just going through the motions,

like everything was automatic to me.

Let's get him a trolley, let's keep the fluids going.

Can you request a belly CT for me?

It's tender and it's paratenic, left upper quadrant.

That's how I deal with things, I stay calm.

Ready, brace, slide.

But inside, I was terrified.

I really believed he wouldn't live.

HE HEAVES LOUDLY Turn, turn, turn, turn.

Is this Richard? Yeah.

I've got his mum outside.

Just wait.

Sit her in the Reli's room, yeah.

35-year-old Richard is in Resus

after collapsing with severe abdominal pain.

Yeah, he's acidotic on the gas.

Lactic is 4.7. So, slightly raised. Yeah.

When could go into pancreatitis.

Initial tests on his blood gasses have revealed abnormalities

which could be a sign of organ failure.

So, book a scan in ITU.

If the patient's complaining of an abdominal pain,

then the only way of finding out what's actually wrong and

causing that is a CT scan, to try and find out what organ's affected,

and to prevent life-threatening situations.

Richard was my youngest child.

His sister was two years older than him.

He was a quiet child, compared to Natalie.

I mean, Natalie was a noisy child,

and Richard was a quiet observer.

But then, his cousin Jamie was born,

and they were always together.

They were like siblings,

they were very close.

I've got photos of them, I used to have a paddling pool out the back

in the summer, and they're in there naked.

SHE LAUGHS

Richard, we're just doing a CT scan.

You just need to keep your arms up, OK?

As he got older, Richard kept out of everybody's way.

We didn't really see him.

He painted his bedroom black.

His bedroom was 6'6"x7.

So, you can imagine how closed in that would've felt.

He gave up Scouts, he was in Scouts,

he gave that up, all around that age.

He was just really quiet, and very withdrawn.

But with our Jamie, he's always opened up.

I think they were just good for each other.

Richard, we just want to start the medicine, OK?

That will make you feel a bit warm. Don't worry,

you'll be fine, it is OK.

Richard was an introvert,

and Jamie was an extrovert.

He was the opposite of Richard, really.

But it worked,

they just rubbed off each other and got on.

Richard, we're done, sir.

He was happy when he was with Jamie,

but I know that, through my job, that life turns on a sixpence.

I'm waiting for the Reg to come and have a look. Yeah, sure.

There's something there.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah.

It's blurred, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

There are adrenal glands that round off your kidneys

with an extremely good blood supply.

It's a gland that secretes hormones

that will help you in emergency situations.

Mand if you started bleeding from the adrenals itself,

it is a double whammy.

All of that blood will start to hose out into your abdomen,

and you've lost your emergency response, as well.

It is an extremely critical situation to be in.

Hello, do you mind coming with me?

Richard's mum, Janette, has arrived at A&E.

My name is Nadeem, I'm one of the doctors here.

Hello. All right.

So, are you a nurse by background, or...? Yeah.

So, the reason I want you to come with me,

he's quite sick, all right?

So, he's got left-sided tummy pain,

and he has been quite tender in the tummy.

do you want to sit down? Yeah, no, I'm fine. No. You're fine.

CT scan is still being reported.

OK. But the provisional report,

it says that he's got bleeding from the adrenal glands.

OK.

We're trying to do everything. I've called the ITU,

they're coming down right now. Oh, OK.

You can talk to him.

Obviously, I adore him.

I'll always be his mum, and he'll always be my baby.

Richard, your mum is here, Richard.

Rich?

We're just going to put a bear-hugger on.

Rich? Yeah?

Hello, are you all right there?

What did you do, what happened?

OK. And what's your name?

Colin, lovely.

Can I just have a quick look, Colin,

is it still actively bleeding?

Is it spurting or anything?

OK. Lovely, let me take you straight through, my love.

Yeah, I'm going to straight through to injuries.

This wound is horrible.

There was a lot of blood.

The tendon was totally visible.

If I moved my thumb, you could see the tendon moving up and down.

Colin, they're going to call you in a second, my love, OK?

Thank you. All right.

I'm a handyman.

I was going to do a job for a gentleman,

and he'd got a shed at the bottom of his garden,

but the roof had all collapsed.

Hello, Colin. Yeah.

I'm just going to change that tea-towel just for a bit of gauze.

OK. Do you just want to grab a seat? Yeah.

I was cutting through some plastic roofing, and the blade snapped.

This is just a bit cleaner than your tea-towel, that's all.

The blade travelled up my hand to my wrist.

There you go, mate. Is that all right? Yeah.

I asked my son-in-law, Chris, "Can you go and get a towel?"

His face looked as if he'd just seen a ghost.

Do you want to keep that tea-towel, or do you want me to get rid of it?

Erm, I think you can get rid of that. You sure?

I'll buy him a new one. THEY CHUCKLE

All right. Thank you.

Colin? Hiya, Colin. Hello.

I think it was shock more than anything,

because there wasn't any pain.

Right, come and have a seat in here.

OK. Do you need painkillers? No.

Are you sure? Yeah.

You can change your mind later. Can I call anyone?

I am pretty pain-resilient.

I've had a lot worse in the past.

Right, put the hand here.

You might need to take that off, darling, as well.

I had a pretty happy childhood.

I lived with my mum, my grandparents,

and my aunt and two uncles.

Everybody around was working in the farming industry.

So, we weren't well off.

Yeah, you can see the tendons. Yeah.

Have you had a Tetanus jab within the last ten years?

Er, yes, I have, yeah. You have, why?

I think it was five years ago, when I damaged my right hand.

Maybe you should stop doing DIY. It'd be a good idea.

THEY CHUCKLE

You know, there was no central heating or anything.

I remember scraping the ice off the inside of the windows.

I was probably in my teens before it was normal mains connected water.

I bet your friend is really worried about you now. Yeah.

Yeah, he was pretty concerned.

We had a tin bath in front of the Rayburn to

have a bath in, you know?

Life was pretty tough.

I just happen to have the specialist doctor here.

OK. Hello. Hello. So, this is Colin.

Hi. Hiya. Hiya, Colin, how you doing?

I'm all right, thank you. My name's Kareem, nice to meet you.

Do you still work? what do you do for a living?

Yeah, I do work. DIYs?

Property repairs, yeah. THEY LAUGH

So, this is normally what you do. Occupational hazard.

All right, OK. Oh, OK.

Can you bring your thumb towards the palm of your hand, yeah?

And keep it away like that?

It's very close to the wrist.

And I can see the bones.

There is a risk of infection into the joint,

and this is a really bad... Yeah. ..infection if it happens.

Oh, OK. So, that's why we need to give it a proper wash.

So, if I give you some antibiotics and prepare you

for the operation tomorrow. OK, thank you. Thank you.

Farming a is very hard - a lot of long hours -

but it's not a well-paid profession.

And I wanted the good things from life - and for that,

you need a reasonably well-paid job.

I decided to go straight into an apprenticeship at

a local printing company.

I had to work hard, really.

I don't think I was a natural academic,

I found a lot of stuff tough.

So, I'd really push hard.

I worked my way up pretty quickly,

and it lead me into management quite early, at 23,

and then, being a director at 28.

But, even with working hard and a lot of long hours,

I never realised, really, that I'd end up

where I did at the end of it.

OK, down the here, just follow me round. OK.

Colin is being sent for emergency X-rays

so doctors can fully assess the damage to his hand.

I don't suppose you could give the Coronation a quick look?

Mm-hm.

Here you go.

This is Charles making his way to Westminster Abbey,

it looks a pretty miserable day.

I do think it's a bit ridiculous,

given the cost-of-living crisis.

This is not really a good look.

They've got a little marquee set up, so he doesn't get rained on. Mm-hm.

Or egged.Or egged. THEY CHUCKLE

Oh, look at him, he's wearing his... what's he wearing?

What is he wearing? He's a vision in Y-fronts.

Is he wearing the... what do you call them?

Stockings. Stockings.

Well, he is like 75.

So, he's going to need something that's soft for his bottom.

I like everything about Britain.

I like living here,

I like the people.

It makes me smile sometimes, the way that the culture works.

Can I just tell you about little Masie? No.

Please, are you in charge? Yes.

I was born in a small village called Beek en Donk,

in the South of the Netherlands.

I managed to just about scrape through school.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

My dad was an English teacher,

and I didn't really speak a lot of English.

So, my parents organised a work experience in the UK.

I was excited, but also,

I think it was very driven by my parents, who were going,

"What we going to do with this girl?"

Thomas?

The biggest shock was just getting used to

a whole different way of living.

Come in, hello.

How you doing?Hi. HE CHUCKLES

I was 17, eating pie and chips -

which was something I'd never really come across.

And lasagne and chips.

What's that all about?

My name's Marijke,

I'm one of the nurses

and I'm training to be a Nurse Practitioner.

Do you want to tell me what's happened?

So, I was going to ride down to,

like, my uncle's on his cattle market. Yeah.

And this van flew by,

and I've got into a car,

and it's sliced my fingers open.

Right, and are you normally a healthy boy?

No. No? Yeah, yeah, you are healthy, Tom, in that sense.

I-I do a bit of exercise... What, you eat burgers?

Yeah. I like eating food.

Let's have a look at the damage.

I worked in a nursing home to learn the language of nursing in English,

and I just learnt as I listened.

I didn't plan to stay here,

but then, a lot of things happened.

You are actually moving your finger quite well.

One of my friends invited me to his wedding,

and his best man and I got together.

OK, push against my finger.

We spent the whole weekend after the wedding in Chester,

and walking hand-in-hand around the park,

and spending time together,

And...

SHE SOBS QUIETLY

And then, he died.

My friends who got married came and told me that he'd collapsed

and died from a sudden cardiac arrest.

We need to do an X-ray of your hand,

so that we can see what's going on inside your fingers.

There was no grief, as in grief of people who have lost

somebody they know really well, cos I didn't really know him.

But I didn't realise how much it would define a lot of...

..what I did next.

I'll take you round to X-ray.

Come this way.

So, this is Richard with Mum.

His mum called EMAS because he had some left flank pain.

When he came into us, he was quite in pain,

tachycardiac since arrival.

In Resus, the Intensive Care team have been called to access Richard.

The initial CT report has revealed a bleed in his abdomen.

No.

In a normal, healthy adult,

you should not be bleeding out of your abdomen without any trauma.

But, yes, we've seen spontaneous organ ruptures.

I've seen one or two in my life.

It is very rare, and it is extremely serious.

If you know for sure that this patient's bleeding,

then this is very time-critical.

Richard, hi, I'm Fiona, one of the IC doctors.

I've just come to have a look at you.

I'm just going to uncover you for a second. OK?

Richard and his cousin, Jamie, was like siblings.

They were very close.

As they grew older, they went to different secondary schools,

but they always met up at weekends

in a bar or a club somewhere.

Teenagers think they're invincible

and Jamie thought he was invincible.

OK, that's fine.

Doctors now have Richard's full CT scan report.

Sorry, was he well enough yesterday?

Yes, this has just come out the blue today.

Er, I wanted to tell you about the scan report. OK.

So, Richard, are you listening, mate?

Yes.

Yeah, so your scan shows that

you've got a left-sided adrenal bleeding going on.

We don't know why that is happening, Richard. OK.

So, we are trying to do something just to stop the bleeding.

Is that OK?

All right. Are you in pain?

Should I give you morphine relief?

All right. I'll get him some morphine relief,

and I'll come back to you. Yeah.

Jamie had just passed his driving test...

..and it was absolutely throwing it down with rain,

and Jamie lost control on a bend,

and the car aquaplaned sideways

into an oncoming van.

At the hospital, there was not a mark on him,

he was ventilated.

When we walked in, the nurse shone the torch in his eyes.

And myself and my sister, who's a Neuro nurse, we knew.

His pupils didn't move.

So, we knew that he'd had a catastrophic brain injury.

A few hours later, the consultant sat us all down

and told us the extent of his injuries,

and that h-he couldn't survive.

Richard, he was just very quiet.

He was heartbroken.

He never really spoke about it.

Losing him had an impact on his mental health.

He wasn't sleeping and he was agitated,

and he told me he had dark thoughts in the night.

So, I worried then, in case he did anything to himself.

I want your biscuit recipe.

Oh, yes. I'm like, you know what?

I can't just keep waiting for you to make them before I eat them all.

I'd rather just try and make some... Make some at home. Yeah.

# I think his X-ray is normal, it looks like the norm. #

Or has he just taken a tiny piece off there?

I found it incredibly difficult,

trying to manage the experience of somebody dying.

As a 17, nearly 18-year-old,

it was something I didn't really know how to deal with.

But it's probably part of the reason why I became a nurse.

Yeah, I think he's pulled a tiny bit off here.

I did a lot of different things,

I did a lot of training courses,

I became a life sport instructor,

and got a job in A&E quite quickly after I'd felt that

my language was ready for that.

And then, I met my now-husband on one of those training courses.

I think he's taken a tiny little slither off his proximal...

Have you managed to speak to whoever's covering hands?

I have, and they're looking at the pictures now,

and they're ringing me back, so they haven't said when they're coming.

I've been living in the UK for about 30 years.

I never felt that I was a foreigner here,

I just felt very much welcomed into the community that I lived in.

Thomas? Yep. Can you come back in? Yep.

Right, shall I show you your picture?

So, this is your hand, and that's your little finger -

and that's where you've cut your finger.

And if I show you that one, I think you have...

..a little flake of bone.

Yeah. Just at the side.

I felt at home, and then, overnight, it all just changed.

Brexit happened, it all just became a bit more difficult

to live here without questioning if I was all right to carry on

living the life that we've been living here.

And I'm going to have a little look and see how it looks under there.

The hospital questioned my identity and said,

"You've got to prove who you are."

And I said, "But I've worked here for 17 years

"and now you need to see my passport?"

And they said, "Yeah, we do need to see you in person

"with your passport, and your Right to Remain Government code."

And it made me feel that I wasn't really as welcome

as I had been until then.

And that was... I find that very difficult.

Go and take a seat, and I'll you know... Yeah.

..if you can eat and drink.

My daughter said to me at one point,

"Are you all right to stay here?"

Because she'd heard somebody say,

"Will they send a bus to pick you up?"

So, she asked me because she just suddenly worried that I might be

taken back to Holland because I didn't have British nationality.

I don't think I quite prepared myself

for how upset that made me.

That period definitely affected my mental health.

Hello. Are you all right? Yeah.

When the surgeon had a look at it, suddenly, it was just...

Oh, was it? Ew. Yeah, and he went,

"Oh, right. That's a vessel." Yeah.

Colin has been joined by his son-in-law, Chris, whilst waiting

for an X-ray after slashing his hand with a Stanley knife.

Well, I'll wait here with you until you go up to the wherever

you're going, and then, I'll... Yeah, it just depends,

I mean, you can see all the people in bloody...

I came in from the other end,

and the amount of people in beds, just lined up, I was like,

"What the frickin' hell's going on here?"

I really enjoyed work, and I worked really long hours.

Colin? Hello. Hiya.

You coming, mate? Yeah.

The money rose and bonuses, and flash company car

and in my 30s.

I was earning not far off six figures.

Right. So, we're just in this one here.

Take a seat down on that chair, if you don't mind.

My name's Jamie,

I'll be taking your X-ray for you today, OK?

It was a dream come true.

I'd done all the things that I wanted -

a nice house, nice holidays, a wife and two girls.

It was like having a win on the lottery.

It was euphoric.

What I'm going to get you to do, then, is pop your hand nice

and flat on there for me. That's great.

I'd be going to work at 6.30am in the morning,

I'd be coming home at 7-8pm at night,

and then, sometimes get called back to work, as well.

I was working, at a minimum, six days,

a lot of the time seven, cos I'd go into work on

a Saturday morning,

I'd go and play rugby in the afternoon,

and then, I'd go in and do paperwork on a Sunday,

which did put a bit of pressure on the home life.

I think it was a hard time for some of the people around me.

OK, that's the first one done.

Now, for the next one, what I'm going to ask you to do

is just turn your hand up like this just a little bit.

That's it, if you rest your thumb now.

With my wife, we drifted apart because of my work,

and I blame myself for that.

And then, years later, I started drinking too much.

OK, you can relax that for a moment.

I felt at the time, I was really soaking stress up really well.

I didn't realise it was stress,

and then, it hit me.

All of a sudden, I felt totally lost.

As if I...

..didn't know my own mind,

and I didn't know what to do about it.

So, we've just got one more to do. OK.

I disappeared from the house for over 24 hours.

I walked out with no wallet, no phone.

And for my family, it was pretty horrific.

I didn't really know where I'd been.

I woke up in a local nature reserve.

And so, I absolutely knew that something had to be done.

OK, that's perfect. All done.

So, someone on social media's made up names for the Coronation.

You've either got Corrie-naysh...

..or Chazzle-Dazzle.

Chazzle-Dazzle.

I quite like Corrie-naysh.

I think it rolls off the tongue more easily.

I can't really see Charles as a Chaz.

I don't think anyone's called him "Chaz" in his whole life.

Hello.

You all right?

So, I've seen the consultant,

and he said, "You'll be having surgery tomorrow

"to put it back together."

Colin is waiting for his X-ray results after he severed his hand

down to the bone with a Stanley knife.

So, Chris is waiting with me at the moment.

He's been brill, he's drove me down here and stuff, yeah.

Okey dokey, all right. OK.

See you in a bit, bye. Bye.

I saw it as a bit of a failure at first when...

..when I started really suffering.

Colin. Here we go.

I thought if anything like that - stress, depression -

was seen as a weakness.

I didn't realise that life was stressful.

It was just, I felt a bit tired,

but I'd just put a 70-hour week in,

and now, I'm going to play rugby.

Just lay your property on the trolley. Yeah. Yeah?

I'm going to clean the wound with one litre of sodium chloride,

which is already prepared. OK.

Yeah, under local anaesthetics.

I think a pre-conception of how a man should behave,

to absorb everything that goes on around you,

is the reason I just kept going when I think, deep down,

I knew there was a problem.

OK, lift up your hand.

With, certainly, most of my lads at the rugby club,

there was no discussion really about emotion or stress,

or anything like that.

I thought I would find it really, really tough.

This is quite sharp.

I told a couple of lads who I played with that I'd been suffering.

I didn't know what reaction to expect,

but they were like,

"Wow, but...

"..any help you need, mate, how are you now?

"Anything we can do?"

It was a big release.

Yeah, and the more that I shared it,

the easier it became,

and I was just surprised how accepting people were.

My wife, Sal, has been truly amazing.

She's helped me realise the help that was needed to get sorted.

My first route was get some counselling.

So, I'll splash a bit of water from here into the wound,

and then, I have one litre in there. Yeah.

There was a six-month waiting list,

so I had to go private.

You did a good job. Yeah.

Stanley knife is very popular...

THEY CHUCKLE Yeah...to be honest.

Obviously, I need more training.

The counsellor I had was excellent.

She was very forthright, really, cos she said,

"Well, what you going to do about it?"

I think that's when I first started thinking about,

"Well, I need to not do the job."

My health and happiness, and the happiness of everybody around me

was far more important than a very well-paid job

with all the benefits.

So, I negotiated a deal with my partners in the business to leave.

The day I drove out of there, I felt fantastic.

And I've never looked back since.

Well done. Very neat.

Do you have any questions for me at this point?

No, all good, thank you. OK. Yeah.

Enjoy the rest of the day. Thanks very much.

I'm now self-employed.

I can choose when I don't work.

But I am so much happier now.

I've had better days. THEY LAUGH

But then again, I've had worse days. But, er, yeah.

You never stop learning.

And the biggest lesson I've learnt,

you need to talk about mental health and stress...

..and make sure you show love and care to everybody around you.

Thomas, do you want to come back in?

So, what we need to do is have a good look inside your joint.

So, the Plastics doctors,

they want to take you to theatre to have a look while you're asleep.

What were you going to do today?

Did you have big plans?

Yeah, we've got a we've got a Coronation party this afternoon.

Ah. Do you want me to put it up on here?

He's on the balcony... He's on the balcony? ..the Mall.

Oh, there they are. Yeah. That's it.

I see the UK as my home.

My family are here.

So, when Brexit happened, I found that very hard.

But the things that really helped me were to talk

to people around me at work.

It feels almost more like a family,

and they made me feel at home.

In A&E, there are always people who will give you a hug,

and show you that they care.

And that is something that's really important

for everybody's mental health.

You ready for home? I am.

THEY LAUGH

People have always had mental health problems,

and we see a lot of that in our department.

They've come just because they don't know where else to go,

because everything is so difficult.

Hello. Hello. How can I help?

And I think having that awareness

is really important,

and allowing people to just be sad about things that happen to them,

but also, that there is a way out.

That life isn't necessarily going to stay awful.

Did you hear what the doctor said?

Yeah. You've got a bleed on your adrenal gland.

Richard is in A&E after suddenly falling ill.

Doctors have identified a severe bleed from his adrenal gland,

but are trying to identify the underlying cause.

You're still not warming up.

After losing his cousin Jamie,

Richard just...he was angry.

He was angry that he'd died.

He's never actually voiced suicidal thoughts or anything.

But there are times that he hasn't coped.

Richard did share with me that he had episodes where -

of panic attacks.

He did go to the GP.

He never had any counselling, though.

It takes courage for a man to admit that they're struggling mentally,

and to open up to anybody, really.

Specialist doctors have now identified a tumour

which is causing the bleeding on Richard's adrenal gland.

OK. Yeah.

OK.

And it's the mass that's bleeding. Yes. OK.

OK.

Really?

Oh, my God. But we don't know what kind of mass, OK.

OK.

Yeah. Yeah.

I work in cancer services.

THEY CHUCKLE

Yeah. OK.

He'd kept himself to himself for a long while.

But then, last year, I noticed that he seemed happier,

less tense and less agitated,

less snappy when things were going wrong in his life.

He seemed really bright and happy

and then, I found out that he had got a girlfriend.

I'm just going to take some more blood, Rich.

They were a very good match.

It was going really well for them.

They had been looking at moving in together before this happened.

Hello. Hello. How are you doing?

All right. My name's John. Hi, John.

I'm one of the surgeons, one of the consultants, how you doing?

Rich? Yeah. Rich, how you doing, pal? Not good.

You've got a fair amount of blood inside your tummy,

which is what's making you so unwell.

So, we're going to have to get you upstairs and sort this out,

and do an operation for you.

OK? We need to do that now. Yeah.

So, we will get you up there and get you sorted. OK?

All right. Thank you.

Rich?

Mm.

I don't know where I'm going to have to go and wait, OK? OK.

Richard will now go for life-saving emergency surgery

so doctors can remove the tumour and stop the bleeding.

OK. They're ready. Blood's here.

OK, let's go. We do need to go.

Two weeks after, I went back and just finished the little job

I'd gone to do on the roof.

I don't use a Stanley knife any more,

I use a blade that, under pressure, the blades just snap off.

And I've also brought one of those butcher's gloves.

I think directors and managers of companies really need to make it

a priority to look after people's physical and mental health.

They'd sat me in a relatives room at the theatre.

I thought about my nephew, Jamie, as soon as I was in that room,

and the impact that it had on the whole family.

Sorry.

And I believed that we were going to have a similar outcome.

The surgeon came in - it was less than an hour -

and I thought then, "He's dead."

Something in my face must have said that,

because he just reached out to me and said,

"He's alive, he's alive."

But he wasn't out of the woods by a long chalk.

I had no recollection.

I just woke up and the surgeon introduced himself,

said that he's saved my life.

He said, erm, "We nearly lost you there."

So, I am aware how close I was to not being here.

It's made me realise how short life can be and...

..to not keep things to myself,

to talk to people.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media