Yasmin donates £5,000 from birthday fundraiser

In February 2020, Yasmin Jukes from Whitchurch in Shropshire suffered a traumatic brain injury that left her in the care of University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust for just under six weeks.

It was thanks to this care she received at the Royal Stoke that Yasmin made it home in time to celebrate her 18th birthday, and to mark the occasion, and to say thank you to our amazing staff, she set up a birthday fundraiser, raising an incredible £5,000!

We were thrilled to welcome Yasmin, along with her mum Caroline back to Royal Stoke to meet some of the staff from our Critical Care Unit and Neurosurgery Ward who cared for her and to present her cheque.

Yasmin’s Mum, Caroline, explains: “After asking for a lift to the gym one Monday morning, Yasmin went up the stairs to get changed, and I assume she must have fainted at the top and fallen backwards. I found her at the bottom unconscious and bleeding from the back of her head and right ear. I got her round, and called for an ambulance. She was drifting in and out of consciousness as the air ambulance arrived, before she was taken by land ambulance to the Royal Stoke.”

“After the initial assessment, we were told there wasn’t a lot of hope for Yasmin- she had fractured the base of her skull, had bleeds to the brain and a blood clot. The next evening she was taken down to theatre as the medication wasn’t helping to reduce the pressure and swelling on her brain, so they hoped by inserting a bolt this would work."

"Unfortunately, this it didn’t, so the last resort was performing a craniotomy, the removal of part of the bone from the skull. We saw her being wheeled back to the Critical Care Unit in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The procedure had been a success which was a relief to us all, and we were then able to see her again.”

“On the Saturday morning, she was taken off the sedation and began asking the nurses for Mum and Dad, so we came rushing back to see her, not knowing what damage was done. The next day the doctors were talking about moving her onto a ward- I was shocked how quickly things were moving!"

"She was then transferred to the Neurosurgery Ward, and again there, as was the case in the Critical Care Unit, she had the best care anybody could wish for. On Friday 20 March she was discharged, fortunately for us just before lockdown. She’s currently waiting for a cranioplasty to replace the part of the skull that they had to remove.”

“We can’t thank all the wonderful staff at UHNM enough for all they have done for Yasmin. We all wanted to do something for the staff, so after talking a few fundraising options, we decided to set up a birthday fundraiser to see how far it goes.”

“Thank you to UHNM Charity for welcoming me and Yasmin back to the Royal Stoke for her cheque presentation. It was so lovely for her to meet the two surgeons and other staff members who looked after her so well and go to Pod 6 on Critical car and Ward 228.”

Yasmin added: “Without the first class treatment that I received from all the staff at UHNM, I would not be here today. Myself and my family cannot thank them enough. It was lovely to see you all again, your colleagues, nurses, the consultants and all involved in caring for me throughout. It was very special seeing everyone again and having the photos with the cheque in the areas I spent time, I will be forever grateful.”