'The smell that day will always stay with me' - Nurse with incurable breast cancer who ran to help victims of Bradford City fire retires after four decades
Nurse Angela O’Neill ran to help victims of the Bradford City Fire four decades ago. Now, with an incurable cancer diagnosis, she’s hanging up her nurses uniform. Laura Reid reports.
It was May 11, 1985 and “organised chaos” ensued as Angela and her colleagues tended to the dozens of injured and traumatised victims who flooded the hospital, scarred by what is still one of the darkest days in West Yorkshire’s history. “The smell of burning flesh will go to my grave with me,” the 62-year-old says now. “I’ll never forget that.”
Angela had only been qualified for a year at the time of the tragedy and is now believed to be the last nurse still working at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust who was involved in caring for victims of the Bradford City Football Club fire.
After 44 years of service however, and with a terminal breast cancer diagnosis, she’s retiring her nurse’s uniform and is set to complete her final shift at Bradford’s Trauma and Orthopaedics Outpatients Clinic at the end of this month.
“I think orthopaedics and trauma is one of those disciplines where you either love it or you hate it and from qualifying and working in it, it’s gripped me,” she reflects. “It’s been the mainstay of my career…and I’ve had an amazing career.”
Angela began her State Enrolled Nurse training in 1982, qualifying in 1984. The following year, she was called into work whilst living in the nurses' home at BRI, joining colleagues in responding to the Bradford City fire.
She says: "I picked up the communal phone and heard a voice say, 'Get as many off-duty staff down to A&E as soon as possible to help with burns’ patients’. A colleague and I ran as fast as we could, but when we got to the lower corridor - where A&E is based - the smell of burning flesh stopped you in your tracks.
"It was chaos - because of the number of staff and people in the department - but organised chaos as the team leaders were brilliant and the teamwork was second to none. Everybody came together and the camaraderie between patients and staff was amazing. In the face of such adversity, it was that community spirit that pulled us through."
Angela, who lives in Keighley, was directed towards a former gym area for amputees, where she and colleagues set up a dressing clinic for the walking wounded, tending to minor burns to hands and feet.
She then continued to care for survivors in the weeks and months that followed while working on one of the trauma wards, helping patients to recover from burns, fractures and life-changing injuries.
In 1994, Angela converted to become a Registered General Nurse and has continued to build her career in trauma and orthopaedic nursing. She has witnessed many changes over that time, particularly in medical and technological advancements and says she’s one of few remaining staff who remembers traction being used as the main method for treating fractures - and how long the recovery process could be.
“Now the vast majority of people who need intervention, it’s surgical so they’re up and about much quicker than they ever were,” she notes. “Patients are not in hospital as long as they used to be...We’ve gone from nursing patients for three or four months at a time in hospital to days and weeks.”
“The NHS has changed massively in my lifetime,” she continues. “To be able to stay in the NHS and be successful you have got to be able to adapt to changes constantly. Things evolve and develop all the time, and you’ve got to be an adaptable person to go with that flow of change and embrace it.”
One of Angela’s proudest achievements came as matron of a trauma, breast and orthopaedics ward, where she led a turnaround in standards, culture and patient care and saw the team’s efforts recognised with an internal award. She says it has been a particular privilege, too, to care for breast surgery patients, providing reassurance and empathy to people facing a journey that she knew herself.
In 2009, after finding a lump, Angela was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, which meant she had to take nearly a year away from work.
“Being diagnosed was a massive shock,” she reflects. “I think because I was a single parent and my daughter was 14 at the time, I couldn’t put myself in a position where that was going to get me down or get on top of me so I dealt with it as each day came and did my utmost to stay positive and get through it.”
Later in her career, “it felt an honour to support patients going through the same journey as I had,” she says. “Being able to tell someone, 'I know what you're going through, and you will come out the other side,' was a privilege."
In 2022, Angela was then diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. Whilst there’s no cure, there is treatment to help relieve symptoms and control and slow down the disease – and Angela has continued to care for patients for the last four years.
But it is “a lottery” how long she has left, she says, explaining why she has now decided to retire. She plans to focus on travelling and spending time with her loved ones including her husband, grandchildren and elderly parents. “I’ve had a long career with ups and downs along the way,” she says. “But I feel proud that I have been able, even through all my adversities, to serve the people of Bradford.”