Episode 9 Operation Ouch!

'He's Dr Chris.

'And he's Dr Xand.

'Yep, we're twins.

'Your body is amazing and we're going to prove it.'

SCREAMING AND LAUGHTER

'We'll show you what happens when we push our bodies to the limit.'

OK, here we go.

Oh...

'Show how the strangest of injuries get fixed...'

It's harder to speak.

'Uncover the secrets behind the most amazing bodies.'

'And experiment on each other

'to show you just how your body works.'

Oh, no!

BOTH: Coming up today on Operation Ouch...

'This man reveals his amazing body.

'I join paramedics at the scene of an emergency

'and find out what we're whisking up.'

It looks like a blood smoothie.

'But first...

'Hospital doctors and nurses always expect the unexpected.

'Let's see how they fix our first patient.'

In Manchester, the emergency department have a new admission -

13-year-old Rhys, who's come in with a badly battered face.

I damaged my forehead, and my nose and my lip there.

You can say that again. I'm amazed you can even speak.

It's hard to smile,

because my lips are, like, swollen and I can't move it...

I'd just keep a straight face, Rhys.

So how on earth did you end up like that?

Well, what happened was... lovely balloons...

Rhys was celebrating his cousin's birthday party

at the local bike park.

He was on a half pipe, doing his thing.

The crowd were loving it, so he set off for the big one.

Er, that's a steep slope.

Nice big stadium too. No pressure, Rhys.

He set off, but the slope was so steep and Rhys tried to stop...

He pulled on his brake, but he did it too hard

and next thing he knew, he flew over the handlebars.

Oh, dear. No more bike.

Yep, he went flying through the air until he landed smack on his face.

Ouch!

Luckily, Rhys was wearing a helmet

and his injuries aren't as bad as they look,

but it's still pretty uncomfortable.

I find it very hard to eat... cos my tongue's all swollen.

There's no chance of getting your mouth around a burger, for sure.

Rhys was treated just after the accident,

but now he's back in hospital to get his wounds checked out

and find out if he'll need any more treatment.

And the man doing the finding out is Professor Kevin Macway Jones.

We need to take the dressings down,

have a good look at his wound, make sure they're not infected,

then we need to decide what dressings need to be put on there

and whether any surgery needs to be done immediately,

or whether that can wait for later if it's needed at all.

First things first. Nurse Michael needs to get those dressings off.

I'm going to take the dressings off

and see what everything looks like underneath. Is that OK?

Although it looks nasty, swelling is part of the body's healing process.

When you're injured,

chemicals are released which cause our blood vessels to widen.

This allows more blood and infection-fighting cells

to get to the injured area, but some leak into the surrounding tissue,

causing the whole area to swell up.

Just like Rhys' lip.

So with the dressing off, how's it looking?

The one at the top is healing well.

The one over your nose is healing well,

the one above your lip, OK, that's a little bit deeper.

So what I think we need to do is re-dress it,

we'll bring you back to clinic to see how it's doing

and we'll make a decision when you come back to clinic next time.

Although his nose and forehead can be left dressing-free,

Rhys' lip still needs to be covered

and he'll have to come back in two weeks' time

when the swelling's gone down to see if surgery is necessary.

I just can't wait to get back to normal,

cos I need to get back eating again.

Fingers crossed some decent food will be on the cards soon, mate.

We'll be back to find out what happens with Rhys' lip later on.

I think I can hear his stomach rumbling.

'And now to our lab where we put our bodies to the test

'to show you how your body works.'

Ow, that really hurts.

'Just don't try anything like this at home.

'Today, we're looking at our blood.'

This is blood.

It's not human blood, but it's almost exactly the same.

And without blood, you'd be dead.

That's because your organs need blood

every second of the day to keep them working.

If someone's had an accident,

the most important thing to do is stop the bleeding.

Blood isn't just a liquid. It's actually full of red blood cells.

Your body makes two million new red blood cells every second.

'And all these blood cells have a really important job.

'They carry oxygen from your lungs to all the cells in your body.

'When you breathe in air, it goes straight to your lungs

'and travels through little sacs, called alveoli

'and it's their job to transfer all the oxygen to your blood.'

When it goes into the lungs,

it's this very dark, almost black reddish colour.

When it leaves the lungs, it changes colour

and becomes a very bright red.

'Look at this vein in my hand. It looks blueish

'because it's full of dark-coloured blood

'that hasn't been to the lungs yet.'

I can show you the direction of flow in these veins.

If I squeeze the blood out of this one,

you see I've made it disappear?

Then you can watch it refill from this end.

And now it's on its way to get oxygen from the lungs,

where it will change colour.

Nice, isn't it? I can do exactly the same thing and you notice...

you see how quickly it refills,

-so if you imagine the blood fills up like that...

-Pumping into that.

..the red blood cells starting there

would be back in my lungs really quickly.

'To show you what happens when your blood visits your lungs,

'we've got a piece of really high-tech equipment.'

-We're going to use this blender...

-That's my blender.

We're going to use Chris' blender to whisk oxygen into the blood.

Let's see what happens.

This blood is starting to form clots,

so it's thick and lumpy cos it's outside the body.

'That's what happens to your blood when you get a cut.

'It reacts with the air to form a clot,

'which glues the wound together, eventually becoming a scab.'

Now let's make a bloodshake.

'By swirling it around quickly,

'the blender is putting oxygen into the blood.'

This is what happens when you take a deep breath!

The oxygen is put directly into the blood

and it makes it go a bright red colour.

It looks like a blood smoothie.

There's no such thing as a blood smoothie, a strawberry smoothie.

-It's still your blender.

-Yeah, thanks for that.

'So we've shown you the way that blood goes dark red

'with no oxygen in it to bright red and oxygenated.'

'And that's what's happening in your body right now.

'All the new red blood cells

'are collecting oxygen from your lungs as you breathe

'and delivering it to every cell in your body.'

In the UK, there are hundreds

of rapid response medical teams on standby.

And they need to be on the scene of an emergency in minutes.

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

'heading into the thick of the action to help save lives.

'Now it's Chris' turn on the front line.'

This is a rapid response vehicle and it's designed to get

a paramedic to the scene of an emergency within minutes.

On call with me today is paramedic, Ben White...

..and we've just had a new call come in.

We've been called to a lady

who's fallen over and may have dislocated her shoulder.

We have blood vessels and nerves in the armpit.

If the bone at the top of the arm pops out of the socket,

it can damage all those structures.

I've got my camera,

so I'm going to take you as close as I can to the action.

We arrive on the scene in under three-and-a-half minutes

and we find Maxine on her bathroom floor.

So, what happened this morning?

Having my shower, just finished, turned off,

stepped out the shower - whoops! - on the floor.

-Is it constant pain or only when you move it?

-Constant.

Is it down here?

-It's all my shoulder, really.

-All your shoulder?

Ben's assessing her to see if he thinks it's bruised or broken

or if she's dislocated the joint.

If this bone at the top of the arm has actually come away

from the other bone in the shoulder, it's in the wrong position.

If that's the case, they can take her to hospital

and pop it back in with some painkillers.

What we'll do, is get some pain relief out for you.

We'll see how we go on gas and air.

Might pop a needle in your hand, give you something stronger.

If you hold that, take deep breaths for us.

Take nice deep breaths.

Gas and air numbs the pain to make Maxine more comfortable

while Ben checks her blood pressure.

But she's still in a lot of pain,

so Ben decides that Maxine needs to go to hospital for further checks.

In the meantime, he gives her some stronger painkillers

through an injection.

What's really good about this,

is it's not just going to make life nicer for Max,

it's also going to help the doctors at the hospital,

because reducing the pain reduces all the spasm in the shoulder

and that'll make it easier for them to treat Maxine.

We can get Maxine down on the ambulance where

we can make her comfortable.

A trip up to the hospital to get it X-rayed and get it sorted.

The medical team has arrived and the crew make sure Maxine

moves as little as possible as she makes her way to the ambulance.

Max is on her way to hospital and Ben arriving really quickly

and giving really good pain relief

will make it much easier for the doctors to treat.

With our job done here, we get ready for the next callout.

There are rapid response teams like this all over the UK

which means that expert medical care can be with you

within minutes of a serious emergency.

Still to come, Xand finds out what's wrong with these body bits...

It's the size of a melon!

..we show you a trick that'll fool your friends...

..and I'm in theatre for some eye-opening surgery.

Now I'm going to open the skin on the surface of the eye.

..when you become an adult?

It's called your clavicle

and it'll stop growing

when you're about 25.

That's amazing and so is this.

Lunchtime in an ordinary street, in an ordinary town,

but in this town lives an extraordinary person.

This man's name is Neil. Can you guess why he's amazing?

Does he have the loudest yodel in England? No.

Have a look at him, well, maybe with other people.

You see, Neil's the tallest man in the UK.

He's 232.6cm tall.

That's half a metre taller than your average British man.

He wears size 15 shoes and weighs 159 kilos.

Being tall makes Neil very popular.

Look at all these people, see how happy they are.

Even the traffic wardens want to be his friend.

No parking tickets for Neil.

My brother's 6 ft 9, my sister's 6 ft 3.

My grandfather, back in the old days was 6 ft 7.

So, it runs in the family.

Hang on, these window cleaners need some help.

I'm just naturally tall.

The top of that window has never been so clean

and he didn't even break a sweat.

Oh, mind your head.

Neil is unique, but as you grow,

it's the bones in your legs that will make the most difference

to your height as an adult.

They will grow at each end and your individual DNA will tell them

how long to grow.

It's nice to be different and if you use your differences

to be an advantage, the sky's the limit.

And Neil should know.

He's a lot nearer the sky than we are.

Now that's amazing. Ouch!

Xand, no-one's going to believe you're taller than Neil.

Let's head back to the emergency department

to see how our patient is getting on.

Back in Accident & Emergency,

13-year-old Rhys came into hospital

with a bashed-up face after a biking accident.

I damaged my forehead, my nose and my lip there.

He'd been at a party trying out some bike tricks,

but a big slope, a really, really big slope, caught him out

and he ended up flying over his handlebars onto his face.

Although it wasn't as bad as it looked,

Rhys couldn't wait for the swelling in his lip to go down.

I find it very hard to eat cos my tongue's very swollen.

And the doctors were also waiting so they could decide

if he'd need any plastic surgery.

Two weeks later and Rhys is back for his check-up.

I'm pleased to see his face is looking pretty transformed.

The swelling has gone down a lot and I can eat my favourite food

and everything.

Thank goodness. I was worried you were wasting away there for a while.

Well, with the important news out of the way,

let's meet Professor Simon Carley

and find out if we're going to need that surgery or not.

I think that's starting to heal quite nicely.

The bits on your forehead, almost completely healed.

His best chance is for his body to do all the work,

to do the job that it's designed to do.

Your skin needs to be a tough barrier so it can protect you

and it's designed to repair itself constantly.

All the time, new skin cells are working their way up

from the bottom layer to the top,

which usually takes about a month.

But because Rhys' injury is severe and his skin is healing,

it's going to take a bit longer.

The bits down here, they're doing pretty well as well.

To know what it's eventually going to completely look like

will probably be about six months.

Six months might sound like ages, but every skin cell contains pigment

which is what gives your skin its colour.

It's going to take a while for all of Rhys' cells

to reach the top layer and his skin colour to return to normal.

I think you can already see just on that patch on the forehead,

if you look in the middle part, can you see how some of the pigment

is already starting to come through on the inside?

I suspect that when you first did that, that looked completely pink

and now you're already seeing some of the pigment cells coming through.

The other doctor said that it's OK and it's healing properly,

that he could see my skin tone developing underneath.

With Rhys' skin healing well,

he might not need that surgery after all.

I know there was talk about plastic surgery and stuff like that.

I think at this stage, I don't think that's going to be necessary.

I'm amazed it's healed so well, actually.

The body's a pretty remarkable thing.

I'm just relieved cos I won't have to go into surgery.

To be honest, you can get back on your bike pretty soon, as well.

It's a good result for Rhys, but just go steady on that bike.

We've got some amazing body tricks to show you.

Want to find out how to shrink someone's arm?

Xand, I want you to put your fingertips together

and push your arms out as far as you can in front of you like that.

This is a great trick.

OK, now I want you to take that hand

and rub it as hard as you can on this elbow.

Tell your mate while they're doing this,

that you're going to use magic powers to shorten that arm.

Ohhh, I'm using my arm-shortening magic powers, ohhh!

Not too much magic.

OK, now straighten.

-You've shortened my arm.

-Exactly. Now to get them the same length,

you simply do the opposite and rub this hand on that arm.

More magic, more magic and straighten.

-Yeah, that's better.

-You want to try that again?

No, I won't be able to get my hands in my pockets.

'Don't be ridiculous, Xand.'

So, this trick works

because as you rub your left arm, the muscles in your right shoulder

tighten up, making your right arm look shorter.

Your left arm is relaxed and completely untensed

so it looks longer.

To get things back to normal, just give everything a shake.

Give it a try and see if you can fool your friends.

Now, we're going our separate ways to show you two amazing places,

starting here in Manchester with Chris.

Right now, I'm bringing the cameras in to show you

some eye surgery that is so amazing, even I've never seen it before.

You blink 17,000 times a day.

When you read a book,

your eye muscles move almost 170 times a minute

and the muscles you use to blink are the fastest in your body.

You've got seven muscles in your eye

and that's what we're focusing on today.

As we've seen on Operation Ouch!,

there are surgeons who specialise in everything to do with the body.

This is Dr Jane Ashworth and she's an eye specialist.

Is operating on the eye different to other parts of the body?

It is because the structures of the eye are small and delicate

so you have to use very, very fine instruments,

very fine needles and threads.

Often you have to magnify the image.

This is Josh who's having eye surgery today.

He's had problems with his sight from birth

and has had various treatments to help him see.

He's had eye patches for about a year,

which brought his sight back.

Joshua lost sight in his eye at first, he only had 20% sight.

Then he had the glasses to try and bring his sight back

which have brought it back.

He's now left...I think it's about 80% sight now.

But the doctors want to correct something else.

Josh has a squint and in his case, this is making his eyes

move too closely together when he looks down.

If you look on this model here, these are the muscles of the eye

that move the eye in different directions.

This muscle here, close to the nose,

is working too well, so we're going to weaken it

by moving it backwards on the eye and moving its position downwards.

Someone in your class may have a squint.

You may have one yourself and, most of the time, glasses can correct it.

But in Josh's case, glasses and other treatments won't work,

so surgery is the only option to repair the muscle around his eyes.

Even though Josh's eyes are open,

he is actually asleep and he can't see or feel a thing.

To me, this is very exciting.

I never saw this kind of surgery because it's so specialist -

as a medical student, I didn't see it.

Look away if you're a bit squeamish.

These first stitches that Jane's put in

are so she can move the eyeball into the position

so that this muscle is exposed here.

And now I'm going to open the skin on the surface of the eye

in order to find the muscle.

The skin on your eyeball can heal like any other skin?

Yeah, it heals very quickly.

We're just putting some stitches in

to sew the muscle into a new position on the eye.

The problem Josh had is that the muscle was too strong

moving the eye inwards and downwards

so what Jane's done is effectively make the muscle weaker.

In just 20 minutes, the first eye is done

and now Dr Jane moves on to the next eye muscle.

Using these stitches to put the muscle into a new position now.

Co-ordinating your eyes together is really important

so humans have seven muscles moving the eye

and that means you can move your eye in any direction at all.

So Jane's now just sewing the skin back around the eyeball,

covering the muscle

and then we're done.

And in 40 minutes, Josh returns back to the hospital ward to recover.

I'm absolutely astounded at how quick this surgery happens.

So, back on the ward and Josh can't open his eyes yet

but a few weeks later and he's back to meet Dr Jane

for a check-up.

The eyes are healing up absolutely fine, so he's done really well.

That's much better, isn't it? Before, his eyes turned right in.

Yeah, that's much better.

It's much better than it was.

'There's been a real improvement in Josh's squint after the surgery,

'which is great news.'

So how do you feel after all that?

You didn't want to open your eyes afterwards in hospital, did you?

-No.

-And then, did you open your eyes that night?

No, I opened them the next day.

Josh found it a bit uncomfortable after the operation

but now he's had this amazing surgery,

he's well on the road to recovery

and it means now that when he looks down,

his eye muscles won't be pulling his eyes together toward his nose.

In fact, the answer is B.

It would stretch as high

as a three-storey building.

That's nine metres of innards

all coiled up inside your body.

Now Xand brings you something completely different.

I'm in a top secret location

and it's so top secret, I'm not even allowed to mention its name

but in here is a special medical collection of human body parts

and I've been allowed exclusive access

to show you some of the ways the human body can go wrong.

These two things are human hearts.

This one is a normal human heart.

Now, it's been opened up

so that you can see inside

but if you put it back together,

it would be about the size of a large apple.

That's what's inside me and you

but this heart is much bigger.

Now, the man who this heart belonged to had a rare disease

which made some of the tissues in his body weaker

so they stretched, like his heart and his blood vessels

and that's why his heart got so big.

Imagine having this inside your chest. It's the size of a melon!

You'd definitely notice it.

This guy would have had a pounding heartbeat.

Boom, boom, boom!

You'd actually be able to see his chest wall moving

with each massive beat.

You'd probably have been able to see the blood washing up into his neck

so his neck would have been expanding and almost flapping

with each heartbeat and in the end, this man's heart getting so big

and his blood vessels got so weak - that's what killed him.

This is another organ that's gone wrong.

It's a human liver, and there's something very strange about it.

What do you think these are?

Hmm? Hmm?

They're worms -

giant intestinal roundworms

and they were living in this person's body when they died.

The person that this liver belonged to would have been ill.

They'd have been bright yellow, for a start,

because their liver was all blocked up.

In fact, there might have been so many worms

that they blocked their gut. They'd have lost weight, and ultimately

this infection probably would have killed them.

But bones can go wrong too.

In the lower half of your leg, you've got two bones -

the tibia, which is here. That's your shin bone,

and then a smaller bone off to the side, the fibula - that one there.

It's easy to break these and it's quite common.

Footballers and skiers do it. You probably know someone who's done it.

It's also quite easy to fix this, usually.

Doctors will pull the leg straight, put it in a plaster cast

and you can be almost as good as new in a few weeks.

But what happens

if you don't have a plaster cast?

Take a look at this.

This person broke their leg 200 years ago

and they didn't see a doctor.

Now, it's a terrible break. He would have been in terrible pain

and he would have had a very bad limp

but what's incredible about this

is the bone's actually regrown and tried to fix itself,

so we know from that

that this guy lived, probably for several years after his injury.

Amazing.

In the Accident & Emergency department,

-the team are ready for their next case.

-Let's meet him.

Six-year-old Rio has come to Accident & Emergency

with a little problem on his hands.

I've got a poorly finger.

Ooh, yeah, that is a problem.

It's a bit strange.

It does look pretty odd.

So how on earth did that finger end up like that?

Rio has lots of hobbies. That's him Thai boxing

but as well as the usual activities,

he has another favourite pastime -

picking the skin around his nails.

He picks in the morning,

he picks in the evening,

he even picks in the bathtub

but as he's been picking away, germs have crept in under the skin.

That's those green things.

Lots of them, aren't there?

Yep, and so his finger became infected and it swelled up. Ouch.

It comes all white when you pick it a bit more.

Time to stop picking at it, Rio.

Let's get Professor Simon Carley in to get to the bottom of it.

Follow this way. Let's follow the finger.

Well, there goes the finger. Rio's just going to have to follow.

Can I have a quick look?

Do you bite your nails?

-No, I pick them.

-You pick them?

-He certainly does.

-You see all this yellow stuff?

That's where it's got a little infection there

so you're going to make it sore.

I think we can make that a bit better for you

by letting some of that out. Would that be all right?

-'Cut it out, doctor!

-That's a bit rude.

'No, really, cut it out. Let the pus out.

'Sounds drastic, but that pus needs removing.

'But first, let's give him some of this.'

Gas and air - it's made up of a mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide.

As you breathe it in, the gas numbs the pain receptors in your brain,

meaning things hurt less,

and gives you a laugh along the way.

Have you got the giggles?

RIO AND SIMON LAUGH

With Rio looking nice and relaxed, Professor Simon can get to work.

Now, if you're squeamish, get ready to look away

because we're going to release the pus!

And look away now. OK, here we go.

And he's in!

Eugh! There goes some pus.

OK, all clear.

This might all seem a bit grim, but if Rio's abscess was left untreated

it could get worse and worse, and could burst

or even damage the bone.

So what we've got there is all that pus that was trapped.

And now it's out, Professor Simon removes that infected skin.

All that badness now, which was underneath here, is out

so all we do now is give that a clean, put a dressing on it

and it will heal up really nicely.

Rio, are you better?

-Not yet.

-You better?

-Not yet.

-He said, "Not yet," Reggie!

But one rather large bandage later, and he's on his way home.

And what's the moral of the story? I can't quite put my finger on it!

Oh, dear. Rio?

Don't pick your nails or your fingers.

Bingo.

-Bye-bye.

-Yep, bye.

Time to go, Rio.

Next time...

find out what this man can do with a hot water bottle.

Chris tests out his surgical skills.

And we take a journey through my guts with a special camera pill.

This is like tomorrow's poo in here.

So we'll see you next time on Operation Ouch!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd