SURGEONS: AT THE EDGE OF LIFE
BBC Two, 9pm
The Major Trauma Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge deals with only the most urgent and gruesome of life-threatening injuries. Ben, 33, for instance, has been rushed to hospital after crashing his motorcycle into a metal gate. He has broken his femur, requiring a complex operation, and one of his lungs has collapsed. He’s in so much horrible pain that he has been administered ketamine, which has given him a euphoric high. As the staff lift him from his hospital trolley, he shouts “wheeeeeee!” like a child. It is a darkly comic moment in an otherwise sobering episode of the fly-on-thewall medical series, which returns for a fifth series amid the ongoing crisis within the NHS. The most serious case shown is that of single mother of four Jasvinder, who has broken her spine, severing her spinal cord, after a car
accident. As a doctor pin-pricks her from head to toe, we see her realise that she can’t feel anything from the waist down. As tragic, and heartbreaking, as it is haunting, it does lead to a miraculous procedure where surgeons reconnect her spine, restoring some movement in her upper body. It is extraordinary, life-affirming stuff, although be prepared for some truly nasty, stomach-turning gore.