EASTENDERS legend Natalie Cassidy has revealed her daughter was rushed to hospital for surgery after a playground accident.
The actress, who plays nurse Sonia Fowler in the soap, revealed Joanie, seven, broke her arm in two places.
Joanie is Natalie‘s daughter with cameraman fiance Marc Humphreys, and he was filming BBC Proms when the accident happened.
Natalie revealed Joanie told doctors she heard “a loud click” while doing a cartwheel, and spoke about her daughter’s “horrible” ordeal needing general anaesthetic.
The mum-of-two explained: “We went into the hospital, she had her operation, she went under general anaesthetic which is horrible, it’s really really horrible to watch your child go under general anaesthetic and I felt rather stressed.
“Mark came with me in the morning but he was filming the Proms so he had to go off and I sat there in the hospital.
“It’s meant to be roughly about an hour until they give you a call to say go down and meet your daughter in recovery.”
The actress also paid tribute to the hard-working staff at the hospital in Harlow, Essex, adding: “Hour, hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes, two hours, two and a quarter.
“I thought ‘What is going on?’, what’s happened?’, then this lovely nurse called Carla, all the staff by the way in Harlow are so wonderful.
“So anyway it was about two and a half hours, I went down to see Joanie and they had to put two plates in [her] arm to hold the bones together because Joanie had broken two bones, so she’s got two little plates in her arm.
“They’ve had to make some incisions, little cuts…because her bones were too small, couldn’t get the wires through and we weren’t really sure if we were going to be going on holiday.
“The big news is we’re going on holiday.”
Natalie also had an older daughter, 13-year-old Eliza, with ex Adam Cottrell.
The TV star, who has been on screens since the 90s, posted a family photo from their holiday to Greece after Joanie’s accident almost scuppered their plans.
She captioned a sweet photo of their family: “We made it on our holdiay. Greece has been beautiful, a full week of only worrying about what we are eating, getting the good sunbeds and what ice creams we are eating next @elscass I think I’m converted.”
She added: “The waterproof cover for Joanie’s arm has been a life saver, thank you for all your lovely messages.
“Always look forward to coming home and seeing family and getting into my own bed though.”
Natalie received lots of comments from her co-stars wishing Joanie well.
One fan replied: “Omg Nat I’m SO SO happy you went! Bless you Joanie! Enjoy every second!”
Another said: “So pleased you actually went! And yes it’s always good to get home, washing on, cup of tea and your own bed.”
It comes as Natalie revealed she will be taking a break from Walford and is teaming up with Channel 4 to front a brand new programme all about current trending products.
The new lifestyle programme is called What’s The Big Deal? and the four-part series comes off the back of Channel 4’s popular Air Fryer programme which investigated Britain’s latest craze.
Natalie is currently in the throes of a major storyline on the BBC soap opera.
Her character Sonia is pregnant with Reiss Colwell’s baby after undergoing rounds of IVF for a lengthy period of time.
Panicked by looming money woes, Reiss recently turned villain as he shockingly killed his wife Debbie who had laid in a coma throughout his time romancing Sonia.
