Casualty returned to screens tonight (December 21) for a festive edition with a serious message. The long running BBCmedical drama highlighted the importance of blood donation.
In a twist for the show real people were featured telling their blood donation stories in between the scripted action, which saw Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) crash an ambulance as he was carrying a much needed supply of blood back to Holby ED. The heart wrenching stories illustrated just how important it is to give blood.

Amongst the short clips a man named James explained how he had three extra years with his daughter Rachel thanks to blood donations.

“With Rachel, it was a type of blood cancer, AML, acute myeloid leukaemia. When we started chemotherapy, and as her treatment progressed, she would really feel low, so fatigued, and she would be utterly reliant on the generosity of someone else that had made a blood donation – provided her with the transfusion. It literally kept her alive and you just got your daughter back there with you,” he recalled emotionally.

“We didn’t know how long we’d have Rachel for. When we were told that it wasn’t going to be long, Rachel set up her bucket list. There were lots of things she wanted to do. Attending graduation was a very large part of that for her. We were just so proud of this brilliant achievement…but it was bittersweet. She was robbed of the fantastic future that she deserved. Rachel had in excess of 150 transfusions and people’s donations kept her alive, and it enabled the treatment, and it gave us three and a half precious years of her,” he said.

Another man named Andrew explained how he was born with haemophilia so had required blood transfusions all his life.

“My parents were very protective of me,” he began. “I had haemophilia, which meant that I was missing a part of the blood which helped it to clot.

I’d have to have injections, and the injections contained the missing clotting factor, factor eight in my case, and that had to be taken from other people’s blood,” he explained.

Sadly for Andrew the treatment at the time exposed him to other illnesses. “During the late 70s and early 1980s because of infected blood problems a huge number of hemophiliacs were exposed to and caught HIV, me being one of them, so I had hepatitis C and HIV by the time I was five,” he revealed.

As pictures of him enjoying life with his family showed on screen he admitted he had, “been through a bit of a journey when it comes to having to learn to trust the blood supply”.

However he acknowledged: “I think the blood supply is much safer these days, and they’ve demonstrated that.”