Nursing may not be among the first occupations that springs to mind when the word 'danger' is mentioned but a recent Forbes magazine feature in the USA did identify nurses and nurses' aides as one of the top two groups experiencing among the highest rates of injury at work, albeit usually from lifting and handling incidents [22] . In addition, Hall and colleagues in the US reported that: "Nursing assistants working in long-term care facilities have the highest incidence of workplace violence of any American worker". [23] Nurses in our Emergency Departments experience perhaps even more severe episodes of violence. In Scotland, we used to joke that any particularly rough place was: "Like casualty on a Friday night", but it is no joke now. In a recent Australian survey from WA, Rose Chapman and colleagues found that: "The majority (92%) of nurses said they had been verbally abused, 69% had been physically threatened and 52% had been physically assaulted". "Only 16% of the nurses completed an official incident report. Reasons for not reporting included the view that Work Place Violence is just part of the job, and the perception that management would not be responsive". [24] Would Emergency Department nurses see themselves as 'heroes'? Almost certainly not, as they seem to have internalized a workplace culture where abuse and violence is not an aberration but simply something that "comes with the job" [25] and where reporting such abuse is scarcely worth the trouble. Perhaps if we return to the definition of heroism as 'providing service in the face of extreme personal danger', then our Emergency Department nurses should allow themselves to feel, at least somewhat heroic.