With the season finale of ER airing last night, I am reminded of how much crap has happened to that poor hospital, especially it’s ER. I mean, seriously, if this place were real, it would have been shut down by season six. Off the top of my head, we have:
A stabbing that injured on doctor and killed a med student
A desk clerk blew up an ambulance because a gun nut patient brought in a loaded and working grenade launcher
A former patient steals a tank and drives it to the hospital
A suspected small pox case forces the evacuation of the hospital.
A doctor gets his arm chopped off by a helicopter. (Oh, and this happened during the evacuation because of the small pox, BTW.)
A doctor gets killed by a crashing helicopter. (And did I mention this is the same doctor that got his arm chopped off by a helicopter?)
There are lots more, and I’ll leave those to you to list.
That really happened in San Diego in the 1990s. A disgruntled former patient stole a tank from one of several local military bases and drove it to (I believe) Scripps Clinic, intending to show the hospital exactly what he thought of the care he received. Don’t remember many of the details.
He didn’t actually make it did he? In the famous case, a mand stile an M-60 and was shot by cops while he was beached on a highway barrier. There was another?
Something similar happen at the hospital my mom works at. An elderly lady drove her husband to the ER because he was having chest pains. She called and asked what entrance to use and was to to drive up the the ER entrance. She drove through the doors (they open automatically) and into the waiting area without realizing something was wrong. It was a small car so there was no damage (to the car or building) and nobody got hurt.
He got real close, at the very least. I don’t think he damaged the hospital–it’s now my clinic, so I would think I’d notice, but then again I didn’t live here until after it happened and people don’t really talk about it. I don’t think he was beached on a highway barrier, but maybe that was the guy. I don’t remember–I didn’t live here when it happened, I was probably around 8 or 10 anyway, and I only know about it from seeing a documentary about it after the fact, some 5 or 6 years ago. But I do remember that he was in La Jolla, where the hospital is, and he was on the right side of the neighborhood–I would assume he took the tank from a local Marine base, one of which is on an island pretty far away and the other of which is on the other side of town from La Jolla. There’s another Marine base a lot closer, in Point Loma, but it’s a training-only base, and I don’t think they would have much in the way of tanks. At the very least, I can tell you I’ve been on the base and haven’t seen any tanks.
There are a couple of Navy bases too and an Army reserve base. Could’ve been from the Army base; but I’ve spent a good amount of time on that base and seen lots of Hummers and Jeeps but no tanks. I guess every base in San Diego could have tanks, but how deep do you think this guy could infiltrate?
Although also he could’ve had actual military access. How he got it past the MPs even in that case, I don’t know. Again, I don’t remember much about it, but it happened and he got damn close to the hospital.
I didn’t see a mention of the time when Mark Greene was beaten up in the men’s room.
And I liked the amputation by helicopter, simply because NBC didn’t ruin it by revealing it in the promos, as they so often do. It just happened very quietly during the episode.
A patient’s mother walked outside, got in her car, doused herself in gasoline and burned herself to bits. Of course she lived long enough to have some drama with her husband and kids before dying.
They treated a monkey. (Pretend I don’t hate smilies and put the rolleyes here.)
Two doctors got driven off the road (into a river!) when another car opened fire.
A desk clerk got struck by lightning during his shift while running errands for doctors.
A nurse’s son stole a patient’s severed fingers.
This isn’t dangerous, per se, but it’s so fucking stupid I have to mention that a doctor handled being sick by driving a remote-control robot – complete with two-way video – around the ER, interfering with trauma patients.
For non-lethal but just crazy crap, how about the recurring unplanned pregnancy drama? Not just unplanned, mind you, the attending drama.
Get a teenager in there who’s preggers or caught the creeping crotch crud, and the County folks are all about the preaching and sermonizing about safe sex. But for a bunch of edumacated types, they seem to need a rousing slap with a clueX4.
Carole and Doug (post-breakup surprise twins, hemorraging)
Benton and Carla (preemie, hearing loss and a few years later paternity scare)
Mark and Elizabeth ( she was fine, he got cancer during the pregnancy)
Luka and the french chick he was banging (she aborted before he found out)
Luka and Sam (one very worried peeing on a stick, turned out negative)
Luka and Abby (cuz he’s just that fertile)
Susan and Chuck the pilot (they named it Cosmo and showed us Chuck ‘breastfeeding’)
Carter and Kem (cuz unprotected sex in the Congo with a veritable stranger is smart, baby died just prior to delivery)
Chen and the black nurse (racial drama, with a judgemental slut twist, ending in adoption)
Carrie and Sandy, at least they planned but they still got drama (Carrie miscarried, so Sandy delivered Henry safely but of course she died later)
Ray’s jailbait girl had an STD, but thankfully no pregnancy.
At the hospital where my dad used to work, a ten-year-old kid was left in a car outside the ER while his mother ran in to do something. The car was running with the keys in the ignition, and Sparky thought it would be fun to “pretend” to drive it. Somehow he got it into gear, and drove it at high speed into the ER reception area. Unfortunately the automatic doors didn’t open in time, and were totally destroyed, costing $50,000 to replace. Nobody hurt, but I’d bet the kid was grounded for a while…
An intern (Morris) smoking pot they confiscated from a patient (he’s lucky that helicopter pulled a Captain Hook on Romano. Rockin’ the ganja on his shift should have meant his ass). The icing on the cake is that he later became chief resident, as I recall.