That was Gant, played by Omar Epps, now better known as Foreman on House!
Erased what I originally wrote because I didn’t see that SigmaGirl beat me to it. Argh!
Anyway, like others I mostly gave up after Greene left. (I liked Carter too, but he became too much of a jerk.) Then my favorite character turned to Corday. But once Romano’s arm was sliced off, followed by a second helicopter accident, the increasing ridiculousness of the plots was too much to handle once and for all. And people make fun of daytime soaps! Yeesh.
Plus, the unceasing trials of Abby bored the heck out of me. I love Maura Tierney, at least on Newsradio, but … no.
The real problem, I think, was that ER seemed utterly joyless. Too bad.
I like to think that Gant just faked his death, assumed a new identity and started practicing in Philly. Maybe he had a twin brother that he pushed onto the tracks.
I still love the episode that featured Romano’s amputation by helicopter, because for once NBC didn’t spoil it in the previews and the actual event was so quick and quiet. (Well, as quiet as it can be with a running helicopter in the scene.) But then to have the same character be crushed by a helicopter falling off the roof? Now, that was ridiculous.
I think the same thing. He spent a long, long time in rehab, changed his name and is now working at Princeton-Plainsboro. 
The consensus on the internets seems to be that the most definitive shark-jumping moment was Romano getting crushed by a helicopter. After that would be Greene dying, followed by Carter’s leaving. I checked out shortly after the helicopter; I just didn’t like the new cast.
I still have to watch the last episode. Is the 1 hour clip show on Hulu as well?
Best episode ever (or maybe tied with Greene and the childbirth gone wrong). The whole episode was crazy-quiet as there were no emergencies, staff were playing wheelchair races, etc. Meanwhile Carter hadn’t stuck up for Gant (who wasn’t doing well) but Gant had the peaceful, that’s OK dude, that in retrospect you know means he had already decided to off himself. In the last minute or so of this tedious night comes a patient who jumped in front of the train…
My friend had actually changed the channel in the last minute because the episode was so quiet, and missed
“The patient…it’s Gant”
Carter: “O sweet Jesus!”
Did anyone else happen to notice that Ming Na (Dr. Jing-Mei Chen) only got like 1/8th of a second of screen time in the ‘retrospective’? Wasn’t she a fairly prominent member of the cast? Maybe her original exit wasn’t pleasant.
But speaking of unpleasant, I was generally surprised to see Alex Kingston (Dr. Elizabeth Corday) in any of these last episodes. She seemed pretty bitter when they axed her some years back for being too old and played out.
Ming Na’s original exit, back in Season One, was pleasant. Her second exit, however, was not. There was a lot of back and forth between her and TPTB about the marginalization of her character, the fact that they essentially took her out of the ER and made her a nursemaid for her father, and mucked up her relationship with Greg Pratt for no good reason. Not pretty.
I thought it was extremely gracious of her to come back as she did. Telling the truth about the crappiness of her dismissal from the show and how badly it hurt kind of killed her Hollywood career, she should and could have told them to go pound salt.
I just watched the retrospective on Hulu. Why didn’t they have any of the nurses on? Or Jerry? Borrrring.
I’m still pissed they canceled Chicago Hope.
We still have the show on the DVR, but my wife was only interested in watching if Doug Ross (Clooney) was on it. Can anyone confirm that he was or wasn’t on the series finale? Thanks. 
I think he was at the new building ceremony - but no, he did not have a story arc about him. That was a few episodes previous to the finale.
We just watched on DVR a couple days ago- if he was anywhere, it only could have been at the ceremony, and if he was there, he was just in a crowd shot. He was not featured at all. I kind of doubt he’d do the show just to be a face in the crowd, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in it at all.
Of course, I missed the first 8 minutes, so I guess he could have been in it, but I’m not betting on it.
Nope, neither Clooney nor Margulies was in the finale. I was a little disappointed, but they still got a very nice sendoff in the episode which aired a few weeks earlier.
Thanks!