24 Hours in A&E

Scott is the senior nurse in charge of a very busy shift in Resus today. All the beds are full, a trauma has just arrived and an air ambulance trauma is on its way. “When you’ve got a full Resus where you’re completely rammed, but something else is coming in, you need to fit that in and you’ve got five minutes to do it,” says Scott, who has worked at King’s for thirteen years. “You’ve really got to fire off a lot of big decisions in a very short period of time.” 56-year-old Pauline has had a fall at home, hitting her head on a table. She smashed her teeth, but the main concern is injury to her spine and neck. Pauline’s proneness to accidents is a constant worry for her husband, John. “She tripped on a manhole and broke her foot,” remembers John. “She ran across the road, tripped and fell onto the pavement and fractured her wrist and broke her elbow…I hold her hand more often now when we go out.“ Soon after, the air ambulance brings in satellite and aerial-fitter David from Sussex. The 62-year-old has fallen 30 feet - head first - from a roof. He has life-threatening injuries to his head, chest and abdomen. His wife Pam is being blue-lighted into London by the police. Finding her husband in a coma on life support certainly puts things into perspective. “We all moan about our partners,” she reflects. “But you don’t realise it until something like this happens.” And opera critic John and his wife Gudrun are in minors. John injured his leg on a skiing holiday and has pain in his ankle. The couple have been together for 48 years and John admits the longevity of their relationship probably comes down to his wife being in charge. “She probably wears one and a half legs of the trousers,” he says. Meanwhile former window cleaner Alfred, who still works at the age of 78, has had to come to terms with life without Peggy, his wife of nearly sixty years, who recently died in a nursing home. With his wife suffering from dementia he had to look after both of them when she was at home. “I can cook, sew, iron - all the jobs that a woman can do,” says Alfred. “The times that I’ve heard somebody say ‘I wish I had you for a husband’. I said ‘You can’t have me, I’m spoken for!’.”