The nurses are at an ACLS class and the ER is busy.  Abby seems to be the only nurse on staff.  Pratt is not willing to do a nurses job.  Weaver has been out of town in Barbados.  The ER is down three nurses.  Gallant says that they can help and Carter agrees that they can pitch in.  Pratt asks him if he always does what a nurse tells him?  Carter tells him that Abby is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of nurses.  Pratt asks, does that make you Yoda?  Two lawyers are brought in after burning their feet on hot coals doing a bonding exercise to help them get along better.  Carter begins to smell smoke and then sees the man's pant leg burning.  He has carried one of the hot coals in the cuff of his pant.  The man kicks the coal out and the gurney sheet begins to burn.  Carter grabs a coat and starts to try and smother the fire.  Abby walks over and grabs a fire extinguisher off of the wall and she sprays it toward the fire.  She puts the fire out and Carter gets covered with the extinguisher foam.

Dr. Chen is with Stan, who has a chill and not feeling very well.  He is the homeless man that we have seen in different episodes this season.  Jing-Mei tells him that she has the flu, but he doesn't see her in bed.  Stan tells her that he can't rest behind the dumpster.  He would rather find a bed there in the ER.  She tells Pratt to take care of him.  Abby and Carter are tending to the lawyer's feet.  They are not agreeing on much.  He still seems upset about the fire extinguisher incident.  Malik tells them to just kiss and make up.  He also tells them that there a multiple M.V.A. is on the way in.  The paramedics roll up with a fifty year old bus driver named Marge Satterfiled.  She had a bus load of senior citizens and they were on their way to a casino when they had a head on collision.  She hit head on with a twenty-one-year old man named Colin Prentice.  He is in worse shape because he was driving a Gremlin.  He broke the steering wheel with his chest and he cut his head.  Pratt tends to him and Luka tends to the bus driver.  Chen takes care of Lenora Fong.  She does not speak any English, but Jing-Mei can communicate with her.  Abby asks Jerry to call the nurses back from their class, but he tells her that he called and they are on break.  The ER is now really busy and they cannot handle everyone.  A man walks up to Abby and tells her that his family has been waiting for a long time and that his two children are really sick and need to see a doctor.  Abby tells him that they are really busy and they will have to keep waiting.  Luka is checking on the bus driver and Susan and Pratt are working on the Gremlin driver.  The patients are getting restless and a roaming the halls of the ER.  Carter tells them all to get back to the admit area and he tells Gallant to help.  Jing-Mei is working on Ms. Fong.  Ms. Fong grabs her hand a she tells Dr. Chen that she feels like she has a fever.  The other patient mentions that the bus driver was twitching before the accident.  Carter thinks that she may of had a seizure.  Gallant comes to tell Carter that there are two really sick children in chairs.  They were there one week ago with a fever and now they both have a rash, which started three days ago.  Carter goes with Gallant and looks at them.  The father tells him that he tried to tell the nurse, but she would not listen.  The kid's names are Bree and Adam.  Adam is not as bad off as his sister.  Carter tells Gallant to put masks on the kids and then he heads to the lounge.  Malik is in the lounge and Carter asks him if he knows where the tubes are.  The tubes with the posters from the Center for Disease Control.  Malik points them out and Carter looks at the poster.  Carter takes it with him and goes back to the family.  He takes them to a private room and then he goes to find Dr. Lewis.  He tells her that he thinks the kids have smallpox.  She tells him that there hasn't been a case of smallpox since the forties.  Carter tells her that they need to lock the place down.

Carter calls the hospital and has all of the doors secured.  He gets Susan to call the health officials.  Luka thinks that he is overreacting and Malik wishes that he would have called in sick.  Jing-Mei tells Carter that she doesn't feel well and that she treated the two kids last week.  She now has a fever and she needs to be quarantined.  Susan tells Carter that she will take care of calling public health.  Carter asks Abby why she let the family wait for forty-five minutes.  She tells him that they were kind of busy with multiple traumas.  Carter goes in to treat the kids and Abby goes with him.  He tells her that she doesn't have to go in, but she tells him that she has already been exposed.  The patients in the ER see that the doors are being locked up and they are getting upset.  They want to know why they can't leave.  Susan gets on the PA and explains that there is a potential public health concern.  No one can enter or leave the department until the health department comes to access the problem.  Carter speaks with the parents and learns that they had been in Central Africa up until two weeks ago.  Carter tells them that they will need to be isolated.  He wants a list of who all they have come in contact with since they have been back.  Abby takes Carter aside and tells him that he is freaking them out.  Gallant goes in and checks on Jing-Mei.  He has brought her a present, Stan.  Stan happened to be in the ER the same day that the two kids were brought in and now he is showing flu like symptoms and is running a fever.  He may have been exposed, so he needs to be quarantined with her.  Stan is not too upset about having a nice place to stay and he decides to sing the song Fever to Dr. Chen to lighten her mood.  David Torres from public health arrives at the hospital.  He tells them that the C.D.C. from Atlanta will be flying in shortly.  He has Susan kill the air conditioning and it is eighty degrees outside.  This does not help the crowd of angry patients feel any better.  The mother of the sick children is upset with her husband.  He is the reason they went to Central Africa.  They wanted to spend more time with him since he is away from home a lot.  Bree begins to get worse and Carter wants to separate the two children.  Carter goes to where Pratt is taking care of the Gremlin driver.  He tells him that he needs the room and that he will have to move the patient out.  Pratt does not like this.  Kerry arrives outside of the ER and wants to come in, but the officer will not let her.  Haleh and Lily have also returned from their class and cannot get in either.  The fiancé of the Gremlin driver, Colin, arrives and is worried about him.  She was following behind him when she saw the accident.  Pickman arrives with Marta, a woman who is bleeding in to her chest, but she can't take the patient in to the ER.  Kerry and the nurses work with her.  Carter tells Abby that they may be there a while and may have to spend the night together.  He asks her if she is afraid?  She replies, Of the smallpox or waking up next to you?  Carter checks on Adam.  The mother comes in and tells him that the alarm is going off.  Bree has quit breathing.  Kerry and the nurses continue to work on Marta outside.  They need supplies and Romano throws them down to her.  The news crew shows up and tries to interview Kerry.  She tells them that she does not know anything.  Bree is still not breathing and nothing that they do seems to work.  Pratt is working with Carter, but she does not improve.  The mother tells them that she wants someone with more experience and Carter tells her that they are all she has.  The patients are getting restless.  Gallant tells them that if they try to leave they will be arrested.  They are afraid that they could be getting exposed to the smallpox.  Pratt suggest that they do a fluid bolis and Carter tells him no that they can't do it; it will not help.  The mother is upset that he won't give it a try.  Bree dies.  Susan watches on through the window.  She radios in and tells them that they have their first casualty.  

Carter tells Pratt that he needs to start listening to him when he tells him something.  He wants him to shut up and follow his lead.  Carter sees that Pratt feels hot, so he has Abby takes his temperature.  It is 101.4 degrees, so he quarantines him with Jing-Mei and Stan.  The lawyers are speaking with the other patients that are trapped in the ER and they are getting together a class action lawsuit.  Jerry gives a phone interview to a television reporter, until Susan catches him and makes him hang up the phone.  Abby tells Carter that the girl will have to be double shrouded.  The mother kisses her daughter before they cover up her head.  Mr. Turner is feeling guilty about them coming to Central Africa and seeing him.  If they hadn't, his daughter would probably still be alive.  Adam asks his father and Carter if his sister was scared before she died.  He wants to know if he will die next.  They tell him no and he asks his father if he promises that he will not.  His dad can't answer, but Carter tells him that he promises that he will not die.  Jing-Mei has to go to the bathroom really bad, but no one will come to get her.  Luka speaks with Marge about the accident.  He tells her that she is epileptic and wonders how she was able to get a commercial driver's license.  He asks her where she gets her Dialantin at, Mexico?  She tells him not to rat her out.  He shows her the man that she hit.  Susan calls Luka in there to help the man.  Carter has to put Adam to sleep to perform an intubation on him to help him breathe.  Luka's patient, Colin, is bleeding out.  Abby comes to get him to help Carter with Adam, but Luka can't leave his patient.  Carter tells Abby to get Romano on the phone.  He tells him that he needs help and to come down there, but Romano tells him that he can't because they will not let him in the ER.  Romano tells him that he is on his own.  Carter will have to do a surgical procedure to help Adam breathe, because he is not able to intubate him.  Carter cannot do a typical tracheotomy because of the pox, so he has to cut lower down.  Adam bleeds a lot and Carter assures the parents that he started out in surgery.  A rep from Atlanta's Center for Disease Control arrives outside of the ER.  Kerry wants her to let her go in with her, but she will not allow it.  Carter is still struggling with Adam, so he tells Abby to pull off his goggles and protective mask.  Robin, the mother, has stepped away and is crying.  She is worried that she will lose another child.  Carter is finally able to get the tube in and Adam starts to show signs of improvement.  Carter thanks Abby.

Jerry is worried that he has the Pox, but Susan checks his mouth out and tells him that it is just a cold sore.  The lawyers break into a vending machine and steal some snacks.  Jing-Mei still has to go to the bathroom really bad, but she has a shy bladder and can't with Stan and Pratt listening on.  She asks Stan to sing a song, but he tells her that he doesn't feel like it.  Pratt starts singing Row-Row-Row your boat and Stan joins in.  Jing-Mei is finally able to relieve her bladder.  Abby has been reading up on smallpox.  She asks Carter if it would have made a difference if she had gotten to the kids sooner?  She tells him what he did for Adam was a really nice save.  Luka tells Abby that Dr. Lewis needs her.  She wants Abby to do the vaccination clinic.  Stan is having an alcohol withdrawal seizure and Jing-Mei and Pratt work on him.  He recovers, but Dr. Chen and Pratt are exhausted from it.  Abby watches a video on how to give the vaccine.  Some of the patients come in and want to be the first to get vaccinated, but they are told that they will have to wait for confirmation.  This makes them even more rowdier.  They grab a gurney and try to break down the ER doors, so that they can get out.

To Be Continued in Season 9...

Reviewed by Tony Conner on May 18, 2002