Episode 3 Operation Ouch!

He's Dr Chris.

And he's Dr Xand.

Yep, we're twins.

Do you know just how brilliant your body really is?

Well, now is the time to find out.

We'll be uncovering 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.

-HIGH VOICE: You sound ridiculous! DEEP VOICE:

-I don't, squeaky.

HE LAUGHS

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

OK, here we go!

HE GROANS

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

Oh, no!

Hang around because this is going to be fun.

HE SCREAMS

-BOTH:

-Coming up today on Operation Ouch...

Rachel and Tadhg are rushed to Accident and Emergency.

Chris lets a bloodsucking leech feast off his arm.

We find out who has the biggest tonsils.

And I join paramedics on the front line of emergency medicine.

We have got to figure out why he fell, does he have an infection?

Is his blood sugar low?

We're giving you exclusive access

to an accident and emergency department.

Let's meet our first patient.

At Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, 14 year old Rachel is in

Accident and Emergency and she simply can't shut her mouth.

-That's a bit rude!

-No, really, she can't shut her mouth.

-What's happened to Rachel?

-I think I've dislocated my jaw.

-'Oh, I see.

'She's dislocated her jaw.

'I'm sure there's a perfectly ordinary explanation.'

-I was biting the sofa...

-Biting a what?!

-'For one minute I thought she said she was biting the sofa!

-She did.'

-I was biting the sofa.

-'See?'

She was just messing around.

'Just a minute, how on earth did this happen?'

Well, Rachel was at home lying on her sofa. Bored.

There was nothing on the telly, nothing interesting to read

and nothing much to do. Or was there?

Hang on, she's turned into a shark?

That's because she circled the sofa like a shark circling its prey.

-On the hunt for something to amuse herself.

-Oh, right.

Suddenly she had an idea.

Would her mouth fit around the edge of the sofa?

There was only one way to find out -

she opened her mouth wide and bit the sofa.

-But her jaw was completely stuck.

-Ouch.

I sound a lot different. It's harder to speak.

-'Harder to what?

-Speak.

-Right.'

I can't say my S-es. I can't say S-es properly.

'Well, you do something silly once and then you learn from it.'

I can't believe she has done it again.

-'You mean she's done it before?'

-It's only happened twice!

'Seriously, Rachel, you've got to stop eating the furniture.'

Enter, Dr Shrouk Messahel,

she'll be tackling Rachel's big mouth.

-'Steady.'

-Where's it hurting?

-Just point, you don't need to talk.

-The sides.

-Both sides?

And there.

We'll give you some medicine, a really strong painkiller.

And then I'm going to put some gloves on

-and see if I can get it back into place.

-OK.

-OK?

'So what's going on inside Rachel's jaw?'

Well, inside your head are 20 bones that make up your skull.

Two of them are in your jaw.

There's the mandible which is one of the strongest bones in your body,

and the maxilla.

They're linked together by a hinge

which allows you to open and close your mouth.

And Rachel's hinge has become...unhinged.

Before Dr Shrouk can get to work,

she needs Rachel's muscles to be relaxed.

So Sister Tammy gives her a strong painkiller up her nose.

Well, she can't exactly swallow it, can she?

What I am going to try and do is hold on to her jaw,

and push it back in there so it goes back into place.

We'd best leave that painkiller to get to work, then.

We'll be back later to see how Dr Shrouk

gets to grips with Rachel's jaw.

This is our lab where we are going to push our own bodies

to the limit to show YOU how your body works.

Ow, that really hurt.

Just don't try anything you see here at home.

Today it's the brain.

Your body is an amazing machine.

But it can't do anything without your brain.

Your brain is what makes you YOU.

But it also tells the different parts of your body what to do.

So if I want to move my fingers,

I have to send an electrical signal from here to here.

And that moves really fast.

It goes at over 250 miles an hour,

that's faster than a Formula One racing car.

So we want to know more about

where in the brain these signals come from.

And in order to do that,

we're going to use this multipulse transcranial magnetic stimulator!

It's a big magnet.

But it's a cool big magnet.

It sends electromagnetic pulses to the brain which interfere

with the brain's own electrical signals.

And that means we can use it to work out

which bit of the brain does what.

Let's give this brain scrambler a whirl.

Chris, what I want you to do first of all is reach up

with your left hand and pick your nose.

Perfect. You did it perfectly, that was lovely.

Now, I'm going to get you to do the same thing again,

but this time I'm going to try and interfere with the brain scrambler.

So, Chris, when you're ready, pick your nose.

'Every time Chris's finger wiggles,

'that's the magnet or brain scrambler interfering with his brain's signals.

'Which means he cannot pick his nose properly.' You missed.

But magnetic brain scrambler is also showing us

which part of Chris's brain controls has left hand.

I'm on the right side of Chris's body,

but it's his left hand that is twitching.

That's because your brain is wired back to front

so the right side of his brain controls the left side of his body,

and vice versa. So let's now try it on the other side.

And you're ready, go.

So now I am interfering with the left side of Chris's brain,

and, look, his right hand is all over the place.

-I feel like a cup of tea.

-That sounds lovely.

Actually, it's me that is drinking the tea and it's cold tea.

But you'll see why.

I reckon we can have a bit of fun with this brain scrambler.

-Oops, there it goes!

-HE COUGHS

The brain scrambler is interfering with our brain's normal signals

and it's creating a right mess.

Emergency rescue teams need to get to the scene of an accident quickly.

And there are lots of different ways they can get there to help you.

We're going on call with the UK's emergency services.

Heading into the thick of the action to help save lives.

Now it is Xand's turn on the front line.

I'm giving you exclusive access to a top medical team.

Every year they respond to almost 1,000,000 medical emergencies.

I'm heading out in this

state-of-the-art rapid response vehicle

to show you more about the life-saving work these paramedics do.

I'm going on call.

This is the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

They've got more than 800 vehicles on the road

ready to come to your rescue.

On call with me today is paramedic Jan Vann.

We're in the car ready to go and a new call has just come in.

All we've got at the moment is an address, nothing else.

This service takes thousands of 999 calls and they send information

about the patient and update us via the radio as we're on our way.

We're getting information now

that somebody has fallen and hurt their arm.

When we get there, I'll be filming on my camera, too,

so you can get right to the heart of the action.

3½ minutes from the call, and we're there.

As we get into the house, I can see Frank with his daughter.

He's sitting on the living room floor unable to move.

Frank, do you know why you fell this morning?

What were you trying to do?

-Transfer from that into the wheelchair.

-OK.

And I tried to get up to that chair there.

How long have you been sitting on the ground for?

Since seven o'clock this morning.

That is 6½ hours!

Frank is a patient Jan has met before.

He has quite a few existing health problems.

We've got to figure out why he fell. Does he have an infection?

Is his blood sugar low? Did he have a stroke?

Jan begins a thorough investigation to figure out why Frank might

have fallen doing a manoeuvre he does every day from his armchair

-to his wheelchair.

-You sound a bit chesty when you're breathing.

Have you been feeling unwell recently?

I can't shake off a cold I've had for a few weeks.

OK. I think he has got probably a touch of cellulitis coming on.

I think your leg's getting infected again.

So what started off as a very simple fall out of a chair

becomes more and more complicated since we have spoken to Frank,

as he's got diabetes, he has got a high temperature,

his chest sounds a bit bad.

-He's got some infected skin on his leg.

-We'll get you comfy.

With so many health concerns, we need to get Frank to hospital.

And to do that, the ambulance team

have arrived with a nifty gadget to move Frank quickly and safely.

What we've got here is a really cool bit of kit,

a kind of inflatable cushion that'll lift Frank up.

With the aid of this inflating cushion,

Frank is off the ground in just a couple of minutes.

So that's Frank on his way to hospital.

Paramedics like Jan are skilled not just at looking at the immediate

problem, but also investigating thoroughly to see what might have

caused the situation to happen

so that patients can get the right care.

He's normally at home, self caring, looks after himself,

transfers every day from his chair to his wheelchair.

But today, because of his temperature,

he hasn't got the energy to do that, that's why he has fallen.

Because we were there within 3½ minutes of the 999 call,

now Frank can get the treatment he needs in hospital.

With rapid response teams like this on stand-by all over the UK,

it means that expert care can be with YOU within minutes of an emergency.

Still to come...

We say ta-ra to some troublesome tonsils.

We'll show you how to mystify your friends with our mind-bending trick.

And we give these hungry leeches a tasty snack...

HE SCREAMS ..by letting them feed on my arm.

But now...

You use 200 of them to take just one step.

-And virtually all of them to throw a ball.

-Wow, that's amazing.

And so is this.

This is South London, a deserted urban landscape

and a stage to showcase something spectacular.

Fancy a stroll up into the air?

There are no wires and this isn't trick photography.

It's all skill and some ridiculously impressive muscles.

Meet Tim "Livewire" Shieff.

He's the world champion free runner and he has an amazing body.

Tim first started free running when he was 16 years old.

Tim is a professional, so don't even think about trying

this at home or outside the home, or anywhere.

Before I start a new run, I'll check every piece of equipment.

That's very important, safety first.

We check every wall, it's grippy, there's no loose bricks.

Look, he is like Spiderman!

It's important to us that we don't damage the environment we go into.

And did you know that Tim is one of the few free runners

in the world able to control a one-handed handstand?

So how does Tim's body defy gravity?

To raise his entire body weight into the air,

it's the massively mighty deltoids in Tim's shoulders.

Inside Tim's leg, he has developed stupendously strong quadriceps,

the four muscles on the front of your thigh.

And his speciality, the human flag.

And move which requires crazily powerful abdominal

and lateral muscles to raise his legs high in the air.

Now that's amazing!

-Xand, that's amazing!

-Really?

-No.

Let's head back to accident and emergency

to see what's happening with our patient.

14-year-old Rachel is in hospital

after coming in with a dislocated jaw.

She was bored at home. You know how it is, nothing to do,

so she opened her mouth wide and bit the sofa.

The things you do when you're bored.

But we have Dr Shrouk Messahel on the case.

'Having given Rachel some medication to relax her jaw muscles,

'it's time for her to get to work on that jammed jaw.'

OK, just try not to bite onto me, sweetheart.

I just gripped hold of her jawbone, put my thumbs right at the back

and just pushed down and back really quite hard.

I was actually kneeling on the bed to get my weight behind it.

'This might look extreme,

'but the lower jaw is one of the strongest bones in the body.'

-Good girl, you're doing great.

-You OK?

'And I think we have success!'

-Is it back?

-Yeah.

-Oh, you're a star.

'That was quick!'

As soon as I let go, she was able to move her jaw,

she was able to actually clench the whole of her bottom teeth together.

My thumbs also hurt.

That's not right!

'Rachel's finally able to shut it, but just to be on the safe side,

'let's get her X-rayed quick and check everything's in place.'

So these will get sent down on the computer for the doctor to view.

'Now you can open AND close your mouth, Rachel,

'what have you got to say for yourself?'

I knew what I'd done straightaway.

'Well, you did have half a sofa in your mouth.'

She needs to stop biting things.

'Good idea.

'Anyway, the X-rays are back and they're looking good. Say cheese!

'But Dr Shrouk will also want to examine Rachel's jaw again.'

-Is the X-ray showing that it looks like it's back?

-The X-ray looks OK.

Is that how she normally looks?

-'Mum'll know if she looks right.'

-I think it is, yes.

'You think? She's only lived with you for 14 years!

'At least Rachel will know her own face.'

-Is that what you normally look like?

-I don't know.

'Don't know?! Are there no mirrors in your home?!

'Maybe she's eaten them all. Well, with all this uncertainty,

'Dr Shrouk opts for one last bit of treatment.

'You're going to love this, Rachel.'

-We're going to have to put a bandage round your head.

-OK!

-'Told you.'

-I'm going to look really stupid.

'Yep, but at least it'll keep that jaw in place.'

Obviously, I want to go out tomorrow as well,

which isn't going to look good.

'I'd like to say it will look fine, but, well...

'it doesn't.'

'Still, your mum will make sure no-one gets to see you

'looking like a half-dressed Egyptian mummy.

'Hang on, what's she doing?'

Stop getting your phone out and taking pictures.

'That snap will be shown to the neighbours, I bet.

'Anyway, it's back home for poor Rachel.'

Back to normal, I've just got to go back home

and face my dad and my sister now.

They're going to be laughing their heads off at me.

'Don't worry, no-one's going to laugh, honest!'

I'm glad we got it all sorted out for her,

even though she did have to leave with a bandage round her head.

We've got some incredible body tricks.

Want to find out how to stop your friends from being able

to control the movement of their foot?

So I want you to take your right foot,

stick it out in front of you and I want you to make circles like that.

Clockwise, so if you're looking at a clock face,

I want you to make a circle, the same direction the hands move.

Very good, so everyone can do that. It's easy, isn't it?

Without touching, I'm going to stop you being able to do that.

What I want you to do is get your right finger up in the air, OK?

I want you to trace the number six big in the air like that,

and keep doing it. See if you can keep your foot spinning clockwise

while you make a big number six.

-I can't do it!

-I can't do it.

-I can!

OK, so who understands why you can't do the trick?

Because your finger is going the opposite direction to your foot,

so it kind of confuses your brain.

Excellent work, Tess.

When we draw the number six, it's an anticlockwise movement.

When we try to move our foot clockwise our brain gets confused

and tries to make them move in the same direction.

Your brain finds it very hard to coordinate two circles,

one going that way and one going the other way.

But some of you found that if you drew the letter six clockwise,

it's very easy cos everything moves in the same direction.

I fooled with all of your brains.

'And that's why this lot will never be able to do it,

'and we bet you can't either.'

Now it's time for us to hit the hospitals to show you what goes on.

Today, we're in the operating theatre.

A-a-a-a-a-a-ah!

Can you see my tonsils? A-a-a-ah!

Of course you can't, they were taken out when I was six.

But what are these so-called "tonsils?" What do they do?

Why were mine removed? I'm on duty with a tonsil team to find out.

Your tonsils sit at the back of your throat,

but what are they doing there?

Meet Dr Anand Kasbekar.

He specialises in the ears, nose and throat.

-We don't 100% know exactly what the tonsils do...

-'What?!'

But we have a fairly good idea. They fight bugs, essentially.

They're your body's line of defence.

Why do they get infected themselves?

Sometimes, it's just too much for them to fight,

and the tonsils themselves enlarge,

they get inflamed, which causes pain.

And it's when your tonsils become so inflamed and painful

that you might need to have them taken out.

But don't worry, your body can cope perfectly well without them.

There are plenty of other glands

and other bits of your body like your tonsils that fight infection,

so if you've lost your tonsils, don't worry.

Well, that's a relief. Now I'm going to see some tonsils removed,

so let's see who's on the ward to have theirs out today.

This is Bailey. How big do you think your tonsils are going to be?

-I think they're going to be about that big.

-Whoa!

-You think they're going to be pretty big. Show me them.

-A-a-a-ah!

'Ignore the dangly bit in the middle. These are the tonsils.'

Bailey's tonsils are absolutely massive, they're lumpy, they're big.

They really look like they need to come out. What do you think?

'Also on the surgical ward today is Amber.'

-Can you give me an "A-a-a-ah!"

-A-a-a-ah!

Oh, look, there they are. Have you done this in the mirror?

So, Bailey and Amber are about to have their tonsils out.

'But I wonder whose are going to be bigger.'

Let's go and find out.

'This is the operating theatre.'

This is very exciting for me.

We've been allowed to come in and watch this surgery, which is amazing.

But it's particularly amazing cos it's an operation that I had,

and I've never seen it.

'First up to get her tonsils out is Amber.

'She's fast asleep and the team are ready for action.'

What Anand's doing is he's taken the tonsil and lifted it out

of the pocket of muscle that it sits in, so it's almost on a stalk.

And then he's using the electrified tweezers to gently pull

the tonsil away from its surrounding tissue, and it's almost like

when you peel a piece of chicken skin off a chicken breast.

You can find the right direction to go through and lift it out.

So that is the right tonsil coming out now.

So this is the second tonsil coming out. There it is.

'So, Amber's tonsils are about as big as grapes,

'but will Bailey's be any bigger?

'On to Tonsil Take-out Number Two.

'And this time, we've got Surgeon Sue Day in the hot seat,

'and she prefers to use a different technique.'

So, Sue's grabbed Bailey's tonsil and then she's using

this very clever probe to basically burn away the tissue

so she can remove it.

'And there we go, number one, and hot on its heels is number two.

'And as predicted, they look rather large.'

How do those tonsils from Bailey compare to the ones

we saw from Amber?

I think Amber's tonsils looked fairly infected and...

-Almost crumbly.

-Yeah, crumbly and a bit shrivelled,

and that can happen with lots of attacks of tonsillitis.

But Bailey's are certainly bigger.

So look in there. No more massive tonsils, which means,

like Amber, Bailey will be infection and pain-free from now on.

So that's it, two tonsils out.

It's a really straightforward operation.

It's all done in less than half an hour. Absolutely amazing.

The answer is...

That's nearly 40,000 litres of spit!

HE HOCKS AND SPITS

We'll never hold back in showing you gross stuff.

So prepare your eyes for blood-sucking gross stuff.

BOTH: This is Investigation Ouch!

This is a leech and it's a type of worm.

Whereas we only have one brain, a leech has 32,

and while we have 32 teeth, a leech has 125.

Their main diet is blood, and in fact, right now,

I'm providing lunch for this one.

Whilst it's on my arm,

it's going to eat five times its own body weight in my blood.

That's the equivalent of me eating a small cow,

hooves and horns and everything.

It's not just greedy, it's disgusting.

But these wrigglers can actually save human lives,

all by sucking our blood.

To get drinking, this leech has bitten me,

and now its saliva is working its way into my veins,

releasing a chemical which will thin my blood,

preventing it from clotting.

And it's this ability to get our blood flowing

that surgeons use in modern medicine.

So let's say, you chop off the end of your finger.

A surgeon can attach the finger, but if blood clots are formed

inside the bit of dead finger, new blood can't get in

and it will fall off.

What doctors can now do is attach a leech to the tip of the finger

and the same chemicals that allow my blood

to flow into the leech on my arm dissolve the clots

and allow fresh blood to enter the re-attached finger.

There's no fancy machine or drug

that can do this job as successfully as a leech,

and with such an important medical role,

leeches are bred on a massive scale.

So while this one has a good feed on me, let's go and meet some more.

This is Carl Peters-Bond.

He's a leech-breeding king

and is currently housing 30,000 of these wrigglers.

-How do they breed?

-Well, the leeches are male and female.

They can fertilise themselves.

Boys on one section, girls on the other, and they breed together.

So when two leeches mate, they both get pregnant,

which is pretty extraordinary.

And wait till you meet their babies.

This is a leech nest.

When the leeches lay their eggs, it looks just like white foam

and then it settles down to a sort of sponge.

So this is made by the leeches, and I can just see the clear space

at the top and then the leeches have settled to the bottom.

Just going to cut the lid off. It is full of wriggling leeches.

-This is like the world's worst Easter egg, isn't it?

-Yeah.

That's so fascinating

that I'm completely distracted from how disgusting it is,

and I'm completely distracted from the fact

that I've still got this enormous leech feeding off my arm.

What's going to happen when he's full?

Well, it's just going to drop off and then the hole it makes

-will just keep oozing blood for ten hours.

-'Ten hours?!'

Great(!) No-one told me that. That would have been nice to know.

After an hour and a half on my arm, it's finally full

and you can see how it's got the blood in my arm flowing.

If you've cut your finger off,

if the surgeon's re-attached the finger,

it's the chemicals that are now making me bleed

that allow new blood vessels and new blood

to flow into the re-attached finger.

They may be greedy, they may be, frankly, disgusting,

but it is that that means they are the most amazing healers.

And you can see how much it's grown.

It really is five times bigger.

I got quite attached to that...literally.

Our next patient was just having a normal day.

But now, they're in Accident and Emergency. Let's meet them.

'This is five-year-old Tadhg,

'who's modelling a very fetching bandage around his head.'

I banged my head on the railings.

And it really hurt.

'I bet it did. So how did he end up

'banging his bonce on the railings in the first place?'

It was lunch time at school, and Tadhg was running - fast.

-Faster than Olympic Gold-medallist Usain Bolt.

-No way!

Well...OK, not that fast, but go with it.

He ran so fast, he passed three countries in three seconds.

He ran across the world and into orbit.

-No way!

-No, I'm exaggerating. Nothing could stop him,

-but then he slipped and went flying into some spiky railings.

-Ouch!

I think there's blood all over here.

'Ooh, sounds nasty.'

Enter Dr Vanessa Merrick. She'll sort Tadhg out.

All right, what we're going to do is give it a clean.

It looks a bit deep,

so it may be that we need to put a couple of stitches in.

He's got quite a big cut to the right side of his head.

'Warning, this looks a bit gross.'

Goes all the way through from the surface of the skin

right through the fat that's underneath and through to the bone,

so that's why we need to get stitches in to hold it together.

'In that case, let's get that head numb.

'We don't want Tadhg feeling those stitches.

'First, Nurse Laura numbs the surface skin with gel.

'Then Dr Vanessa injects a stronger anaesthetic deeper into the tissue.

'This means Tadhg shouldn't feel a thing.'

-Just going to have a test. Can you feel that?

-What?

-'I'll take that as a no.'

-Well, that's good then.

'Now his head's numb, let's get stitching.

'Stitches are only used when a wound is really deep.

'They join the sides of the cut together to help it heal.'

In this emergency department,

they use 100 metres of stitching thread in a year.

That would go round Tadhg's head 200 times.

We're just going to put this over your eyes, sweetheart. Is that OK?

'Anyway, to finish things up, Nurse Laura applies some special glue.

'This seals the whole wound to help it heal and stop infection.'

It's glued together pretty well, hasn't it?

'Now he's stitched up, it's time for Tadhg to head home. Next time...'

There's more exclusive behind-the-scenes emergency access.

With a fingertip that's been chopped off.

-'Things get whiffy when I go in search of sweat.'

-Oh, grim!

And this man reveals a jaw-dropping ability.

So we'll see you next time on...

BOTH: Operation Ouch!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd