Original subtitles

WOMAN: Ambulance. What's the emergency?

MAN: It's a shark attack. OK.

Yeah. OK.

NARRATOR: The Gold Coast,

where the lights burn bright and the sunshine never ends.

While many Aussies call it home...

every year, 12 million tourists come to play

on this stretch of golden coastline.

MAN: We received a call.

There's a man who's been shot in the abdomen.

The bullet has hit a number of big veins.

(SIREN WAILS)

But the good times can often turn ugly...

Steve, where are you at the moment, mate?

..and when they do... Can you feel me tickling your thumb?

..these are the people you want on your side.

It looks bad to me, but you just have to trust.

He's a brave little thing.

Whether you're just visiting or you live here...

My baby's life is going to be cut shorter because of this.

I'm just worried about my two children.

She can't be replaced.

..these are the real stories...

He was gonna kill me.

..of the cutting-edge medical teams...

MAN: 51-year-old fellow bitten by a shark.

Had a massive bite to his thigh.

..who pick you up...

Go and cheer Mummy up and then I'll come for a cuddle soon.

..patch you up...

Superpower!

The fairy dust's very magical and it fixes all sorts of things.

..and put you back in paradise.

Where else would you rather be? (LAUGHS)

WOMAN: Someone's just been stabbed.

Tonight on Gold Coast Medical...

MAN: Did you see the knife, by any chance?

..a love affair where the first cut really is the deepest.

You've got a deep cut, possibly going into your liver.

A dream holiday turns into a nightmare.

MAN: Oh! (SCREAMING)

So you got attacked by a buffalo?

But these patients have Nurse Katie to help them forget their troubles.

We'll try and get you some hot nurses.

Yeah, yeah.

So inappropriate. (LAUGHS)

A miracle procedure to insert an extremely rare and expensive metal

inside a man's brain.

Big challenge for us is to get safely into that vein

and we may not be able to get there.

♪ Everybody get up

♪ Whoo!

♪ Everybody Hey, hey, hey

♪ Hey, hey, hey Uh

♪ Hey, hey, hey Whoo! ♪

When Dr Claire Roche finished medical school in England,

she made a beeline for the Gold Coast

to make the most of the lifestyle.

I've always had a little love affair with Australia,

ever since I was a little kid.

I had pictures of Ayers Rock on my wall

with lightning bolts behind it

and it was always like this fairyland which was unobtainable

for somebody who lived so far away.

I've moved over here with a 20-kilo bag

and slept on someone's sofa I never met before,

so these are the journeys we have.

Now Claire's journey has brought her

to the hospital's emergency department,

where she must deal with whoever comes through the door.

On the Gold Coast, we see a lot of violence and stabbing

and gunshot wounds isn't something which is a surprise,

come into the emergency department.

I've probably seen at least ten stabbings of varying degrees.

Today, Claire will see number 11.

MAN: (ON PHONE) What's the town or suburb there, Nancy?

WOMAN: (ON PHONE) Surfers Paradise.

Right. Tell me what's happened.

Someone's just been stabbed.

Is the knife still in him or not?

No.

And it's only the one stab wound? Yeah.

And do you know the name of the person that did it to him?

No.

50-year-old male, extracted from a unit in Surfers.

Said to have had a large penetration blade to the right upper quadrant.

The attack happened at the victim's home,

where he'd spent all day drinking.

MAN: Did you see the knife, by any chance?

No, didn't see it at all.

He claims he was entertaining a lady friend

who turned on him with a knife.

Do you know how big the knife was?

MAN: Oh...

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

She was French?

I think there's definitely

probably some illicit substances on board there.

What exactly he's taken,

I'd say it's probably a little bit of cannabis,

possibly something else.

First, an ultrasound

to make sure the bloke's windpipe is not filling with blood.

In and out. Take a deep breath for me a second.

I think we'll probably start with chest a X-ray,

get a fast scan and then CT.

Yep.

What we're gonna do, we're gonna do an X-ray of your chest, alright?

So we need to make sure that your lungs are all inflated.

If the knife punctured his lung, he will need emergency surgery.

Alright?

(MAN GROANS)

♪ All hands on deck

♪ All in the front, all in the back just like that, like that

♪ I'ma blow your mind, take it out on the floor... ♪

He may look like he's about to spend the day at the beach

but Dr Hal Rice is actually going to spend it

tinkering inside people's heads.

♪ I'ma blow your mind like that. ♪

I'm a diagnostic and interventional neuroradiologist,

which is a specialist who treats problems in the brain.

Dr Laetitia de Villiers is a former student of Hal's

who's now his right-hand radiologist.

Can we do a road map? Just a normal map.

AP lateral for the carotid.

Yeah, I just want to get the guide up a little higher.

I kind of always knew I was gonna be a doctor from about the age of six.

I have no recollection of actually thinking "That's what I wanna do."

I just always knew that's what I was gonna do.

The pair use high-tech gear to look inside people's heads

as they send tiny tools in through their arteries.

Monitored for a while... It looks good.

Just about there. Mm-hm.

OK.

DR RICE: The equipment we use is state-of-the-art

and every 6-12 months, there's new devices, new technology

that comes out.

We're just coming up with the micro-catheter now...

I think, at the end of the day, it's really benefiting patients

who come in with what are life-threatening, very severe,

debilitating illnesses

and we're able to make a major difference in their lives.

And every day brings patients with critical problems,

like 32-year-old financier Julian.

Julian has a time bomb in his head.

His brain is leaking, causing a massive build-up of pressure

behind his eyes.

If it's not fixed, he could die.

JULIAN: There appears to be multiple leaks in the brain.

The doctors say it's not gonna fix itself.

It's gonna get worse unless I get this procedure done.

This just came out of nowhere. I mean, I had no injuries.

And this affects me pretty much 90%-95% of my day

doing my everyday things - work, you know, watching TV, eating.

It just makes life a bit more challenging.

DR RICE: This is Julian's angiogram.

In the back of Julian's brain here, behind his left eye,

we've got multiple abnormal connections from the arteries

which are dumping high-pressure blood into the veins

right behind his eye.

In medical speak, it's called a fistula

and it's also affecting his ability to see.

Veins are not meant to take high pressure

and a fistula is an abnormal connection

between a high-pressure artery and a low-pressure vein.

So it just seems really...

Laetitia and Hal will try to repair the fistula

by clogging the leak with metal coils

fed into Julian's head through an artery in his groin.

Big challenge for us is to get safely into that vein

and we may not be able to get there.

Reaching the leak in Julian's brain will mean pushing the wire tools

in through a maze of thin-walled blood vessels.

But like all surgery, there are risks.

They say anywhere from 5%-15% chances of having a stroke

and potentially going blind.

But the risk of not operating could also be life-threatening.

Paramedic Michael Kerr has been on the job for over 20 years

and he remains enthusiastic and passionate about his work.

It's nice, after a while in a job,

to actually be able to do some advanced interventions

on your patient and treat them.

You're always up for the next challenge

and to advance your practice, so it's a big driver.

It's a life-long career built on expecting the unexpected...

MAN: (ON PHONE) Ambulance. What is the town or suburb of the emergency?

MAN: (ON PHONE) It's Varsity Lakes, Queensland.

Tell me exactly what happened.

He had his dog sleeping with him last night

and it looks like his thumb's gone.

..and today is no exception.

OK, so he's not responding to you at all?

No, mate. No. OK. Alright.

Not waking up. I have the ambulance on its way...

Michael is part of the Queensland Ambulance Trauma Team.

He's specially trained and equipped to do more than a regular paramedic.

Probably just thinking about

what's actually caused the patient to be unconscious

in a 64-year-old male.

Could be cardiac or could be neurological.

That'd the two main things going through my head at the moment.

Righto. Here we are.

Looks like they may already have the patient

in the back of the ambulance there.

He might not know exactly what scene he's about to walk into

but he does know the patient must be in a critical condition,

otherwise he wouldn't have been called in for back-up.

Hey, guys.

Hi. Hi, I'm Michael. Hey, Ricky, how are ya?

What's happened to him, man? Is it a trauma or...?

We don't know, mate. There's not much information.

This gentleman arrived home last night

and we don't know how his hand got like that.

Heart rate on. Let's get...

Immediately, Michael can see the man is struggling to breathe

and something has caused a catastrophic injury to his hand.

♪ Surf City Surf City

♪ Surf City Surf City

♪ Surf City Surf City

♪ Yeah. ♪

Dr Claire Roche is dealing with a 50-year-old man

who was stabbed with a kitchen knife.

You've got a deep cut.

He claims his lady friend attacked him

when their drinking date turned to disaster.

An X-ray shows the man's lungs have escaped damage.

MAN: So am I alright? You're fine.

Alright?

You're not bad.

You've got a deep cut in your side.

I know. I know.

I'd say it's possibly going into your liver, OK,

so we need to do some scans.

The only way to tell if his liver has been knifed is with an MRI scan.

Now, I know that it's not an ideal situation.

There's just this blush here that we need to consider,

whether it's something we need to intervene

or whether it's something that might settle down on its own accord.

Amazingly, the blade just scratched Andrew's liver

without causing any serious damage.

The surgeons have had a thorough look at him

and we're happy that we can close up the wounds.

Now Dr Claire has the difficult task of stitching him up.

DR ROCHE: Oi, keep that hand down.

Keep it down for me just a tick.

Just don't want that wire coming over there, yeah,

otherwise I'll sew your arm to your side.

Oh. You were so nice when I first met ya.

So, yeah, it was a little bit difficult on a moving target.

May I say that the staff here are absolutely fantastic?

I'd buy them all...

If I was put in here, I'd get more than Mentos.

He retained his sense of humour. He seems a happy punter.

So... (LAUGHS)

All done. Oh, really?

Not bad for a moving target.

With his stab wounds stitched up,

Andrew will spend a night under observation.

When we see stabbings or gunshot wounds,

we're obliged to report that to the police,

obviously, for safety to the public.

He didn't want to pursue this any further.

That usually means that it's a personal altercation.

I did ask him,

did he feel that this person was a threat to the rest of the public.

He said no.

Either/or, I would still report it to the police

and the police will come and take some further details on that matter.

Trauma paramedic Michael Kerr has been called to a mystery case.

Hey, guys.

What's happened to him, man?

Is it a trauma or...?

We don't know, mate. There's not much information.

We don't know how his hand got like that.

He was found in his bed this morning unconscious by his room-mate there.

They are hoping his housemate Tony will shed some light on the matter.

He come off on an electric scooter on Wednesday.

He was alright. He had no problems with his head or nothing.

He was alright. He just had a bit of skin...

He went to bed at 8:00 last night

and this morning he was a bit unresponsive.

I moved the blankets and everything off

and I seen, like, his thumb missin'.

I freaked out when I moved the blanket and it was gone.

I thought it was just all blood until I had a good look

and it nearly made me sick, yeah.

So I think the dog might've done it, you know, like...

PARAMEDIC: Can I have that in there?

Does he have a cardiac history?

MAN: We don't know where he's been, what he's done.

All we know, he's come off his bike two days ago.

He was fine. He came home.

The guy said he didn't see any head injuries.

He was fine. He just had some abrasions on his right hand.

I'm not sure if the dog was chewing on his hand or not.

OK.

Let's get the cardiac monitor on, see what's going on with that.

He's got a low blood pressure. Let's give him some ketamine as well.

So we're just drawing up some drugs.

We're gonna do an intubation, just to get his airway under control

and then we'll have to transport him to hospital.

This guy's pretty high-risk.

He's probably gonna de-sat pretty quickly, hey?

We're gonna get his sats up to 85.

By inserting a breathing tube, paramedics can take over his airways

and increase his chances of survival.

Yeah, you got the bougie.

Excellent.

See the cords?

MAN: See the cords.

OK. You got bougie? Yep.

OK. Mindful... just going through to the...

That's it. OK. Just going through.

Take my syringe.

I'm happy. OK, can we tie the tube off? Can you...

We're gonna... Plan is, open that fluid up

and then off to hospital and I'll do a scan on the way.

♪ Na-na-na-na-na Na-na, na-na-na-na

♪ Na-na-na-na-na Na-na, na-na-na-na-na

♪ Na-na-na-na-na... ♪

Neuro-interventional radiologists Hal and Laetitia

have just started one of the most difficult and dangerous

brain procedures they ever faced.

The risk of treatment is much less than the risk of doing nothing

and that's what keeps us going.

32-year-old Julian has a fistula deep in his head.

It's a leaking artery that could be fatal.

DR DE VILLIERS: It's a nasty fistula.

I know. It's really bad, actually.

It's coming from everywhere.

There are multiple little abnormal connections

from lots of small little arteries

that grow onto the side of the vein

and it can be very difficult to treat.

But left untreated, the vein bundle could burst,

leaving Julian with permanent brain damage.

You can actually get access to the arteries in the brain

from the main artery in your groin, which is the femoral artery,

and using X-ray guidance,

you can actually navigate along the inside of these arteries.

At the moment, we're at the level of his chin

and we've got to navigate through one of the big veins in his face

and then through the back of his orbit.

Hal and Laetitia are attempting to fill the bulging vein

with coils of very thin platinum wire

which must be twisted, turned and pushed along their journey

into the centre of Julian's head.

Oooh, no.

But isn't that where you want to be?

Uh-huh. I think it is, but I don't want to lose the position.

I think it's where I want to move this. I hope...

Yeah, that's... No, it's not in that chamber.

It's a painstaking process.

Long way there. Crazy.

There is a risk that the wire could puncture the wall of a vein.

If that happens or the team can't reach the fistula,

then open-skull surgery is Julian's only option.

What we're gonna do now is navigate through one of the veins,

into the back of his eye.

I don't know about that.

Easier said than done, huh? Yeah.

Doctors Hal and Laetitia are trying to reach a leaking artery

in a young man's head

using a fine wire pushed in from his groin.

DR RICE: What we need to do is disconnect this high-pressure artery

from the high-pressure vein

so that then the vein can return to low pressure.

It's taken nearly an hour of twisting to guide the wire into position.

It's in. There we go. You're in.

Fantastic.

That's great. That's a big relief.

So you can see how tortuous and twisty those veins are

but we're right where we need to be.

Thank you.

Now the doctors feed length after length of the platinum wire

to fill the bulging vein and block it off from blood flow.

Yes. Thank you. That's where we want it to go.

Perfect.

The blood leak, known as a fistula,

was placing 32-year-old Julian in serious danger

of a deadly brain haemorrhage.

See you later, fistula.

Each length of platinum wire is about 50cm long

and needs detaching once it's in place,

where it will stay forever.

Just detaching the coil. It uses an electric current.

(MACHINE RINGS)

Says it's detached.

Next coil.

It's another one of those, please.

It's a very large fistula to block

but the good news for Julian is that it's working well.

Really densely packed tip bone there.

Yeah. It's looking good. Mmm.

He's got a few metres of platinum in his brain, then.

Maybe five or six metres.

Six metres of platinum, so he's quite a valuable man now

with all that platinum inside his head.

So you can see that large coil mass.

It's completely blocking off the abnormal vein.

So it's looking like the flow's completely stopped

and we've disconnected it successfully.

A final set of X-rays confirm

that the vein filling has worked perfectly.

That's good, yeah.

Look at that. It's no more... It's closed down.

Yeah. There's no venous filling.

No. Veins are all normal phase. Mmm.

We can see the veins at the back of his eyes returning to a normal size.

OK. That's a wrap.

I think when you can come to the end of the day

and you know that you've successfully really helped somebody

with something that's life-threatening,

that's probably the best part of the day.

The morning after the procedure,

the danger of a brain haemorrhage has passed

and Julian's eye has gone from bulging back to normal - almost.

Hey, you're looking great. You feeling alright?

Yeah, yeah. Good to see ya.

Your eye's looking incredible.

Yeah, I feel the noticeable pressure's come off it.

But I haven't actually seen it myself.

Oh, haven't they shown it? No.

Do you want me to take a photo? Yeah, yeah.

Let's take a little photo for you, hey?

That's the way. Look straight ahead there.

There you go.

Oh, yeah. You're looking fantastic.

And it's really promising. Alright. Wonderful.

OK? Have a good day and we'll catch up with you a little bit later.

Six metres worth of coil, which is hard to believe,

just in a tiny brain here

but, yeah, it's just amazing

and obviously it makes the world of difference.

I can definitely see the improvement, which is fantastic.

And that's all within, you know, under 24 hours.

Long before she was a nurse in the Minor Injuries department,

Katie was a chef

and she still uses her skills to cook up paleo food.

KATIE: Paleo is basically what I was brought up on - meat and three veg.

I like to call it meat and 25 veg, though,

and bring a bit of variety into it.

It's really important to live a healthy life.

However, if you don't, it does keep me in a job.

(LAUGHS)

Hello!

Today, Katie and her friend Amanda

are playing host to Katie's parents, who are visiting from Melbourne.

Paleo chicken skewers. I've even hunted the chicken myself.

(LAUGHS) Come on. Let's rock and roll.

I never thought we'd have another nurse in the family.

No. No.

No. I tried to not do it for a long time.

My mum was a nurse for 36 years

and she used to come home and tell me pretty awesome stories.

I did ask her a few times about doing nursing.

I thought it was a good career path

but she said she didn't want to come home from work

looking like me after work, so I didn't think that was gonna happen.

I think I tried to deny the fact that nursing was for me

for a long time

'cause I didn't want to follow in the footsteps of my mum.

I wanted to be my own person.

Alright, I know you're hungry.

We're not hungry, we're starving.

Is there kale in there? No. Shut up, Mum.

When I went out on my first placement as a student,

I just went, "Oh. Yeah, this'll work. I like this."

You never know what's gonna walk through the door.

This dude seriously got attacked by a buffalo?

MAN: The bone's separated from my shoulder,

so I have to get an operation to put it all back in again.

"I was attacked by a buffalo." (LAUGHS)

That's interesting.

So he fractured his left scapula while he was overseas

and they didn't really do anything about it 'cause it was so swollen

and then he was unable to get back to Australia straight away,

so it's a bit of a delayed presentation for an injury.

So... (LAUGHS) So you got attacked by...

I'm really sorry to laugh.

So you got attacked by a buffalo? Right.

I am one of those awkward people that laughs when they're nervous,

which has not always turned out very well for me.

So that was five weeks ago?

Katie keeps a straight face long enough

to hear how Gold Coast local bloke Peter got tossed by a buffalo.

I was in America about five weeks ago in Yellowstone National Park

and I was taking a film of a buffalo eating grass

and it suddenly attacked me.

(PEOPLE EXCLAIM AND SCREAM)

There was all little kids there. Luckily it didn't attack them.

I was glad it sort of attacked me and not them

'cause it would've killed them.

It was a full-grown male buffalo, 1.5 tonne.

MAN: Oh, my goodness!

Did it get that guy?

So no-one else got attacked? It was just you?

No, just me, yeah. Random!

Yeah. Did you buy a Lotto ticket?

No, but I played the poker machines in Las Vegas.

Yeah, I can imagine. (LAUGHS)

There was a buffalo poker machine.

There was a buffalo... (LAUGHS)

I won $400. Really?

Yeah. (LAUGHS)

What are the odds?

So what they're gonna do is see you in Fracture Clinic.

So you get to go home today

with a proper sling on you that's gonna be for comfort.

And yeah, good luck with the follow-up

and stay away from buffaloes, brother.

(LAUGHS)

With 'Buffalo Pete' all set for surgery,

Katie can turn her attention to the next nasty break.

He's a 57-year-old that's presented with a painful leg

following a mechanical fall.

On a background, he is a walking paraplegic.

Mmm. Yeah, see, I told you it was interesting.

Trauma paramedic Michael Kerr is in the middle of a very unusual case.

Found collapsed in bed

on a background, two days ago, having a fall of a scooter.

Went to bed well last night.

A man is unconscious and is missing his right thumb.

For everyone involved, exactly what happened to this man

remains a mystery.

Ah, he's critically unwell.

As you can see, he's intubated for airway control.

He's got low blood pressure. He's cold.

I'm most concerned about his low blood pressure.

He's got a blood pressure which is 80, which is low,

so we need to correct that.

We're giving him fluids at this stage,

we're warming him up and we're controlling his ventilation.

So what's the cause of the blood pressure,

whether it's a sepsis or he's got a bleed in his stomach

or he's got a head injury from a past fall, I'm not sure.

It's now more critical than ever he gets seen at the hospital.

OK, nice and steady as we go.

And just watch his arms there.

OK. Here's his details...

Consultant Nathan Watkins takes the case.

He was found 9:30 this morning in his bed with blankets on.

Totally unstable the whole time.

He's always had a blood pressure less than 80.

And he's also cold, with a temperature of 32.

Let's go a fast scan. Is X-ray here?

Yeah, liver, pelvis and a chest X-ray, thanks.

First they look for any internal bleeding on an ultrasound.

What I'd like to do now is I want to get his adrenaline up,

get his blood pressure up, get that infusion of adrenaline,

then I want to package him with a warmer, getting him into CT

so we can get some decision-making.

MAN: Yep. OK.

Yeah, he's very unwell at the moment, a very sick patient.

The fact that he's completely unconscious, he's cold

and he's got a low blood pressure

means that it's a life-threatening condition at this stage, yeah.

CT scans of his head will be the only way to know

if there is any potentially fatal bleeding on his brain.

(PHONE RINGS)

B6. Allison.

Senior nurse Allison Homer

has had a life-ling passion for riding motorbikes.

Bye.

ALLISON: I've had a bike since I was 19.

Bike-riding for me has always been a social weekend event.

I don't tend to ride to and from work in busy hours of traffic.

Managing the Orthopaedics ward has made Allison all too aware

of the risks involved with her hobby.

Generally, we'd see a motorbike injury

at least possibly once every second day, a minimum of weekly.

Morning, Shannon. Morning.

We've got some medication here for your nausea.

This week's resident rider is 26-year-old Shannon.

I came off my bike, hit a pole, of all things,

and I managed to break both lower tib and fib bones in my leg

just below the knee

and as well as rotate and dislocate my knee itself.

All the rods just sort of hold everything in place,

as the leg's still broken - it hasn't been fixed yet.

Shannon is waiting for orthopaedic surgery

that will hold his leg bones together,

with metal plates, screws and rods.

So how did they put the rod in the bone?

Just like carpentry. The rod and a hammer and smash it...

Yeah. ..up your thigh.

And then they put a locking screw in here

to stop it from twisting and rotating in the bone.

Maybe I shouldn't have asked.

It's a week since Shannon's accident

and the surgery can't come soon enough for Courtney,

at home with their two toddlers.

The kids know that something's going on

so they're totally out of routine, they're not settled at all.

Hey, bud, where's Dad?

In the doctor.

Were you good last night for Mum?

COURTNEY: No. Nuh?

Shannon wasn't allowed to get a bike.

For three years, he wanted one

and I said, "No, I don't like road bikes. Not gonna happen."

I finally let him get one and that lasted about eight weeks.

His mate rang me

and he said, "Oh, Shannon's been in an accident."

And I said, "Youse are joking."

It's been a week. (LAUGHS)

Almost the longest time I've been away from my family, so...

Yeah, it's...

hard.

As the only breadwinner in the family,

Shannon is hoping to get back to his job as a motor mechanic

as soon as possible.

As soon as I got to Emergency and he was there,

he was worried about money.

As soon as... He said, "How are we gonna work? How are we gonna live?"

It's a predicament Nurse Allison understands very well.

ALISON: For Shannon, there's a loss of income, a loss of wage,

a loss of confidence in the ability to provide for his family.

Getting back to work, having that self-esteem

has its impact on Shannon

and that can impact on the way that he heals.

COURTNEY: (ON PHONE) When will you hear about your surgery?

She's gonna find out about it.

She's just gonna keep asking them how they're travelling

and let me know.

Well, hopefully it's today or tomorrow.

I know. Today would be ideal.

Yeah, I know, but I don't wanna get heartbroken.

Yeah.

I can't wait to get home.

I just hope the surgery's today.

So... It's been a long week.

Alright. I'm gonna try not to cut the tackle, alright?

PETE: Oh! (BOTH LAUGH)

In Minor Injuries, Nurse Katie is busy

dealing with another unusual patient.

He's a 57-year-old that's presented with a painful leg

following a mechanical fall.

On a background, he is a walking paraplegic.

Originally from Finland, Haykey was left a paraplegic 18 years ago

in a gliding accident.

I was told a month after my accident I'm never gonna walk again.

And one morning I woke up in the hospital and I could move my leg.

And that was a good day.

A very determined Haykey slowly taught himself to stagger around

on crutches.

Can you feel me touching at all?

Three years after my accident, I got rid of the wheelchair.

"Never again," I said.

But after losing his crutches from under him this morning,

Haykey is in danger of losing his mobility.

Look at the X-ray. It's pretty impressive.

KATIE: Oh, that makes me sick.

I kind of fell down and fell on my bum.

You have got a fracture of that femur.

I know. Yeah.

Not only is Haykey a walking paraplegic,

he's also just returned to Australia from years of overseas travel.

Living the life. I'm living in a van, so...

Oh, are you? ..it's cheaper than I'm living now.

It is. Much more fun.

I have a van too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't live in it, though.

How long are you meant to be staying in Australia for?

I bought a one-way ticket.

You did? So this was the big move?

This was probably a big move...

Welcome home, son. (BOTH LAUGH)

I immigrated to Australia first in 1990, I immigrated to Australia.

Yeah, right. And then went to New Zealand.

Yeah. At the time, I had a New Zealand girlfriend...

Yep. ..sort of thing.

But there was a bit of complications there I don't want to get into.

Right. Yeah.

Then I thought...

There always is when there's women involved.

Yeah, I need to find another one

but I haven't been lucky in New Zealand,

so I'm probably coming back.

Come back to Australia and see how you go.

Yeah. (LAUGHS)

He had a fractured femur and he was cracking jokes about meeting ladies.

Like... resilient man, without a doubt.

That would've hurt.

Some Aussie sheilas. Yeah. Aussie sheilas. That's it.

Yeah, yeah. (BOTH LAUGH)

Haykey is staying positive

but because his crippled legs have not been load-bearing

for so many years,

his femur may be too brittle for plates and screws.

He's one of those lucky paraplegics

that's still able to mobilise quite well,

so I would hate for him to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

(SIREN WAILS, EQUIPMENT BEEPS)

Gary, a 64-year-old man found by paramedics unconscious,

with a bloodied hand and a missing thumb,

is in a critical condition.

Dr Nathan Watkins is worried he may have life-threatening bleeding

on his brain.

The results of his scans are instantaneous.

That seems alright. Nothing there.

MAN: There's no intracranial haemorrhage.

Cool.

And thankfully the news is good.

They've imaged his head, CT'd his head.

There was no acute changes.

There were signs of old changes but nothing acute,

so he's not having an intracranial bleed,

so at this stage, the thinking is more probably a respiratory arrest.

He's got a past history of smoking,

so he's smoking, he gets an airway disease,

he gets restriction in his lungs, makes it hard to breathe

and it may have caused him to collapse.

That's the way they're heading at the moment.

Alright. Leave it with ya.

Thanks, mate. Thanks for your time.

See you at the next one, eh? Thanks, Doc.

It's great to know. Normally you're very busy.

You're normally not afforded these opportunities,

so it's nice to actually be part of the team and follow it through

and then pass that information back to the other ambulance officers

and paramedics on the road

and, yeah, it's good to know what's actually wrong with your patient.

You treat them and it's good to know.

Gary will spend the next few days in intensive care

but until he wakes up, no-one will know what happened to his thumb.

(BARKS)

Sergeant, what's up? Right, come over here, guys.

Come here.

And a week later, turns out Gary's housemate Tony was right.

TONY: I think Sergeant might have eaten it, yeah,

'cause it was never found.

And there wasn't much blood on the bed.

There was only a couple of drops on the bed.

Like, it was pretty well cleaned up and just as it happened, yeah.

Gary's beloved Staffie he's had for 15 years

was trying to wake him and bit off his thumb.

Usually, when he wakes me up,

he licks me on the hand or something like that

and I didn't respond.

He just kept licking and licking and then he started pulling my hand,

I guess.

And then he chomped me.

That was it.

And life goes on without a thumb.

Starting to feel better now. Starting to come good now.

It's been... oh, it's been a while

but it's starting to come good.

You don't know what you're missing till it's gone, you know.

But Gazza doesn't hold any grudges.

You're famous in here, white sock and all.

26-year-old Shannon has had some good news.

Shannon? Yep, we'll get him ready for theatre now.

He's been on a wait list for surgery on his smashed-up leg

and today is the day.

SHANNON: Yeah, I feel good. I feel good that it's getting done today.

Get home to the kids and the wife.

The dislocation and break happened

when Shannon came off his brand-new motorbike.

It was just unlucky and the bike's living proof -

the bike after the accident was ridden home with a broken indicator

and three or four little scratches on the muffler.

Once Shannon is asleep,

orthopaedic surgeon Dr Lochlin Brown gets to work,

removing the temporary frame.

DR BROWN: We're just taking off the frame now

that was placed on Shannon a few days ago

when he came in with a dislocated knee.

Cutting through the skin now.

OK, so we're down through the fat.

Now we're onto the muscles through here and the bone's just under it.

The novice rider was only doing 30 k's

when he hit a patch of oil on the road,

lost the bike from under him and slid knee-first into a pole.

OK, just show me that with the X-ray, thanks.

But Shannon's luck is changing.

Oh, I mean, that looks alright, doesn't it, hey?

So, unfortunately for Shannon, his injury was quite bad.

He's dislocated his knee there.

But the registrar's put an X-fix on him initially and reduced it all.

An uncomfortable week in an X-fix frame

has saved Shannon from knee joint surgery.

Just gonna bloody fix it.

Hey? How does that sound?

All his leg needs is a large plate on his tibia

and eight big screws holding it in place.

Just like you're down at Bunnings and working in the tool shed.

Shannon was quite lucky.

He had a pretty nasty fracture when he came in

and we got it back into place initially with the external fixation

and the fracture sat really nicely,

so the plate's gone on.

We haven't had to reduce too much of the fracture

and he should do quite well.

It's a lucky break for Shannon,

who isn't bringing home a wage while he's laid up.

We did think Shannon had income insurance

on his super

but it turns out he doesn't.

We are unable to get super out because we can't prove hardship,

so we're just hoping that Shannon can get back to work

as soon as he can.

Shannon could be back at work in six weeks

but won't know till tomorrow if his luck continues

and he'll get to go home.

♪ Yeah, I've had enough I just can't take anymore

♪ Everything that I believed in... ♪

A week ago, Shannon came off his motorbike

and crashed knee-first into a pole.

♪ Life's so unpredictable... ♪

It's the morning after surgery

and Shannon's shattered leg is on the mend.

SHANNON: First bone I've ever broken.

I did a great job, apparently.

It's just a restricted mobility brace.

Just stops me from moving more than 90 degrees for the first six weeks.

And... that's home.

Eight days after crashing his motorbike at just 30km/h,

he's ready to leave hospital.

I cannot wait to be home. It's just gonna be great.

Courtney is here to collect her hubby.

But there's something she needs to learn first.

This is what the needle looks like.

Shannon needs daily injections

to prevent blood clots from forming in his leg as it's healing.

Do you want to have a dry run onto a...

Yeah. I just want to know, like, the pressure I have to do it.

Like, how hard.

Pretend it's kind of like a dart and you're following through.

So, pinch the skin...

Courtney happens to be a trainee nurse.

And a good dart motion.

She just hasn't got to the bit where they learn injections yet.

Push down. Lovely.

But now she has.

Straight into the sharps bin.

The leg should heal up nicely

but the next six weeks of recovery will be tough for this young family.

CHILD: Huh? Where's that one gonna go?

Look. In the water.

The waterfall.

It's been emotionally hard seeing Shannon in so much pain.

It's hard that he, you know, can't do anything.

It's been really hard.

With bills to pay and no money coming in,

one slightly damaged motorbike and safety gear hits the market.

Shannon will not be riding again.

My theory is, if that can happen at 30 k's, what can happen at 100?

So we're not going down that road again.

Not that I'm afraid of the bike.

It was... just unlucky, I guess.

Haykey, the walking paraplegic,

broke his femur while visiting the Gold Coast

looking for a girlfriend...

Yeah, I need to find another one

but I haven't been lucky in New Zealand,

so I'm probably coming back.

Come back to Australia and see how you go.

..and the lonely heart adventurer is taking every opportunity

to find love with whoever comes by.

I've been living in my van for ten years now.

In the process, I wrote a guide book.

Oh. 'New Zealand Van Camping Guide'.

Well, I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

To make sure paraplegic Haykey can continue to live an independent life,

Nurse Katie has arranged to have his leg surgically straightened

first thing in the morning.

Alright. I'll head up with him very soon.

So, hopefully a comfortable night's sleep.

Yeah. I should be right.

You should be right. Yeah.

We'll try and get you some hot nurses.

Oh... (LAUGHS)

(BOTH LAUGH)

So, another satisfied customer for Katie.

So inappropriate. (LAUGHS)