S03:E14 - Under the Influence

11-year-old Archie has tripped and fallen up a step at the school library and has badly cut his lip. Archie’s worried about stitches, but he’s also concerned about his rumbling tummy - he hasn’t had his favourite dinner of chicken and chips. Staff nurse Emily is on duty in Resus: “We get a lot of falls. People climbing trees, people being drunk, falling out of windows…People can fall off anything can’t they? Horses, night-club stages,” says Emily. “So men fall off ladders and women fall off stages, thinking that they’re dancing like Beyoncé.” Kevin, a 57-year-old tree surgeon, has fallen off a step ladder landing heavily on a sharp metal bar and he’s struggling to breathe. His wife June knows that he will never be a classic ‘sitting in the armchair reading a book’ kind of guy, but it’s hard for her to see him in pain and the doctors are concerned he has punctured his lung. Alcohol can also be a major issue for A&E. “Everybody thinks that it's the weekend and the night, but actually it's all the time,” says staff nurse Emily. 53-year-old John has fallen down a flight of steps at the hostel in south London where he lives. He has been drinking heavily and has a deep wound on the top of his head. John has hit hard times in recent years, including drugs and living on the streets, but music is still his first love. “My favourite passion is drumming - started off with me mum’s Tupperware and knitting needles,” says John. “I was in a band called The Reducers. Had a single made once ‘Man With A Gun’, John Peel played it a couple of times.” Meanwhile 31-year-old barman Ross has fallen and smashed his head against a wall. He was leaving a club after an alcohol-fuelled work’s night out. He’s fractured his eye socket and has a possible bleed on his brain. The full extent of the damage won’t be known until Ross sobers up. Ross’s work colleagues Mark and Adam stay with him all the way through. “Didn’t really want him waking up on his own in A&E thinking ‘Where am I? How did I get here?’,” says Adam. “When you see one of your friends hurt, it’s instantly sobering,” says Mark. “You just go into autopilot.”