Casualty fans gobsmacked as they realise actress starred in cult kids' TV show
CBBC children’s show Byker Grove saw the start of the highly successful career of TV duo Ant and Dec, but there’s also another famous face who rose to fame on the show. Sammy T Dobson, 38, known for her role as Nicola Piper on Casualty also hails from Newcastle and featured on the hit show, which was set in the city, from 2001 to 2005.
Sammy appeared as Sarah Young in the show for five seasons of the children's drama series, whilst Ant and Dec appeared as PJ and Duncan from 1989 to 1993. As well as Casualty and Byker Grove, other TV credits include the hit BBC comedy Boy Meets Girl and more recently Dave’s award-winning comedy Meet the Richardsons which has featured cameos from many comedians over the years including Russell Kane, Sally Phillips and Rob Beckett.
Since joining the BBC medical soap earlier this year, Nicole has been involved in a surrogate storyline, whereby she became a surrogate mother for her friend, Rosie, who was paralysed after the pair were in a car crash. It’s a storyline close to home for the actress, who was in a horrific smash of her own in 2010 which ripped off one eyelid, broke her thigh bone in two, left her face “looking like mincemeat”.
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It also put the star in a wheelchair for three months and left her fearing it was the end of her career. Speaking to the Mirror, Sammy said: “Life is so utterly unpredictable. I have come full circle! It felt so bizarre that I had lost my career because of a car accident and then I was being brought in as a character who’d had one. When they initially told me, ‘you’ve been in a car crash’, my instant reaction was, ‘how did you know?’ But they were talking about my character, Nicole, rather than me!”
“I just saw headlights right in front of me,” she recalled. “I tried to swerve to get out of his way, but he swerved the same way, so he hit my car at well over 50mph and it flipped over into an adjacent field.”
In the horror accident, Sammy revealed that her face went through the window as she tried to put her foot on the breaks, thigh bone snapped in two, as her right leg was the cause of impact. It then took an hour and a half for emergency services to cut her out.
Sammy also discovered that she had broken her back, meaning she had to learn to walk unaided again.
Casualty's Christmas special, All I Want For Christmas, is on BBC1 on Saturday, 21 December at 9.20pm
