Hospitals

She has been left with scars and missing teeth

A woman has been left with no feeling in her face after shattering her jaw in an accident while on holiday..

Tia Lockey was at the start of a dream trip through Asia when she was involved in a motorbike accident. The 22-year-old waved goodbye to her friends after volunteering to go first down to a remote beach.

Tia can now only remember the first few minutes of the journey before waking up on the jungle floor, concussed and in agonising pain. “My dream trip I had been planning for years had been stripped away from me because of a lift to the beach,” said Tia from Durham.

“I opened my eyes and I was on the floor in the jungle of Koh Tao, in the middle of nowhere covered in blood. I didn’t and still don’t remember the crash at all; it’s completely wiped from my memory. I definitely mourn the life I used to have.”

The marketing worker had organised a trip down to the beach in Koh Tao, Thailand in the early hours of the morning of March 14. A fellow traveller offered to take them down one by one as the ride would only take 10 minutes – and thinking nothing of it, Tia went first.

However, shortly after they had set off, they were involved in a horrific crash. Tia said: “My friend thought something must’ve been up and she had a bad feeling since the driver was meant to go back for her next but he still hadn’t come.

“Luckily I had shared my live location with her that night so she followed it and found me with all of my injuries. An ambulance came and the hospital told me I had shattered my jaw in two places, knocked two teeth out, and had very deep wounds on my face. I needed to be emergency speed-boated to a hospital in Koh Samui which was around three hours away.”

Tia was rushed to the hospital with her face completely bandaged up due to the gaping wounds on her upper lip, forehead, left eye, chin and scalp. For the next two weeks she was bedridden in hospital with her mouth wired shut following her jaw surgery.

The 22-year-old then returned back home to the UK as another jaw surgery was required. She said: “I needed to have another jaw surgery in May. I couldn’t chew for four months and because my jaw was so severely broken, they described it as cornflake bits, when I woke up from the eight hour surgery my teeth and bite were completely different.

“They no longer touched at the front, so I was left with an open bite and they said that this will just be my teeth from now on and there’s not a lot they can do to fix them. So now I struggle to eat anything with my front teeth.”

The crash completely changed Tia’s life, leaving her with crippling insecurities that stopped her from leaving the house. On top of the scars and teeth damage, nerve damage to her bottom lip and chin left them completely numb

.

Tia said: “I struggled a lot with going out and about with friends and family because I was so insecure about my teeth and scars. If I’m eating or brushing my teeth for example and I was to get toothpaste or food on my chin I would have no idea.

“My sisters have to give me a heads up when we’re out. I’m still being seen by the hospital for regular appointments and I still have missing teeth. I am hoping to finally have them fixed by the end of the year.

“My confidence and mood plummeted massively, there didn’t seem to be an end to my recovery.” S ix months on from the crash Tia has finally started to adjust to the changes.

Documenting her recovery journey has given her a new found purpose. Tia said: “It has also made me realise just how precious life is and never to take a single day for granted.

“I thought posting about it on TikTok would give me a purpose during recovery and it turned it into something more positive. The response I’ve received is just so overwhelming in the best way and I massively appreciate all the support and love I’ve been getting from everyone.

“I just hope it reminds people to stay safe, even when you feel invincible, because you never think it will happen to you until it does, and unfortunately I’m still paying the price for it.”

The Real Rooneys gives fans a real insight into the lives of Wayne and Coleen Rooney and also some surprising details of what goes on

The Real Rooneys throws up some interesting and surprising scenes and a lot of nuggets of information and Wayne and Coleen which will be new for fans. Coleen says of the series: “We live in this in this extraordinary world, but we are normal at the end of the day.”

Wayne adds: “When you know you’re on TV or you’re doing something, you maybe tone things down a little bit, but at home with four young boys, that’s impossible. It’s real what you see.” Here are some of the more shocking and surprising things I spotted previewing the first four episodes…

WAYNE’S WINDOWLESS REQUEST

The Rooneys live in an incredible mansion with dozens of rooms and grounds which are big enough for them to race around in go karts, as we see on the show. But despite paying for the property, Wayne had just two slightly odd requests when it was built. He says: “I only wanted two things in here, a small little room with no windows, not because I am a psycho for playing PlayStation or watching a movie. And a snooker table. I didn’t really care what else.” Thanks to Coleen there is also other great rooms which have fun things in them like a swimming pool and a boxing ring.

COLEEN LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

Coleen’s mum reveals that her beloved daughter may never have met Wayne or survived beyond a brief childhood having been very ill as a small child.

Colette McLoughlin tells the cameras: “When Coleen was three, she got really sick. It turned out it was encephalitis, and her brain was swelling. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t speak. She was stumbling her words. When we got to Alder High Hospital, she ended up in a coma. For 24 hours it was touch and go. She had to learn to walk again. All the coordination had gone, but I’m so grateful because she was alive.” This help she got at hospital is one of the reasons Coleen’s parents became foster carers.

WAYNE WATERWORKS AT TV SOAPS

Wayne admits now he is older he gets emotional about lots of things. The subject comes up when Kai’s football career is being discussed and he is asked if he will cry if his eldest son gets a scholarship at Manchester United. Wayne replies: “Probably. I cry at everything anyway. I’ve cried over some mad things, Coronation Street, X Factor, when Barry got pushed off the hill by Janine in EastEnders, I’m pretty sure I was crying.”

COLEEN CONSIDERED SPLIT FROM WAYNE

His bad behaviour down the years is well documented and Wayne is not perfect husband material in the series either. Like most married couples there are some rows and at one stage Coleen says: “There’s times where I think ‘Is the answer to see what it’s like if we were separated?’.”

She then adds: “But the we still care for each other, we still have good times. You know, we still love each other.”

At another point she tells Wayne: “It’s been a bit of a lads holiday for you, staying up all night. You can’t just keep doing what you do. It is not fair of everyone else. It is only you that can fix it because no one else is doing it. I’m just hoping that things change.”

KAI MOCKS HIS DAD

It seems Wayne struggles with early starts as he is shown sleeping through alarms and missing doing the school run on at least one occasion.

But one morning – seemingly the first time the Disney+ cameras are at the home – Wayne is seen up early, although he seems in need of coffee. His eldest son Kai is clearly not used to seeing his dad before school. With a grin he says: “Bro’s up for the cameras”.

Kai also states he is the best footballer in the family, and that he wants people to “know the name Kai Rooney” so he is a star footballer in his own right in the future.

WAYNE SOMETIMES HATES FAME

Wayne and Coleen take their two youngest children Kit, 10; and Cass, eight to Poland for an educational trip.

Initially it goes well and Wayne goes unrecognised but a trip on a horse drawn cart in Krakow blows his cover and he is soon swamped for autographs and selfies, and then family need to beat a sharp exit.

Afterwards Wayne reflects on what happened and says his level of fame has changed him as a person and he would love to be able to live unrecognised more often. He says: “I’m not a celebrity. People who know me know, know that I want to be as normal as possible.

“Back to when I was a kid, and you wanted to be a football player. That’s all I ever wanted to do, and didn’t care about fame or money or whatever. I just wanted to be a football player. I think I’d be such a better husband, dad, person, friend without it(fame). It affects places I go, things I do.

“I bought a mask I saw on TikTok[to use as a disguise], it looked incredible but it was terrible.”

WAYNE’S JEWISH ROOTS

As part of the break with Kit, 10; and Cass, the family visit Auschwitz because Kit asked to visit while learning about the Second World War at school.

Wayne tells the cameras: “I recently found out my mum’s mum, so me nan, her family were Polish Jews.”

He is told by producers that would make him technically jewish. Wayne replies: “I’m Catholic, but then I’ve always asked questions like, why aren’t we Jewish?”

Told it could make a whole spin off show he says with a grin: “Roo the jew!”

* Stream The Real Rooneys on Disney+ from September 24.

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Her daughter says her life could have been saved if she had taken the minor injury seriously

When Yvonne Ford and her husband Ron jetted off to Morocco in February 2025, they expected to return home with little more than happy holiday memories. Instead, what appeared to be nothing more than a tiny scratch would ultimately cost Yvonne her life.

The couple had been relaxing on sun loungers when a stray puppy appeared. At some point, it scratched 59-year-old Yvonne’s leg, leaving what appeared to be nothing more than a superficial mark. Looking back, Yvonne’s daughter, Robyn Thomson, says her parents never imagined the incident posed any danger.

“They were relaxing on the beach on the sun beds. Mum had put her legs down onto the sand and must have startled the puppy,” she said. “The puppy scratched her leg leaving a very minimal scratch on her leg.”

“It barely broke the skin and looked so insignificant that she simply cleaned it with a wet wipe and carried on enjoying the holiday.”

At the time, the family thought nothing more of it. “It was Mum and Dad enjoying a holiday together, and none of us had any idea that such a tiny scratch could expose someone to rabies. We simply didn’t know,” said Robyn, 33, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. “That tiny scratch had absolutely changed our lives forever.”

When Yvonne returned home to the UK, Robyn remembers asking whether she wanted to get the scratch checked, but Yvonne declined because it seemed so insignificant. “If someone had told us then that such a tiny scratch could be fatal months later, we would never have believed it,” Robyn said.

For weeks after returning home, Yvonne appeared perfectly healthy and life returned to normal. Then, in early June, she developed a headache and, within days, her condition rapidly deteriorated, leading to her being admitted to Barnsley Hospital.

She first developed a headache before eventually beginning to lose the ability to walk and talk. “It was the most devastating thing we’ve ever been through,” Robyn says. “The disease spread through her body so rabidly once the symptoms started. It all started with a headache.”

From there, her condition worsened with terrifying speed. “One minute Mum was independent and full of life, and then she deteriorated so quickly,” Robyn said. “She became confused, frightened and started hallucinating. Eventually she couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk properly, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.”

Robyn says that watching her mum deteriorate was excruciating. “As her daughter, watching someone you’ve looked up to your entire life become so desperately ill and knowing there was nothing anyone could do was unbearable,” the neonatal nurse said.

As Yvonne’s condition worsened, doctors struggled to determine what was making her so ill. Five days passed before a psychiatrist, who initially suspected Lyme disease, recognised the symptoms and asked about her recent travel history.

“This is what I’ve found so hard, knowing that nobody knew what was causing my mum to be so poorly for the first five days until a doctor within the mental health sector suggested it could be a possibility,” Robyn said. One of the things she remembers the most was the shock of being told that her mum had contracted rabies.

“It was the worst news we could have received because there was no cure, nothing to be done to bring mum back,” she saif. “The damage was already done. Rabies was never something we imagined could affect our family. You associate it with something that happens somewhere else, not to your mum after a holiday. Especially with the scratch being so tiny and minimal.”

Yvonne was then transferred to the infectious disease unit at Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital, where she died on 11 June, four months after being scratched by the puppy. Now, Robyn knows that if there had been more awareness around rabies at the time, her mum might still be here.

“Looking back now, that’s one of the hardest things to accept. If we’d understood the risk and known she needed urgent treatment immediately, everything could have been different,” she said. “We would have pushed her to get the treatment and it would have saved her life.”

Robyn is now campaigning for greater awareness of rabies to help prevent other families experiencing the same heartbreak. “I wish there were more awareness, more awareness when booking holidays about the risk of potential exposure in certain high-risk countries,” she said. “I wish someone had told us that there is no such thing as ‘just a scratch’ when it comes to rabies.”

“I wish we’d known that washing the wound thoroughly and getting post-exposure treatment immediately can save your life. That lack of awareness cost us our Mum.”

Speaking about Yvonne, Robyn describes her as “the heart” of their family. “She was funny, warm, caring and incredibly selfless,” she said. “She always put everyone else before herself and absolutely adored her family, especially being a Nannie to her four grandchildren.”

“She had so much life left to live. She and my dad, Ron, had worked hard all their lives and were enjoying making memories together. They loved travelling and experiencing different cultures, and the holiday to Morocco was supposed to be another wonderful adventure together.”

Robyn says her mum was also an animal lover who would never have imagined a puppy could pose such a danger.

“Mum loved animals and would never have imagined that a friendly looking puppy could pose such a danger,” she says. “That’s one of the biggest misconceptions people have. She would never want any harm to come to the dog.”

The scratch wasn’t the result of a vicious attack but a chance encounter that would have devastating consequences. “It was a stray puppy that didn’t seem threatening,” Robyn says. “That’s exactly why people need to understand that you can’t judge the risk by how the animal behaves or how serious the injury looks.”

Robyn is now working with Worldwide Veterinary Service and its Mission Rabies program to ensure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else. “After losing Mum, I felt I had to do something,” she said. “I couldn’t change what had happened to our family, but I could help stop it happening to somebody else’s.”

“Working with Worldwide Veterinary Service and Mission Rabies has shown me the incredible work that’s being done to eliminate rabies by vaccinating dogs and educating communities.”

Robyn also has a message for anyone else who is scratched or bitten by an animal while travelling overseas but thinks it’s “only a minor scratch”.

“Please don’t take the risk,” she says. “Our family thought it was only a tiny scratch too.. Wash the wound thoroughly with soap and running water straight away and seek urgent medical advice immediately, even if the injury seems insignificant. Don’t wait until you get home, and don’t assume you’ll be fine because the animal looked healthy or friendly.

“The vaccines could save your life.”

Rabies is present in more than 150 countries, including popular holiday destinations such as Turkey, Morocco and Thailand. According to Worldwide Veterinary Service, nearly half of Brits (47%) say they would approach or interact with a dog or cat abroad and 61% do not know that rabies can be transmitted if an infected animal licks an open wound or scratch.

As a result, the organisation is launching its Think Rabies Before You Travel campaign, urging holidaymakers to check local rabies risk, avoid contact with unfamiliar animals and seek immediate help after any potential exposure this summer.

A number of passengers needed medical treatment after the accident near the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, south-eastern Mexico

A group of backpackers including several Brits cheated death when their Mexican tour bus was stopped by a single bollard – as it rolled towards a terrifying 1,000m drop. They paid for a tour of the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, south-eastern Mexico, in July and, after walking around to take in the view, boarded their tour bus at the top of a steep drop – when it started rolling backwards.

The group say they feared they were headed for the canyon and many of them started diving off the bus headfirst to save themselves. Luckily, the bus hit a bollard and came to a stop before going over the edge.

But many of the passengers have been left traumatised by the near-death ordeal, with some suffering physical injuries and needing hospital treatment. James Gamble, 30, from Portsmouth, said: “I honestly thought I was going to die. It was hands-down the most terrifying experience of my life.

“Everyone was diving off the bus headfirst, thinking we were headed for the canyon. I just imagined the bus tilting backwards with nothing I could do.

“It was horrific. I didn’t stop shaking for an hour afterwards; people who weren’t even on the bus were crying and having panic attacks.”

James says that one passenger, Madeleine Glen, had tried to grab the handbrake as the bus was rolling, but it was already up. Several passengers were hospitalised following the terrifying incident after injuring themselves fleeing the bus.

Sophie Badelt, 22, from Switzerland, hit her head on a parked car as she dove from the moving bus and was bleeding profusely. A British nurse from another tour of the canyon helped to bandage her head while they waited for an ambulance.

Brit Hugo Evans, 20, was also injured in the ordeal and bandaged at the scene by paramedics. He said: “I dove out of the van, headfirst – that was the only option. I was in a blind panic. I thought we were going to die for sure.

“I hit my head on the floor and there was a lot of blood. I thought we were headed for the cliff. Everyone was freaking out when Sophie was screaming… She was drenched in blood. It was terrifying.”

The tour left on July 9 and cost 600 Mexican Pesos (£25.66) per person. All the passengers have since been refunded, and Sophie says that she has been compensated for her medical bills after weeks of back-and-forth.

There were three Dutch passengers – Britt van Engelen, 28, Yesol Sihn 29, and Floris van Neer, 30. Also onboard was Belgian tourist Hanne, 23, and Australian pair Garrison Hamlin, 28, and Brodie Hampson, 28.

James, a former journalist, says he stayed on the bus until it came to a halt and that he has been left shaken by the ordeal. He added: “We took some photos of the canyon at the viewpoint and were told to get back on the bus. The van was parked on a hill and I was sat near the back.

“We all piled back on the bus and, as the last people were getting on, we started rolling backwards. Maddy tried the handbrake, but it was already up and panic set in within seconds.

“Then there was an almighty crash as we hit the bollard and the five of us still on darted off the bus. The first thing we saw was Sophie lying on the floor, crying desperately for help and with blood seeping out of her head.”

The tour operator was approached for comment.

Khan Yunis: As monitors beep and doctors consult near them, two tiny newborns lie silently side-by-side, sharing a single incubator in a southern Gaza hospital running short on space and supplies.

Gaza’s youngest already face an extremely precarious entry into the world, given the dire humanitarian situation in the war-shattered territory that borders Israel and Egypt.

But for babies needing specialist care, such as those born prematurely, the road ahead is even more perilous.

“The situation is dire: there is no oxygen available for them, nor is there any spare incubators in the hospital,” said Hatem Dhahir, head of the neonatal department at Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

“We’re trying to transfer them to other hospitals, but they’re always full and the situation is very bad. Most of the children need oxygen and are very underweight, and things are going from bad to worse,” he told AFP.

The war between Israel and Hamas has devastated the Palestinian territory’s healthcare system, with many medical facilities rendered completely or partially unusable.

Ongoing Israeli restrictions on goods entering the Gaza Strip mean medical supplies and specialist equipment are also running low.

Dhahir said Nasser hospital had seen a significant increase in the number of premature births in recent months, as well as twins and triplets.

The influx was forcing staff to place two or even three babies in each incubator, he said.

In March, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said that one in three pregnancies in Gaza were high-risk and 70 percent of newborns were premature or underweight.

Incubator sharing significantly increased mortality risks, it said.

‘No room’

Nearly the entirety of Gaza’s population was displaced at least once during the devastating war which started in October 2023.

The fighting flattened swathes of the territory, left hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and temporary shelters and shattered vital infrastructure such as sanitation and access to safe water.

Despite a US-backed ceasefire declared in October 2025, the Israeli military continues to target Palestinians it says are militants.

A UN-mandated inquiry published in June said that severe shortages of food, medical supplies, fuel and the collapse of healthcare services had an enormous impact on maternal health.

“Against this background, rates of miscarriage, stillbirth, low-birthweight infants and congenital defects have increased,” the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry said.

Heart conditions were among three types of congenital defects to have particularly increased, the commission said, citing medical practitioners.

In southern Gaza, Mona Ahmad was accompanying a baby taken to Nasser hospital in late August and diagnosed with a serious congenital defect in which the heart’s two main blood vessels are switched in position.

“We received a final report stating that the baby was suffering from transposed arteries and needed to be transferred, as there was absolutely no treatment available for her here,” Ahmad told AFP.

“The baby spent a full week in the neonatal unit and was discharged because there was no room for her there,” she added.

In a bid to revive Gaza’s neonatal care system, the UN children’s agency UNICEF has scaled up its work to supply medical equipment such as incubators, ventilators and monitors to hospitals.

Including work that began before the ceasefire, UNICEF has supplied 93 incubators to six facilities across the Gaza Strip.

But challenges remain immense and more needs to be done, said Toby Fricker, chief of advocacy and communications for UNICEF Palestine, following a visit to a neonatal intensive care unit in the territory.

For now, “through the pure… resilience of the doctors, of people, things are working,” he said.

After two of his children fell ill on an all-inclusive Jet2 trip to Turkey, Blake Chapman decided to abandon the holiday and fly home – but says he was left £10,000 out of pocket

A furious dad says he was left £2,000 out of pocket after a holiday nightmare – despite having paid for travel insurance. Blake Chapman flew out with his 29-year-old partner Abbey Andrews and their three children Keeton, 11, Tobias, 3, and Vienna 1, on August 6. They had paid for 10-day £8,000 all-inclusive Jet2 holiday in the Turkish resort of Alanya.

But the family’s holiday started to go wrong just two days after they landed in Turkey, when Blake and Abbey’s youngest child, Vienna, fell ill with symptoms of severe food poisoning. “It started happening with my one-year-old two days in,” Blake said. “She was completely fine then it got to about 11:15pm and she started projectile vomiting, really bad diarrhoea, temperature.

“Because we were in a different country we panicked. I ran down to reception, they told me that they’d call an ambulance. They got to the hospital, they put an IV drip in Vienna.”

Soon after arriving at the hospital, Blake was presented with a £2,000 bill. “I argued it because I said that we’ve got insurance and I paid for the higher insurance,” he said. “In the end I just paid it.”

But things went from bad to worse when the couple’s three-year-old son Tobias began to show the same symptoms.

Blake said: “The following day around 1.00pm we all got out of the pool just about to get some dinner and it happened to my three-year-old Tobias. We kind of knew what to expect this time. Tobias was being sick in the hospital.”

Faced with the prospect of a second massive bill, Blake refused hospital treatment for Tobias and consulted a pharmacist instead.

Meanwhile, although Blake had been given an explanation for Vienna’s symptoms, he didn’t entirely believe it. He continued: ”We got the doctor’s report and they put it down to dehydration but I’m like a helicopter dad, I took the kids all over the world, we’ve never had a problem.

“When Vienna went to hospital she had a blood test and they said she’s got high white blood cells so that indicated an infection. I don’t believe it is dehydration because I’m not going to sit with a one-year-old in the beaming sun.”

With two of his children seriously unwell, Blake made the decision to abandon the holiday: “My plan was ‘let’s get out of here, let’s fly home’,” he says.

Blake says he tried to get hold of the Jet2 rep without success, so he called the company direct. Despite being told that his insurance claims could potentially take months to process, Blake and Abbey decided to leave the hotel before anyone else fell ill, spending another £950 on flights, arriving back in the UK on August 11.

“It’s put me off all-inclusives,” Blake says. “I would never go to Turkey again in my life from this experience.

He stressed that he wasn’t holding anyone responsible, but was frustrated by the slow process of his insurance claim. ”I’m not blaming the hotel, I’m not blaming the hospital for us being ill but it was how we were left in the dark,” he said.

“It’s very frustrating, very emotional. What I want to do is spread awareness because people think if you go all inclusive with the full travel insurance too then you’ll be OK if anything happens – but we were asked to pay thousands.”

A spokesperson for Jet2holidays said: “We were very sorry to hear that members of the Chapman family became unwell during their holiday. Our in-resort team made attempts to contact the family to offer support, but they had already departed before we were able to speak to them.

“Our teams on the ground work tirelessly to support customers throughout their holidays, and we remain committed to providing help whenever it is needed.”

TEHRAN: A fuel tanker exploded in western Iran, killing 11 people and injuring seven others, state media said.

IRNA reported late Saturday that the tanker hit other cars before bursting into flames near a traffic police station close to the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (248 miles) west of the capital, Tehran. The report cited a faulty brake system.

The injured were transferred to hospitals.

In 2018, a similar road accident between a fuel tanker and an intercity passenger bus near Sanandaj killed 15 people and injured four.

Road and traffic accidents annually leave more than 17,000 dead in Iran. Experts blame the high fatality rate on unsafe vehicles, disregard for traffic rules, and inadequate emergency services.

Emmerdale star Olivia Bromley shed real tears when she filmed the tragic death of her character, Dawn Fletcher, tonight. Due to marry bad boy Joe Tate, their plans were scuppered when Jimmy King crashed into the wedding marquee, causing a big explosion, and pregnant Dawn was rushed to hospital.

Sent into premature labour, while Dawn gave birth safely to a baby boy with Joe at her side, she had a serious internal bleed. Suddenly, without warning, she crashed and, despite medics’ best efforts to resuscitate her, she died.

In her first interview since the explosive scenes, Olivia, 30, who was originally signed by Emmerdale for just 12 episodes in 2018, tells The Mirror: “It was the toughest storyline I’ve done during my time in the soap.

“I was surprised by how emotional I found it and it was way more emotional than I was expecting. I did cry. It is very strange to kill off your character as an actor and in front of your colleagues. But that said, what a gift to be given. Often people leave and just slip off.”

The actress was told earlier this year her character would be at the heart of a huge exit storyline during the soap’s biggest week of the year. Having reached a crossroads playing Dawn, she says it was almost a relief to have the decision over what to do with the role made for her.

She says: “This is a good time for me to go on a personal level. I had felt ready for the character to go. This character felt like she had done so much and I didn’t know what direction she could go in next. I had played her for a long time, and it felt like I needed to do other things. I am proud this was such a big finale to my time in the soap.”

But news that Dawn was being killed off came as a bolt from the blue and she confesses she would have liked to have left the door open to one day return.

Despite the initial shock, she says: “Psychologically, now I have had time to reflect, I know it’s good for me, because I can say bye to my Emmerdale chapter. It’s been brilliant. I was originally only signed up for 12 episodes and I’ve stayed eight years!”

And if viewers found her final scenes surprisingly realistic, she can now share the secret – that real life paramedics, rather than actors, were used to make the medical scenes convincing. She says: “They had real life paramedics and intensive care workers who came in to play those parts. Emmerdale is a fast-paced soap and we often don’t have time to train actors up, so they bring supporting people in with a lot of experience.”

Likening it to an “out of body” experience, she adds of her character’s death scenes: “They had rehearsed the crash response with Ned [who plays Joe Tate] and the supporting artists first and, right at the last minute, they put me in the scene. I had no idea what was going on.

“They went into the crash response, and it felt like an out of body experience lying there. They were all so professional and brilliant at what they did.”

But Olivia is sad that Dawn’s life ended so tragically. She says: “Even though she was able to cradle the baby with her children and Joe by her side, nobody had picked up on her bleeding internally. Finally, she had got what she wanted and so it was a sad end for her.”

Dawn originally arrived in the village as a drug addicted sex worker. Her big storylines included finding her long lost son and her on-off romance with her big love, ex-husband Billy. But she fell for Joe Tate in January 2025, after embarking on an affair behind Billy’s back.

They got engaged in December 2025 and by February 2026 discovered they were expecting a baby. But in recent months, Dawn, who had two other children and an adopted daughter, had been troubled by her lingering feelings for Billy.

And when he was attacked last month, she believed Joe was responsible and had planned to escape with Billy, rather than marrying the bad boy. However, in a massive plot twist, it became apparent Billy had actually been attacked by Kev – making Dawn want to marry Joe after all.

Olivia says: “Only a few weeks ago, she was talking about escaping with Billy, but in the end chose Joe. If Dawn hadn’t returned to Joe at the end, she would still be alive now. Billy is her true love but ultimately, she is an addict and she was drawn to Joe.”

She continues: “I’ve loved playing Dawn and I’ve enjoyed watching her develop and change. I’ve made many friends too and I am going to miss them a lot – especially everyone at Home Farm and Jay, who plays Billy. We are like brother and sister; we get on so well.”

Away from Emmerdale, Olivia lives happily in Leeds with her partner, who she keeps out of the public eye. She says: “My life has changed since joining the show. It has given me stability and, alongside the character, I’ve grown and changed. It’s made me ambitious in different ways and taken my life in a different way.”

After graduating from Oxford School of Drama, Olivia moved to London to work in theatre, before the call from Emmerdale came. She says: “This did change things for me and to be a working actor for eight years has been very special.”

And she would love to continue working in TV drama. She says: “I want to try some new things. It’s an exciting time and I would love to do a period drama or a gritty 9pm drama like Line of Duty.”

Now awaiting auditions, she has her leaving party to look forward to next weekend. She says: “It’s themed and I think we all deserve a drink after such a chaotic, complex end for Dawn. I’m also looking forward to just being me and not Dawn!”

As for Emmerdale without her? Olivia says: “The audience will go on a rollercoaster I am sure! I will always be so grateful to Emmerdale for giving me this role and to have been able to play Dawn fully until the end has been so much fun.”

*Emmerdale airs every weekday on ITV1 and STV1 at 8pm. Episodes can also be downloaded on ITVX.