Episode 1

Documentary series following staff providing critical and life-saving care at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, South Wales. Filmed in the summer of 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak gripped the world, this series offers an extraordinary insight into the working lives of those who are now on the frontline of fighting the deadly virus. Every day the staff in the intensive care unit treat patients whose lives hang in the balance, but not all of those treated on the unit will survive. In this episode the team treat several patients whose hearts have stopped. Patients who suffer a cardiac arrest often end up in a critical condition and their outcomes can be uncertain. The damage caused by the heart failing can be severe, including catastrophic injury to the brain. Those admitted to the intensive care unit are the sickest in the hospital and their stay on the ICU can range from a few hours to several months. More unusual is having to treat an expectant mother - now the staff have not one, but two lives to try to save.