24 Hours in A&E

Eight-year-old Abby hit her head after falling from the steps of a high diving board. The medical team need to scan her head and neck to check for serious injuries. “Head injury in children always makes me worried,” says Paediatric Intensive Care Consultant Tushar. “Seeing her getting drowsy was not good, her brain could be under pressure from a blood clot.” Abby’s mum Nikki is at her beside, but dad Scott is away in Scotland having missed the last train home. “I had no passport so I couldn’t fly. I just remember sitting on the floor just trying to figure out some way that I could possibly get down to London right away, “ says Scott. “It’s worse than agony. I just wanted to be there.” Mum Nikki is putting on a brave face and trying to hold things together for her daughter, but like every parent whose child is injured, inside she’s terrified. “I had to say to her you’re going to be fine, you’re doing really well, just to get through it,” says Nikki. “I noticed the sheer look of panic and that bottled-up emotion that every mother has when they're scared,” says consultant Tushar. “Wanting ‘please tell me this is going to all be all right’. And I can't, because I will not give false hope.” Meanwhile, the hospital security team deals with over fifty incidents every month in A&E, ranging from verbal abuse to assault. Anne and Holton are both working the night shift dealing with a variety of challenging patients in the hospital. “Sometimes I go home and I think about what I've seen that night, or I speak to my wife about it. I do fear for the younger ones 'cause I know how horrible the world we live in can be,” says Holton. “My mum says I'm overprotective, but my daughter, she gets a little bump on her head, I feel like I want to wrap them up in cotton wool.”