Liz Harker

Elizabeth "Liz" Harker is a paramedic who worked for the Holby Ambulance Service from 1994 to 1997.

Liz’s parents were academics and born-again Christians. She rebelled against their ideas by choosing not to go to university and plumping for nursing training instead. It didn't help the already strained relationship between them and she hadn't spoken to them for years.

She met John Beresford, a builder, when she was working as a senior staff nurse in Holby's geriatric ward. They moved in together and he set up his own business. By then she was finding nursing restricting, and thought there would be more of a challenge and more variety in the work of a paramedic. Liz certainly likes the relative freedom, likes driving the ambulance, likes using her initiative, and the patients like her cheery efficiency. But John begins to put pressure on Liz to start a family. She asks Josh about her prospects and he assures her she is doing fine so she decides that babies will have to wait.

Time with the Ambulance Service (1994-97)
In S9 E10 Liz Harker joins the team as the new paramedic. She is partnered with Josh and Liz questions him on why he decided to give up being a biker – Josh tells her after the mine incident, he realised he preferred working as a team. Mike attends his local village rugby match as team medic. The match becomes violent as another player taunts Frank who is the team captain, and he ends up being seriously injured in a scrum. Paramedics arrive and Liz, not knowing who Mike is, thinks he’s intefering. In S9 E12 an incident with a drainage sewer sees two boys and their father trapped by the surging waters. The team are upset when the youngest boy Finn dies. Josh takes Liz aside, ‘Don’t bottle it up – we’re only human’ and tells her paramedics must stick together. In S9 E14 Dennis, a man who suffers from Alzheimers disease, is brought in after taking an overdose of his wife’s painkillers. Jude asks for advice on the situation, but Dennis disappears from the cubicle and then walks in front of Liz’s ambulance. In S9 E15 Esther Clayton collapses on her way to school. Reluctant to stay, Mike discovers she has just had a baby. Jude tries to get her to open up, where she finally agrees to show them where the baby is. Esther takes Liz to the garden shed, where the baby is found sleeping peacefully. In S9 E20 Liz is celebrating her 29th birthday and her boyfriend, John, has sent her flowers to the hospital. In S9 E21 talkative Liz asks Josh about how she is progressing as a technician. In S9 E24 Josh and Liz have been called to a farm where a woman has trapped her leg in some machinery. She loses consciousness, and when a surgeon arrives the woman’s daughter is required to make a painful decision.

In S10 E3 Liz is held at knifepoint by a clinically depressed man. Josh delays calling the police to try and talk to him. The man tries to molest Liz; she feels betrayed by Josh. In S10 E7 A suicidal roman whose own baby died before it was christened steals a sick baby from the hospital; she takes the child to be christened, and Josh and Liz search frantically for the church. In S10 E9 a five year old boy is brought in by Josh and Liz after a hit and run accident. It turns out that he had wet his bed, and his mother’s new boyfriend had treated him severely. The mother tells her boyfriend to pack his bags. In S10 E15 a minibus with choir boys are on their way from church, driving along the road where the road traffic accident has been. When coming to the scene of an RTA, the driver loses control of the bus and they end up in the river. Father John manages to get everyone out of the vehicle and onto the river bank, everyone but Sam, one of the boys, who gets taken by the river. Everyone else is taken into A&E while Josh and Liz go to look after the boy. Eventually they find him, alive but cold and wet. In S10 E24 the paramedics are at the RTA scene and quickly take both Wyn Owen and Stuart to hospital. Moira is about to give birth and they only get her to the backseat of the limousine, but there is no time to take her to hospital or even to the closest ambulance. Liz helps Moira give birth to a little baby girl, even though she has never done that before. Later on in hospital Moira tells Stuart, her husband, that she is going to call the baby Liz. Kay, the driver of the limousine, seems to be alright even though she hit her head at the steering wheel in the crash. She helps Moira, but all in sudden, when Josh comes to check her out, she collapses. When they bring her into resus she is deeply unconscious and there is nothing they can do to save her.

In S11 E5 Josh and Liz have a violent drug addict in their ambulance, picked up together with his more sensible brother and an unconscious tramp. Josh alerts the police as he searches for drugs. In S11 E7 Josh and Liz rescue a girl involved in an accident in the middle of nowhere. Mike talks Josh through doing a chest drain over the telephone. Back in resus, the girl deteriorates and dies. A father attacks the boy who supplied his daughter with the drugs she died taking. A car chase and RTA follow. Josh and Liz take them to hospital. Jude tries to calm the father, who breaks down. In S11 E8 Gerry is a homeless woman who comes into reception, all drunk. Gloria checks her and sends her out again, because there is nothing wrong with her. When Gerry gets out she climbs to the top of some things from a building site. Two men that notice this start chasing here away, but when she runs along a brick wall she suddenly falls down from it. Josh and Liz bring her into A&E, but she seems okay, apart from the fact that she does not agree to stay calm for a single second. In S11 E9 two little girls are rescued by Josh and Liz in the helicopter from a caravan site where a caravan has come adrift and crashed. The parents argue about whose fault it was. One of the mothers has to reconsider how she has brought up her child. In S11 E10 a place is set up where people during the day can go to donate blood and Gloria is trying to make a list of volunteers from the staff. Some happily put their name on the list, but Richard and Liz try to avoid the whole thing. Josh is pestering Liz about not giving blood and eventually it turns out that she cannot give blood, because she has recently had a tattoo done. Everyone wants to know what it looks like and where it is, but she does not show it to anyone but Mike, who claims that it says “I love Josh”. Towards the end of the shift Mike is told that a doctor is needed at some place and Josh and Liz take him there by ambulance. When he opens the door to where the patient is supposed to be, he finds all his colleagues in the middle of Africa-themed decorations. Everyone is saying goodbye to Mike and the paramedics give him a helmet that looks like the head of an animal. In S11 E17 Liz and Penny are called out to a baby who turns out to be Abby Louis who is being looked after by his nanny, Margaret. In S11 E18 Josh and Liz arrive with a man suffering chest pains, but with no symptoms. He explains the pains are those of his twin brother, who indeed turns up having a heart attack and dies. The other twin’s pain stops abruptly, but then he suddenly drops dead. In S11 E20 Liz and Josh get a call and are shocked when they realise that they are asked to go to a fire at Josh’s house. Both of his children, Sarah and Ashley, and his wife Helen had been at home and an explosive fire had started when Helen put the water on to get some tea. Liz is trying to drive as fast as she can and Josh is shouting, out of the window, for everyone to give way and asking Liz to drive faster. When they arrive at Josh’s house, it is all on fire and the fire brigade bring out Helen and Ash, both dead. Eventually they bring out Sarah, who was upstairs and she is still alive, but badly burnt. Liz and Penny bring her into A&E, with Josh sitting next to Sarah. The staff are upset when they hear that Josh’s daughter is being brought in and that his wife and son have died. The team tries to save Sarah, but she had bad burns covering thirty percent of her body, and soon went into DF. They tried to resuscitate her, but Baz eventually says that they should stop. Josh storms off to the staff room, where Liz is trying to make him some tea. Everyone is upset and Baz tells KEYWORD:Richard that it feels bad not being able to tell Josh that Sarah died peacefully, because he knows that she was in a lot of pain. In S11 E22 Bereaved Josh is back on the job with Liz, but she is unsure he is ready to be back working so soon after the incident. In S11 E24 Josh is having a rough time, but he does not admit that he needs counseling. He is not at all sympathetic towards William Turnbull, more or less saying that he is a lost case. When they have a call and the patient turns out to be a woman with toothache, he almost loses it, telling her that someone might have died while they were there, trying to help her toothache. Eventually Josh blames Liz for what happened to his family, saying that it was her fault that they got stuck in traffic while his family was burning to death. They end up crying together in front of the ambulance.

In S12 E6 Liz’s boyfriend leaves her for another woman, and she apologises to Josh for her recent bad temper. In S12 E9 Liz and Josh stop at a car accident on their way back from another call. Electing to stay with the three injured people, Liz does what she can while waiting for paramedic Penny to arrive. At casualty the man cannot be saved, but his girlfriend is encouraged to look after his mentally handicapped brother. She initially rejects this idea, as she always wanted the brother put in a home. Eventually she agrees, but says Liz might as well have left them by the roadside for all the good it did in the end. In S12 E11 Liz tells Josh that she has handed in her notice, because she cannot any longer stand constantly dreaming about accidents. In S12 E12 When Josh and Liz come to treat a patient called Anna in the flat on the twentieth floor Jerry locks the door after them and does not want them to take Anna to hospital to have x-rays. Josh says that he needs to call control to tell them that they will not bring Anna in, but Jerry starts shouting at Josh, saying he has to give him the radio. Jerry puts a knife in front of Liz’s throat, but they manage to get him to calm down a bit, enough for Danny to be able to knock him out. They quickly help Anna outside and take her towards the lifts, but Jerry does not stay unconscious for long. The lift starts going downwards exactly as he reaches the lift, so instead he goes and turns the lift off, leaving them sitting inside of it in torchlight. Ambulance control gets worried about Josh and Liz as they have not heard anything from them and they call Charlie to ask if he knows where they are, but Mark reckons they are sitting somewhere eating Chinese to celebrate Liz’s last day at work. Meanwhile Josh and Liz are trying to work out a way to get out of the lift, but soon Jerry is sitting on top of the lift, with a shiny knife in his hands, saying that if Anna is not living with him she is not living with anybody. However, soon Josh manages to get the lift moving and everyone gets out of it, apart from Liz who is still stuck in the lift with Jerry. Jerry is holding a knife at her throat, but when the lift starts moving again and gets to the bottom he pushes Liz out of the lift, at the same time as the police cars are arriving. Jerry goes back up with the lift, trying to find Anna and Danny. They manage to get Anna safely to hospital, but a while later Jerry appears at the hospital, pretending to be her brother. He is threatening Anna, but eventually Liz talks him into giving the knife away and the police take him. This is also Liz’s last day at work. At first she is planning to travel around Central America, so by the end of the shift Liz asks Josh if he can drive her straight to the train as she does not feel up to going to her leaving do. Josh thanks her for having been there when he lost his family and then she leaves.