One Saturday afternoon, 15-year-old Emily arrived at the Emergency Department at Sheffield Children’s Hospital after a horse-riding accident, with her jaw split in two. She had only a 1-centimetre strip of skin holding her jaw to her face and required immediate surgery.
Emily tells her story:
“We’d been riding on a lane, and were returning to the stables, when the horse I was on suddenly bolted and galloped away with me up the lane, across a road and onto another country lane.
“We went round one corner to the left, I was clinging on, …then round another bend and I slipped round the side of the horse, it swiped me up against a fence and a wooden post smashed into the right side of my jaw. I think I was in so much shock that I didn’t feel much pain.”
Emily was taken to Sheffield Children’s Emergency Department. After being assessed she went into the operating theatre where Consultant Facial Reconstructive Surgeon Ricardo Mohammed-Ali performed specialist surgery, which took five and a half hours.
She said:
“When we got to the Emergency Department, the nurses were great, talking me through everything. They kept chatting to me all the way. Then the surgeon came and he was so cool, calm and collected.”
Mr Mohammed-Ali, who is based at the hospital, said:
“Emily’s injury was significant in that the entire left side of her lower jaw from the front of the jaw to the joint was pulled away from the face and only retained by a small strip of skin. The nerves that supply sensation to the lip and chin were torn on both sides. Branches of the facial nerve that move the muscles of the lower lip were severed on both sides. The lower part of Emily’s face was only attached by a piece of skin.”
Mr Mohammed-Ali added:
“It could have been worse, but it is one of the most significant injuries that I have seen in a child outside of areas of conflict.”
Emily added:
“Two out of the three times I’ve ridden a horse, it’s ended in surgery. But it hasn’t felt like a hospital. I can’t believe how much I laughed when I was staying on the ward, and that’s really something when you can’t move your face!”
Emily is one of many hundreds of children and young people who access the hospital’s Emergency Department throughout the year and has thankfully made a full recovery.
She was nearly transported to the Emergency Department by helicopter, but the air ambulance team determined that, due to the busy summer day, it would be quicker and safer to take her by road ambulance instead. The alternative—moving everyone from Weston Park, located across the road from the hospital, to make space for the helicopter to land—would have been too time-consuming. Thanks to a £2.8m donation from the HELP Appeal, the hospital now has a state of the art rooftop helipad, offering a faster, safer route to the Emergency Department and ensuring greater dignity for all patients.
There are still another 50 hospital helipads in the pipeline across the country that urgently need funding from the HELP Appeal. They will ensure there are no delays in transferring critically ill patients to Emergency Departments which will help to save many lives. To support us today, just CLICK HERE
