All language subtitles for 24A.And.E.S21E02.HDTV.x264-LiNKLE_track3_eng

This episode was filmed before
the coronavirus pandemic.

The world might feel a bit more
chaotic and a bit more divided.

It's easy to forget sometimes
that there are constants.

Your home's still your home,
your family's still your family,

and all the structures
of our society are still there

to look after you
if you need it.

Here we go.

Adult male,
code red trauma. Ten minutes.

Activate the helipad.

Heart rate 200.

Open your eyes. Open your eyes.

Hello, A&E, can I help?

St George's, London.

It's all going to kick off now.

One of Britain's busiest
A&E departments.

We'll carry on CPR.

Goodness me, it's all happening,
isn't it?

Can you say, "Ah!"

A place where life...

Would you say I was fit, doctor?
Honestly, I think I'm quite fit.

...love...

...and loss...

Oh, mum. I'm so sorry.

...unfold every single day.

For every bad thing that you see,

there is something
equally wonderful out there.

Filmed across one 24-hour period,

these are the stories of a nation
and its health service.

I thought I was going to die.
You're definitely not going to die.

You've got too many good doctors
and nurses here.

Whatever happens,
it's going to be OK.

I love you.

Growing up, I'd always felt
very protected by my mum.

There were a lot of circumstances
that life threw at us,

but we always knew that Mum
would make the right decision,

and everything would be fine...

...because Mum was there.

She protected us
from the outside world,

but she has had
a very, very difficult life.

PHONE RINGS

Hello, George's?

Yep.

SIREN WAILS

Yeah. Lovely. How long?

Thanks, bye.

Adult female trauma, eight minutes.

An 82-year-old woman
is being rushed to St George's

after she fell and sustained
an open fracture.

That's all we know,
is it's an open tib fib? OK.

Consultant Melissa
is preparing the trauma team

for the patient's arrival.

So an open fracture, sometimes
called a compound fracture as well,

is basically
when there's a wound.

Sometimes it means there's bone
sticking out,

but if it's both bones that hold
up your lower leg that are broken,

then it's going to be
more complicated to fix,

it's going to mean it's harder
to get you to walk on it again.

The patient's daughter is travelling
with her in the ambulance.

On that day, I was at work.

There was a text from my husband
that said my mum's had a fall.

She was out with the dog
in the middle of a big field.

He said, "Yeah, it's quite bad,
there's blood."

And when I arrived on the scene,
my stomach absolutely flipped.

Ready, steady, slide.

SHE GROANS IN PAIN

Great, let's get handover.

Let's get her into a gown,

and can we just get proper hospital
gown, blankets, Bair Hugger as well,

she's clearly cold,
and get her temperature.

Let's do that as a priority.

Sure.

That's not nice.
No, it's really nasty.

No.

Mm-hmm.

Sorry.

Susan, I've got some painkillers
for you.

You can just use it whenever
you're in pain. Thank you. Yeah?

So, what we need to do first

is get that ankle just in a better
position. Have you seen it?

It's obviously a very nasty break.
Looked horrible.

Yeah, it's pretty nasty, I'm sorry.

82-year-old Susan has sustained
an open fracture

after falling while walking her dog.

I think she's going to need
something more than Penthrox.

Why don't we just draw up some
ketamine, then? Works for me.

Just some ketamine, yeah. Thanks.

Can we get 220?

Have you got any questions
at the moment?

Fine, OK.

Doctors must now attempt to reset
Susan's fractured ankle.

Just going to give you some
medication to make you sleepy, OK?

We've got all the kit we need
for plaster.

From the airway perspective,

are we pre-oxygenating her while
she's... Yeah. We're using ketamine?

Susan, how are you doing?

Are you still awake?

You guys happy?
Shall we just get on with it?

So, when we reduce
a fracture or a dislocation,

we want to get that leg
in a better position straightaway.

Well done, they're just pulling your
ankle out, you're doing really well.

Well done.

Well done, Susan.

It's only a temporary move,

but the sooner
it's in a normal position,

the lower the risk of complications.

Even a little cut in our skin
could be dangerous,

and certainly if your bone
gets bacterial infection,

that can be very, very serious,
even life-threatening.

Susan, how are you doing?

You OK?

Still pretty sleepy.

Susan's daughter, Megan,
has arrived in Resus.

Hello, are you Susan's daughter?

Susan, we've got a visitor
for you.

Yeah?

I'm tempted to get a takeaway
when we get back.

Try that new Chinese place.

Sometimes you just can't say no
to buy one, get one free.

Yeah, I know. It's such a good deal.

We can do. The hot one's really
nice, might get that. Large hot.

Yeah, the chilli one.
The large Hot One.

Side of dough balls.
Isn't it called The Hot One?

Yeah, it's all the vegetable,
hot pepper.

This day has suddenly turned around.

SHE MUTTERS

Why don't we text each other?
No, I'm texting my friends.

Oh, that's a diss, man.

14-year-old Tilly has been brought
to A&E by her mum, Shelley,

after injuring her ankle.

Don't, makes me feel ill.
It's not working. It's not working.

You mean it doesn't go that way?
Don't do it, then.

If it doesn't go,
don't try and force it. Ow!

Just let them
do all the poking about.

Ugh. I don't want people
poking at my feet.

Whoopee.

(Oming!

Hi.

Takes a little bit longer
at the moment.

Mum.

I was doing gymnastics yesterday,

and I went over the vault
and landed weirdly on my ankle.

It's swollen and it hurts.

It went like that, like bent round.

Yeah. But I can't walk
quite normally. Bit twisted.

Generally very healthy.

Mum and mum.

'Tilly is my firstborn.'

She came out all tiny
and long and noisy.

Lisa, my partner,
had Tilly biologically

but, as I always say, I held her
first, therefore she's mine!

Um, no.

I met Lisa at work into 2001.

She came to work at the hospital
I was working in.

They do say, don't they, that people
meet their future partners at work.

It's true.

No.

On one of our first dates,
we were walking down the road,

and a spider walked across
in front of me,

and I am terrified of spiders.

And Lisa picked it up and started
talking to it,

and I thought,
"Hmm, this one's a keeper."

I can remember being a teenager
and thinking,

"l never want to have kids,
I never want to have kids."

When I came out to my mum,

cos that's what you were supposed to
do in the 90s, you had to come out,

she cried, and I think that was
because she didn't think

that she'd have grandchildren,

and I think that was quite
a sorrow for her, probably.

And maybe I thought that, as well.

I think, I knew that Lisa wanted
to have children,

and it made me seriously consider
whether or not I did,

and it isn't something that just
sort of randomly happens to you.

No.
No.

Yeah, a little bit, like, here.

When we first found out she was
pregnant, we were just overjoyed,

absolutely overjoyed.

And you know when you're bursting,
and you want to tell everyone

that you're having a baby,

and they don't necessarily react
in the way that you're expecting.

And they start wondering in
your head, "How did that happen?"

When Lisa was pregnant,
I used to spend a lot of time

playing music to her bump,

and we brought a stethoscope
so I could listen, but,

for me, when you're sitting there,
you're on the side of it,

you just sort of feel a little bit
left out, unintentionally.

To all intents and purposes,
you're about as useful as a man.

No.

And I knew that I wanted to
have a baby, as well.

Why are they all in there?

This is why we can't have nice
things, cos people ruin them.

These go in the top drawer.

This is stressing me out.
Yeah, I'll sort it.

PHONE RINGS

SIREN WAILS

SIRENS WAIL

An 86-year-old man
is being rushed to St George's

after having a suspected stroke.

Leading the case
is stroke doctor Xuya.

Stroke needs a specialist team
because it's a condition

that needs to be recognised
very quickly.

It can be life-threatening.

The man's daughter is on her way
to the hospital.

To get a call in the afternoon
from my mum,

I knew it was serious.

And she said to rush.

My father had had a fall

and he couldn't move
his right arm,

and she said to me, "l think he's
had a stroke, but I don't know."

SIREN WAILS

On the way to the hospital,
I was praying...

to God, I was thinking,
"Please, let him be OK."

Hello, good evening.

Nice to meet you.

And his speech
seems to be quite slurred,

but he does have a new bump
on the back of his head.

That all right? Thank you.

Filippo, I'm just going to
look at your head, OK?

OK. Could you lift this arm up,
could you keep that arm up?

Well done.

Can you lift this arm up?
Lift it up?

Keep it “P?

Yeah? Do you know that?

It is quite important to do
the brain scan without delay.

It will tell us if it is a stroke,

and whether the patient is
a candidate for surgery or not.

I couldn't imagine my life
without my father.

I love my father very much.

And the thought of
never seeing him again...

...is a pain you'd have to learn
to cope with.

Filippo, we're just going to
have a scan of your head.

Do you have any allergies
at all, sir?

86-year-old Filippo is being
given an urgent CT scan.

Doctors suspect he may have suffered
a life-threatening stroke.

I think we just need a CT,
plain CT. Plain CT, OK.

Keep very still, sir,
don't move your head.

If it is bleeding in the brain,

it will show a big white blob
of blood on the scan.

It is very easy to see.

Hi, good afternoon,
it's Alex calling from Resus.

We've got a lady who's booked for
an ankle, chest and pelvic x-ray.

Susan is being sent for an x-ray

to assess the extent
of her fracture,

after she fell
while walking her dog.

I do remember, as a seven-year-old
pushing on for eight,

really, really loving life.

Mum had met my stepfather, and I
think we liked him a lot, initially.

Just that one, yeah.

He had very much two personas,

so when he was socialising, or
when there were other people there,

he was very, very jovial,
and he laughed a lot, and so on,

but then he had a really, really
nasty way about him.

He'd be very negative all the time
and also very controlling of her.

Most evenings
he would start drinking.

And that was when things
started to be really bad.

There was always just a slight
frisson of possibility of, erm,

that there might be violence.

And one night he was drunk and he
threw my mother out into the rain,

and he said, "Get out, and
take your filthy brats with you."

And that was one of the few times
I ever saw her cry.

Okey dokey. Back in.

Hello. You all right?

How are you feeling?

SHE SIGHS
Yeah.

I used to feel sort of sorry for
her that she had to live with that,

and sort of share a room with him
and share a bed with him,

and that was her life
and he was her life partner.

I think she was just doing the best
she could at the time.

I think, looking back now,
she says she wishes that she'd left.

But she didn't have a lot
of options.

Hello. Hi.
You've got a nasty ankle break.

It is pretty horrible.

But the orthopaedic team have come

and they've put it back into
alignment, which is good.

We've taken some x-rays, but they
are going to need to operate on you.

Not really.

At that moment,
if I could have had any wish,

it would have been for us
to be able to leave

and go back to how things were.

HE YAWNS

Do you remember that thing where
they fed people dogs' milk

and they thought it was lovely?

They were like, "Eww!"

Why a cow, as well, and not...

A donkey. Do you get
donkey milk? I'm sure you can.

You can get any milk, can't you?

It'd make more sense to have,
like, ape milk or monkey milk,

cos they're closer to humans
than a cow.

Give me some more interesting news,
please.

Do you want me to carry them
for you? Your shoesies.

Yeah, you just hop.

Tilly has been given an x-ray
after injuring her ankle.

Are you...

Are you leaning on it?

Do you want to sit on this side,
then you can lean it on me?

Sit on this
side. Makes me uncomfortable.

There you go.

You're so feistily independent,
aren't you?

It's true! To your own
detriment, sometimes.

Yes, detriment, darling.

Not.

So, Tilly was born in May, 2005.

But I knew that I wanted
to give birth, as well.

It was important to me.
I hadn't really realised...

perhaps how important it would be,

and, yeah, I really,
really loved being pregnant.

Tilly? Hi, come through.
I'll bring your shoes.

Come in.

Eadie was born in December.

I gave birth here.

Erm, so... In this house.

Eadie likes to say, "l was born
under the Christmas tree!"

And she was, so every year
we have to have the Christmas tree

up and ready by the 16th,

because that's the day
she was born underneath it.

So, x-ray's...

fine, so that is your two bones
in your leg.

All right? This is the one
that comes all the way down.

You see that bump there?
That's your bump at your ankle.

Now, you're tender about there,
right?

So, as you can see,
that is not a crack,

that's called your growth plate,
that's where your bones grow from.

And I don't think
there's any problem with that.

Some people do struggle to...
"What, you've got two mums?"

When the kids were little,
they'd come home and say,

"Someone said, how can you have
two mums? You can't have two mums."

I'd be, "But you do."
She'd go, "Oh, yeah."

Generally, a lot of kids have a
problem understanding relationships.

Fine, any questions? Tubigrip,
shall we put one of those on?

No, we went away from that
a long time ago. Yeah.

Fell out of favour. Fell out
of favour a long time ago. OK.

We have very frank,
open conversations

about what makes our family up,
why our family's like that.

In terms of getting about?

In terms of getting about,
so you're able to walk,

but what I would do is minimise
how much you're doing in a day

for the first few days at least,
and just wear comfortable trainers.

I asked myself that question
quite a lot,

what does it mean to me to be
a good mum? Not somebody else,

cos I can't be somebody else's
version of a good mum, only mine.

All right. Thank you very much.
Take care. Cheers, bye.

All kids really want
is to feel loved, cared for,

understood, considered...

...and any gender can do that.

Cheers.
See you later, take care. Bye.

Doctors have now received the full
report from Filippo's CT scan,

revealing a significant
bleed on the brain.

His daughters Maria and Connie
and daughter-in-law Lisa

are waiting in the relatives' room.

Is it a lot of bleeding
on the brain, or is it small?

So whereabouts on the brain?

Which makes sense with the right...

He has had a stroke?

So he'll definitely be staying in?

Do you want to come over? Yeah.

Papa!

No, they have to look at...

What if you fall down again in
the night and really hurt yourself?

HE WHIMPERS

Shh, shh.

My father was very happy
when I got married.

We had our first dance together.

It was an Italian traditional song
and my father cried,

and he literally could not stop
crying with joy.

He's heavy.

I remember telling my father
that I was pregnant,

and he didn't believe me at first.

And then I said, "No, Dad,
I really, really am."

And he was over the moon.

The first granddaughter,
which he spoiled very much.

My father was happy when he
found out that I was pregnant again.

That excitement, waiting for the
baby, you've got everything ready.

I had already bought an outfit,

knowing that his name
was going to be Antonio.

I wanted it to be a surprise.

He doesn't realise that he can't,
he's had a stroke, he doesn't...

He wants to go home.

At dead on nine months,

couldn't feel him move anymore
in the evening.

I woke up in the morning,
he still wasn't moving.

My son had no more fluid around him
and compressed his umbilical cord.

In the end, he suffocated and died.

But I had to give birth

knowing that I was giving birth
to a dead child.

I felt as if I'd been shot,

and left this big hole.

Because you've carried life
for nine months,

you feel them growing,
you feel them kicking.

It looks like he's falling
on one side.

Ah! Thank you.

'It hit my father very hard.'

He was absolutely...

beside himself.

My father just comforted me as much
as possible, he stayed with me.

And there were times
that he couldn't speak about it,

because the memories
just made him more upset.

Other than your ankle, did you
have any pain anywhere else?

No, everything else feels all right?
OK, perfect.

OK, we'll give her some
anti-sickness.

83-year-old Susan has sustained
a major fracture to her ankle.

Doctors are preparing her
for emergency surgery.

Hello, I'm the orthopaedic,
or the bone doctor.

There is a break in the bone
and it needs fixation.

In such an operation, the first
risk is the risk of infection,

and because you have a wound
already,

so the risk of infection
is a little bit higher, OK?

The other risk is the risk
that the bones do not heal.

OK? Er...

Any questions for me?

I know. I'll go and check
with the theatre,

make sure everything is ready,
and we'll call her anytime soon.

Really?

It did look rather awful.

That was last night.

No.

No.
Why?

They are ready up in theatres,
all right?

We're going to get you upstairs, get
that leg sorted as soon as we can,

all right?

OK.

Thank you.

Hello, darling. Yeah,
he's definitely had a stroke.

He can't move his right side at all,
his leg or his arm,

so he doesn't want to stay,
he wants to go home,

but he doesn't realise
that he's had a stroke.

Can you lift your arm?
Lift your arms up.

Filippo is being monitored

after suffering a serious stroke
earlier today.

Doctors are assessing
whether he may need surgery.

I'll take you up.

My father was worried
when I got pregnant a third time,

because he was worried for me,
knowing that I'd lost my son.

His grandson.

But Claudia was born a year later,

bang on Antonio's anniversary.

Same time, same place,

I have Claudia.

It helped his grieving process
knowing that...

he felt that God had taken one child
and then replaced with another.

And that she was healthy.
He was happy.

Filippo, can I have a listen
of your heart and the chest?

Good, thank you.

He's not? No.

Factors like how old
the patient is,

that will tell us how likely they're
going to recover from surgery.

If someone is already quite frail,

then they may not survive
the general anaesthetic.

And it's always very hard
to accept the fact,

you know, that you can't
help the patient.

Is that because of his heart?

So he can't have any surgery?

OK.

S0 with the warfarin
that you're going to reverse it,

that will reduce
the bleeding on the brain?

Yeah, you just get the blood back
to normal thickness very quickly,

so hopefully... And that will
drain it from the brain?

My dad lived his life to the full.

He'd go to weddings and he'd be
the first one up dancing,

"Not even the bride and groom
have got up yet!"

"Ah, shut up," he used to say,
"l get up, I dance, I love life!"

You know, he was very much...

SHE SIGHS
..such full of life.

Filippo, the last medication now,
OK?

Then they'll take you
up to the ward.

MARIA TRANSLATES

I'm not that bad.

He said, "l don't believe you!"

Bless him!

Filippo will now be transferred
to an acute stroke unit

where doctors can continue
to monitor him.

My biggest fear in a major event
like that in somebody of her age

was that it would precipitate
a downward slide

and a loss of her independence.

I know that in my early life
I made some very bad choices.

I think things
are so much freer now.

I would say it's very important
to have family around,

especially when you're older.

When the children were smaller,
I helped a lot.

But I think now it's swung
quite severely the other way!

SHE LAUGHS

Because she has helped me
a lot through it.

I just thought, it's going to be
a long road to recovery,

it's going to be hard,
it's going to be difficult,

and we're going to need to make
lots of changes to accommodate him.

I remember at the hospital,
my father said to me,

"Please, take me home,
I don't want to stay."

I said, "Dad, I can't do that."

He said, "No, please, take me home."

I feel bad, because...

...he wanted to come home.

The nurses said they were
preparing my father

and getting ready for the night...

...and then we could hear
the alarm bells ringing.

SHE SNIFFLES

And we saw the nurses running,
and they ran right past us.

Went into my father's room.

So we ran to the room.

I was with him when he passed.

I was with him
when he took his last breath.

I'm glad I was there to tell him...

how much we all loved him.

To tell him that all his
grandchildren are here,

I mentioned them all,

and I wanted him to pass
knowing that...

we were all here.

Do you sleep quite well at night?

Yes, cos my son talks a lot
as well and he sleeps very well.

LAUGHTER

PHONE RINGS
Hello, St George's?

Fall downstairs,
last seen two days ago.

GROANING

PHONE RINGS
Adult trauma call, ETA 12 minutes.

There was blood everywhere.
I thought that was it.

An unexpected rise
in the patient's heart rate

in itself can be life-threatening.

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