Emergency

The brain is the most complex and mysterious organ in the body and the neurosurgeons of Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital like Jay Jayamohan deal with brains which go badly wrong. Each year the hospital's Neurosurgery Department looks after 1,500 acutely ill patients, whose lives often hang in the balance for weeks or months.

This episode, we meet the families of two patients whose lives are hanging in that balance. Tracey, a midwife and mother of two, lies comatose with massive head injuries suffered in a car crash. Her husband John escaped the crash relatively unscathed and now sits constantly by her bed, willing her to open her eyes. Across the ward lies Martin, struck down by a mysterious virus which has rendered him unconscious and unable to breathe for himself. Every day, his wife of ten years, Lisa, checks for signs Martin is coming back to life. For doctors and patients, the neurosurgery department is a physically and mentally gruelling place to be.