Brenda Summers was a battered wife who was befriended by Emily Bishop at Weatherfield General hospital in July 1978. Emily was working as an orderly and learned from Nurse Purcell that Brenda appeared at the hospital every so often sporting new injuries which she claimed were caused by accidents like falling down the stairs and walking into doors. When the woman was still at the hospital as Emily was leaving at the end of her shift, Emily suggested that she come home with her to 3 Coronation Street, where she got the nervous but defiant woman to admit that her husband John sometimes lashed out at her, and not for any real reason, but that she stayed with him as he was genuinely sorry afterwards, explaining away his violence as a symptom of depression.