ER/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< ER


  • In ER, Mark Greene was alone in an elevator with a child beater AND crazed shooter that threatened his family when the suspect started going into cardiac arrest. Mark, instead of saving him, lets him die while still discharging the defibrillator (just so it will show that he used it). Awesome.
    • It wouldn't stand up to a in-depth inquest, but still...
  • "Bob", a Polish immigrant who for most of her appearances in Season 1 worked as a clerk in the ER, performing an emergency procedure on a patient and saving his life. It turns out that in her home country she was a cardiothoracic surgeon and was studying for her board exams while doing scut work at County.
    • This later leads to a minor CMoH when Carter finds her in tears, thinking she's ruined her chances of ever getting certified in the US. Carter reassures her, offers to help her with her English for the board exams, and escorts her back into the reception area, where "Dr. Bob" is greeted with applause and cheers by the rest of the staff.
  • Doug Ross' rescue of a boy trapped in a flooding storm drain, under increasingly difficult circumstances. The shot of him triumphantly emerging from the river after getting the boy out is one of the most memorable in the show's decade-and-a-half run.
  • Carter taking charge after the hospital is contaminated by benzene and Weaver is incapacitated by the fumes. He takes an impossible situation and does the best he can with it, resulting in a lot of lives saved and him earning a personal commendation by the leader of the hazard team, even as the latter is calling out the whole situation as a complete mess that should never have happened.
  • Gabe Lawrence saving one more life as he leaves the hospital after recognizing his encroaching Alzheimer's Disease.
  • Corday's final confrontation with the serial killer who'd been psychologically tormenting her for weeks, coming up with the one way to beat him as she declares the very reason why she's unambiguously better than him, and she'll never be seeing him again. Then she turns and walks out, leaving him to impotently shout for her to come back.
  • Malucci and Chen were trying to treat a patient who died. They repeatedly paged Weaver, their attending, but she was outside the hospital on personal business and misplaced her pager. Weaver managed to insulate herself from the fallout, but Chen lost her job. She felt this was unfair and was pretty pissed at Weaver. She fought the ruling and managed to get her job back. She was feeling pretty good about herself and was mouthing off a bit to Weaver. Weaver, who was, after all, still her boss, finally decided she'd had enough and said, "Just remember one thing: If you'd been a better doctor that night you wouldn't have needed me at all. You're the one with blood on her hands, not me." Then she walked out of the room, leaving Chen floored and silent.
  • Weaver and Gallant performing an emergency C-section in an ambulance surrounded by rogue electrical wires, saving both mother and baby.