Caleb Miligan (William Ash) is not the man he was when he came to Emmerdale. For a start he used to have two kidneys, and now he only has one.
Caleb was targeted by Joe Tate (Ned Porteous), who needed a kidney transplant and decided to look for a donor among his available relatives.
The more gullible and younger Noah Dingle (Jack Downham) was the first choice, but Joe’s attempt to get him to go to Dubai where the procedure would then have taken place was thwarted by Charity (Emma Atkins).
Then an attempt to drug Noah led to him escaping and wandering into the path of a limo driven by Charity, which caused the fateful limo crash.
Joe decided to cast his quest for an organ elsewhere and luckily his uncle Caleb proved to be a match. Not that Caleb realised this as he was tested without him knowing after Manpreet (Rebecca Sarker) tricked him into giving a blood sample.
Recently we saw Caleb being deliberately stabbed, so that he could then be treated by Joe’s surgeon Dr Crowley (James Hillier), who fixed up the stab wound and also whipped out one of Caleb’s kidneys at the same time.
Caleb almost died on the operating table, as the original stab wound had been quite serious. Crowley managed to save his life and complete the transplant successfully.
As far as Caleb is aware, his kidney was damaged during the attack on him and Crowley had no option but to remove it to save his life. The person who stabbed him has been arrested, but the police don’t have enough evidence to charge him.
Caleb vows that his attacker will face justice, and his brother Cain (Jeff Hordley) pledges to do everything he can to see the attacker put behind bars.
Caleb’s near-d.e.a.t.h experience has a profound effect on the two brothers, who were previously at war over Cain sleeping with Ruby (Beth Cordingly). Caleb is determined to make the most of his family and never take them for granted and he and Cain have a beer together.
In heartwarming scenes the brothers assert that, if anything should happen to either of them, they’d always care for each other’s families.
It’s a rare moment of togetherness for Cain and Caleb – and in their new-found unity, if they ever discover that Joe Tate was behind the whole scheme he would be in extremely serious trouble.
And with Ross (Mike Parr) already suspicious that Joe just happened to be on the scene when Caleb was attacked, Joe’s day of reckoning could be coming sooner than he’d hope.
