Episode 12 Operation Ouch!

He's Dr Chris and he's Dr Xand. Yup, we're twins.

Do you know just how brilliant your body really is?

Now's the time to find out.

We'll uncover the ins and outs of what you're made of.

I've got a big hole in my head.

We'll be doing awesome experiments...

You sound ridiculous! Pipe down, squeaky!

..as we push our own bodies to the limits...

-OK, here we go.

-It's hard to think it's so cold.

..to show you all the incredible things your body can do.

Hang around because this is gonna be fun.

Arghhhhh!

BOTH: Coming up on Operation Ouch!

-We take a look at breathing.

-Xand is blowing up a lung.

We show how this man is skinny in more ways than one and Chris gets

picky as we find out all about the stuff that comes out of your nose.

But now... Let's see our first patient in Accident & Emergency.

This is not for the faint hearted.

Rushed into hospital in Liverpool today is Joe

and he's got a worrying eye injury.

It certainly looks sore, but how did it happen?

Joe and his best mate were getting ready for tin can target practice.

-That looks a bit dangerous.

-Joe's mate had the pellet gun

and thought he had the safety catch switched on - but he didn't.

-That is not good.

-Nope and a plastic pellet hit Joe's eye.

Bad news.

Joe's learned the hard way that pellet guns are dangerous.

-What will you do when you get home?

-Throw them in the bin.

'Sounds like a good idea to me.'

-Not worth it, is it?

-No.

-'But what about his friend?'

-We've left his best friend,

who shot him in the eye at home. He's mortified.

It's just a BB gun, just a toy.

We allowed them in the garden, shooting cans off the fence.

You think it's OK, but it's not.

He's scared because he can't see through his eye at the minute.

'Eye specialist Dr Henri Sueke is here to find out what's going on.'

We need to do is to check your vision

and then I have to examine you under a microscope to see

the extent of the injury.

-First is a basic eyesight test.

-Can you see the chart there?

Cover your bad eye. Can you read from the top?

S, Z, N, R, N, C, V, K, C, R...

Joe switches eyes and Dr Henri tries a different test.

Look at my hand, how many fingers.

Two.

Yeah - and now?

I can't see them. I can't see...

Things don't look good so Dr Henri uses a microscope to get

a closer look at the damage to Joe's eye.

I'm glad to say it looks like you've been very lucky.

The ball bearing's actually - it's just sort of - hasn't gone

into the eye - it's just scratched the surface of the eye.

But saying that your vision will be very hazy

because there's blood inside the eye.

Your eye is about two thirds the size of a ping pong ball.

At the front is the cornea and the doctor can see where the

pellet has scratched the surface.

At the back of the eye sits the retina, which enables you to see.

Because of the blood it's very hard to see the back.

The blood in Joe's eye

means that Dr Henri can't see the inside of the eye clearly so

he can't tell at this stage whether Joe has permanent eye damage.

The doctors decide to send Joe home, but he has to

come back again so his eye can be monitored.

Before he goes, he gets patched up.

We can get a pirate one for you if you want. No?

Less of the pirate jokes. We'll be back later to see

how Joe's eye is doing.

This is where we're going to put our bodies to

the test to show you how your body works.

Ow, that really hurt.

Don't try anything you see here at home. Today, we look at breathing.

Take a deep breath.

You can try it at home. Breathing is essential to make our bodies work.

We do it without even thinking about it.

But why? How do our lungs work?

What is it that makes us breathe?

What are you doing?

I've got the innards from a pig. I know it looks like a meat counter

but one of the things I've got here is a pig's lung.

So have a look and see if you figure out which one it is.

-Have you worked it out?

-Why don't you show us, Xand?

I'm gonna inflate the lung.

-Is it that then?

-No!

-You blow up the pig and the pig blows back.

-It blew right back.

-Keep blowing, keep breathing in and out.

A pig's lung works exactly the same as ours.

When you breathe in and out, you take oxygen

out of the air and you breathe out carbon dioxide,

which is a waste gas - it's like a car's exhaust pipe.

The inside of your lung is like a sponge -

it's got millions of little air spaces in it called alveoli.

And it's inside these alveoli where oxygen is absorbed

and is sent to wherever it's needed all over your body.

These pockets inside the lung have a huge surface area -

the bigger the area the more oxygen that can be absorbed.

That's the important thing - these air spaces.

The surface area that they give. If you spread out

all the alveoli you'd have the same surface area as a tennis court.

When you breathe in, your lungs take

the oxygen from the air for your body and when you

breathe out you expel the carbon dioxide that your body doesn't need.

What happens in your body when you hold your breath? Let's find out.

This machine is a capnometer.

It'll measure carbon dioxide that Xand's breathing

out and it's also gonna shine a laser through his finger

and measure the amount of oxygen in his blood.

The carbon dioxide level's about 5

and his oxygen levels are about 95%, both of which are normal.

-Now I'm going to hold my breath.

-No, now you should hold your breath.

-I said I'll hold my breath.

-Just hold your breath.

So at first nothing much changes apart from the fact that the

machine thinks you're dead.

You're not dead but the machine thinks you're dead

because it's not detecting you breathing out.

You've got enough oxygen in your body for

about 5-10 minutes of life, but Xand won't make it that long

because the rising levels of carbon dioxide in his blood are gonna

make him absolutely desperate to breathe.

'It's the carbon dioxide build-up in your blood

'that tells your body to breathe

'before your oxygen runs out.'

On my count I want you to breathe out slowly

through the machine. Go.

XAND BREATHES OUT

In Xand's last breath he had high carbon dioxide levels,

but his oxygen levels never really went that low.

'Although the machine shows Xand's oxygen level is almost normal,

'his carbon dioxide level has risen significantly.'

So what we see from this is that long before I was gonna run

out of oxygen the rising carbon dioxide levels in my blood

were forcing me to breathe.

'So you can breathe easy knowing that your body is working hard to

'look after itself by getting rid of all that carbon dioxide

'and sending all the good stuff - oxygen - around your body.'

It's not only teams in hospitals that deal with the unexpected.

If you have an accident there'll be a medical crew ready to help.

Throughout this series we've been on call with emergency medical teams

and seen them use some of the life-saving equipment

they carry with them at all times. And out of all their kit,

we've picked three of the coolest that help save lives everyday.

The nebuliser. It can help patients with breathing difficulties,

just light Kiri here.

So now we're gonna give a nebuliser, which is a mist of drug that can

penetrate into the lungs, open up the breathing passages

and hopefully she'll feel better and easier breathing.

'Remember James? He was having problems breathing

'and the nebuliser came to his rescue.'

Is that helping at all with the breathing? It is. Good.

Second on the kit list is gas and air.

This is a mixture of half oxygen half nitrous oxide.

It numbs pain and makes patients more comfortable

so that they can be treated properly.

We were called out to see Saffron who had a broken collarbone.

I've got some gas and air. Put it in your mouth and breathe in.

Take big lungfuls of gas - just keep breathing.

-Every time you feel pain take a deep breath.

-You're doing brilliantly.

Saffron looks much better with the gas and air and with the sling.

Her arm's immobilised colour's come back

to her cheeks - she's looking much, much better.

Kathleen had a fall and we suspected she had a broken hip so we gave her

gas and air before moving her into the ambulance.

You're doing a really nice job there.

And our third piece of emergency kit is the ECG monitor.

ECG stands for Electrocardiograph

and it's a real star in the emergency medical team's kit.

One of the most noticeable things about emergencies

is you need a lot of equipment.

I'm carrying the monitor. It checks blood pressure, heart rate,

oxygen levels and if the heart needs a shock it can give a shock as well.

Remember Ivanna? She had an asthma attack and the

ECG attached to her body was used to monitor her recovery

Jan is using her monitor

to get lots of measurements off the patient.

She's checking her blood pressure, if she's got a temperature,

her pulse and she's checking the oxygen level in her blood.

'Back to Kiri, who was having breathing problems.

'The ECG was running to check that she was responding to the treatment.'

-There's nothing abnormal.

-That is a very normal recording of your heart.

So there you have it. Three star pieces from the kit that

emergency medical teams carry with them everywhere they go

and that they use for life-saving treatments.

Still to come - find out what happens

when you burn your skin. There's a mind-bending trick to

try on your mates and things get sticky when I investigate snot.

Yuk.

One of the reasons is because your hands have better blood circulation.

That's amazing and so is this.

An ordinary day in an ordinary garden. This man's making the most

of the good weather - stripy deckchair - knotted handkerchief

-and bright blue shoes.

-Cool shoes, but what's so amazing?

Just you watch this.

-That is stretchy.

-Stretchy is right. This is Gary

-and he has the world's stretchiest skin.

-That's a handy trick if you

forget your sunglasses - or that one if you don't want to be recognised.

Doesn't hurt at all - I can just pull it away as many

times as I like and it just naturally stretches.

But don't go trying this yourself - Gary has actually got a rare

skin condition that makes his skin this stretchy.

I've got stretchy skin because I've got

a lack of collagen - it's also twice as thin as normal skin.

Collagen is a type of protein in the skin - it keeps skin flexible

but strong. The collagen in Gary's skin doesn't work in

the same way as yours so he can do stuff like this.

When I stretch and see people's reactions it's quite funny.

It's enabled me to travel the world doing shows

and I've really had a great time doing it.

That's amazing.

Xand - it's not amazing.

Let's head down to Accident & Emergency to see

how our patient is doing.

Back in Alder Hey, 11-year-old Joe came into hospital unable to

see properly out of one eye.

I can't see it.

Joe was accidentally shot in the eye with a pellet gun

while playing with his mate.

-What are you going to do?

-Throw them in the bin.

The bin's the best place for your pellet gun.

Doctors examined his eye, but the blood in it

stopped them from getting a proper look.

Since the accident, Joe's been back to the hospital

several times for a scan and for some checkups.

The good news is that his eye has healed all by itself.

Mr William Newman, an eye specialist,

wants to check up for possible longer term damage.

Look ahead to start with.

The blood in Joe's eye has

cleared so it's now possible to see exactly what's going on.

It's time to check the pressure inside the eye

using this device for signs of any long-term damage.

What we're worried about now is to measure

your eyes and make sure your eyesight stays good

and that you don't develop glaucoma, which is pressure

in the eye and that can happen because of damage that

you can't see when I look where the blood vessels broke.

That's what the doctor's worried about. What's Joe got on his mind?

-Can I play football again?

-Yes, you can go back to playing football.

Stick to the football and no more pellet guns.

-OK? Cheerio.

-See ya.

-Have fun going back to your football.

We know loads of fantastic body tricks to amaze

and confuse your friends like this one.

-This is a good trick.

-You're gonna like this.

I'm standing so my fingertips are just touching the wall.

When I say so Chris is gonna move his arms round in a circle

and try and touch the wall again but I'll push the wall away from him.

-Go. Aaarrrggghhh!

-Your mates will think that their arms have shrunk.

-Actually, I pushed the wall.

-No, you didn't.

Yes, I did - frankly I'm amazed this building is still standing.

'Of course Xand didn't really move the wall.

'When I rotated my arms, the muscles in my shoulders

'tightened up meaning I couldn't stretch my arms as far -

'simple, give it a try and see if you can fool your friends.'

We're hitting part of the hospital that you haven't seen before.

Today we're in the burns aftercare clinic.

On Operation Ouch! we've seen our fair share of burns, scrapes,

cuts and all sorts of gory bits but what happens afterwards -

all those injuries start to heal and often they form scars on your skin.

Look at this - last week I burnt my arm on the cooker.

Now your body's good at repairing itself

and this has started to heal, but if it had been a more serious

burn that could leave a scar and that would require careful treatment.

When you injure yourself the body heals the wound with

scar tissue - this looks and feels quite different to normal skin -

it's not as flexible and the bigger

and deeper the injury the bigger the scar.

I'm with scar and burns specialist Kevin Ryan to

check up on some of the patients he's treating.

First in is Holly who took a bit of a tumble five months ago.

If you're squeamish get ready to look away.

Holly, why are you here?

There was a tree stump on a hill and I fell over it.

So can I see what happened?

One month later and the skin's started to heal,

but there's a lot of this pus infection there and then this

is now five months later and you can see it's all healed.

A bit of scar, but that's gonna keep getting better and better.

'Holly is being fitted with a stocking that will help

'the scar continue to improve.'

As Holly's wounds have a long time to heal the scar is more

severe if you like and so by making a little stocking that

presses on that it'll get nicer result is that right?

That's what we're hoping for.

'Jensen is having a check up on a burn he got four weeks ago.'

Tell us how this happened.

A pie dropped on my leg.

You dropped a pie on your leg?

What type of pie was it?

-Cheese and onion.

-Cheese and onion pie?

What would have concerned us would be if had he had raised scarring

that would have contracted, but that's

soft and supple so that shouldn't cause him any problems at all.

The pinkness will be there for several weeks, but it will fade.

If I press on it I can make the pinkness go away

and that's the blood flowing back.

Those blood vessels, that's part of the healing process.

That's right it is, but very fragile.

But they do take time, just takes several

months for that to resolve.

Ben also had an accident five months ago. This isn't for

the fainthearted and unfortunately his burn injury got infected.

To help it heal, the doctors took a patch of skin from his thigh

to cover the injured part of his foot - this is called a skin graft.

Why are you in the burns clinic today?

I was making Mum and Dad a coffee - I had a music player

with me that I'd put on the side while waiting

for the kettle to boil and, because I had no pockets, I just thought

of a quick way to carry it upstairs, I put it under my chin.

-How were you holding it all?

-I was holding it like that.

What happened? I tried to lift my head up to see where I were going

-You dropped the player and spilled hot coffee over your foot?

-Yeah.

'For Ben the question now is whether he can go swimming again.'

-Shall we have a look at it and we'll give you an answer?

-Yeah.

Fantastic. Can't feel

any signs of thickening there - it's just what we want.

It's now fully healed.

I thought that this was gonna look much more serious. That is

such a good result.

-In terms of swimming - no problem.

-Brilliant.

That's brilliant news - brilliant news.

'Although the scars may not ever go away fully, thanks to these

'treatments it means that life can get back to normal for these three.

'Swimming for Ben, gymnastics for Holly

'and cold pies only for Jensen.'

Aatchoo! Does this look all right to you?

No. This is a case for Investigation Ouch!

Snot - what is it and where does it come from?

And, since it's so delicious,

why has nobody started a snot restaurant?

I've come to Cardiff University's School of Biosciences to find out.

Aatchoo!

'This is Dr Kelly Berube and she's a snot expert.'

What is snot?

Snot is a natural polymer that you create as these are cells

and all the mucus membranes that line all the

areas of your body that are not exposed.

This isn't real snot, but it's a mixture that Dr Kelly

has made to show exactly why it needs to be so sticky.

Anywhere where bacteria can get in, you need to have

this material to keep them off.

It's like fly paper so you inhale, it sticks on.

The defender cells will say, "That shouldn't be in here,"

goes in and kills them or you sneeze it, spit it or swallow it.

Mucus protects the areas of your body connected to the outside world.

You make mucus in your nose, your mouth,

your gut, to your bum, also in your lungs and also covering your eyes.

Mucus lubricates things so we have a poo - that's lubricated

and it lubricates your tongue -

if you have a dry mouth you can't speak -

and your eye balls so they can move around.

Snot is actually nasal mucus

and when it dries it creates bogeys, but why do they taste salty?

Snot contains lots of chemicals

and one of them is salt.

Hmmmm, that's handy to know for my snot restaurant menu.

Your spit also contains

snot and it's full of bacteria killing chemicals too.

If all day, when you're well, you spat all your snot,

blew your nose into a jar, you'd end up with this completely full.

We think it's disgusting,

but we're swallowing this stuff the whole time.

Is it OK to pick my nose and eat it?

Science says if you pick your nose

and you eat it, you're spiking your immune system.

There you go straight from the expert it is OK to eat your bogeys.

-I'm gonna start.

-Socially it might not be acceptable, but if you're a

closet bogey eater, which I'm sure you are, then it's probably OK.

I'm getting over a cold.

My snot is definitely not a healthy colour like this.

-This is what I've had the last few days.

-At the beginning of a cold...

What's happening now is that you bring in a lot of water

that more mucus is being made and more water is being retained.

'These liquids show how your snot can be different colours.'

So what can we tell about someone from looking at their mucus?

You can tell whether they're sick, what they like to eat

and even where they live.

-You can tell all that?

-It's amazing.

What can you tell me about my body?

-We're gonna have to pick some out - are you game for that?

-Yeah.

So I'm taking a good sample of my snot on this sterile swab

and now mucus from my lungs.

-It's even making me sick.

-'Sorry. It is in the name of medical research.'

It's a bit yellow. It's not bad, but there are flecks of grey.

So it's time to get the results

from all of my sticky mucus and snot.

What can you tell from looking at this?

If you look on the screen and the mucus is thick,

but it's done what it's supposed to do, it's trapped sub-particles.

You live in the big city so it's done a great job.

-It looks like some pollen in there.

-That's pollen.

If you're riding a bike to work or walking,

-you're gonna take it in quicker.

-It doesn't mean you shouldn't cycle.

No because the mucus has trapped it it's got trapped in the muscin.

The mucus in my body is doing what it's supposed

to do - it's trapped all the things that can cause me disease.

I've been able to cough it up and get rid of it.

So snot is amazing and vital for keeping you alive.

There's nothing wrong with eating it.

The only problem is harvesting enough to start my restaurant.

Xand stop eating it.

Oops, sorry!

The average person produces around 500 litres of snot in a year -

that's over a litre a day.

In Accident and Emergency departments,

doctors and nurses need to act fast.

Especially when things like this happen.

In Manchester, Rosie has been brought in by ambulance

with a potentially serious head injury.

Head injuries can be

so serious that the hospital has a trauma team of 12 doctors and nurses

on standby in case Rosie needs to have surgery or further tests.

Speed is vital so everyone is ready for action.

Rosie didn't recognise me.

She looked quite unwell.

It was worrying that I wasn't able to console her.

She didn't know who I was.

Luckily she recognises her dad now, but what actually happened?

Rosie and her friends were in the playground.

She and her friend were running in different directions

to escape being tagged, but they were concentrating

so hard on escaping that when they changed directions

they headed straight towards each other and whack!

They both banged their heads - hard!

Time for a trip to hospital.

Ouch. Meet Professor Simon Carley - he's heading up the trauma team.

-Did you get a glucose.

-Yes, it was 8.4.

-Thank you very much.

It sounds that her behaviour has not been normal and she's been vomiting.

What the team's worried about is

whether or not she's got any bleeding inside her skull

that might be pressing on the brain.

Professor Simon will need to examine Rosie's head, but in the meantime

he prescribes some sophisticated emergency medicine - cuddles.

Cuddles are slightly more effective than any medicines.

And luckily there's a professor of cuddleology on hand - Dad!

Time now for Rosie's special test on her head.

It's called a CT scan - it's a bit like an X-ray

and the images will show the details of Rosie's

brain and skull to help him check for damage.

Here we go. That's nice and comfy.

Nice pinny, Dad.

I want to take this home it's so nice.

Actually the pinny means Dad can stay in the room with Rosie

because it protects his body from the X-rays.

A few snaps later and the results are in.

This is Rosie's brain - so how's it looking?

That looks like a normal skull - a normal brain.

There's no evidence, that we can see,

of any bleeding at all and that's great.

It's a huge relief for Rosie's mum and dad and it means

the reason she's been feeling unwell is she's got concussion.

Inside your head your brain is surrounded by fluid to protect it.

But sometimes when you bang your head hard, your brain

moves about and knocks into the sides of your skull. This can

make you feel confused, unwell and be sick.

In Rosie's case these symptoms disappear

and after a few hours rest there's been a transformation.

I feel great.

Believe it or not this is the same girl - back to normal

-and ready to leave the hospital.

-I'm going home!

This has been quite an experience for Rosie and her family,

but thanks to the skilled trauma team she's got her groove back.

Bye, Rosie.

Next time - find out what's happened to this funny looking arm,

see what amazing body skill this man is hiding,

and we find out how our skin protects us.

We'll see you next time on Operation Ouch!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd