Congo Republic -
Central Africa - A man has tracked
down a chimpanzee and shoots it with a
tranquilizer gun. The monkey is
captured and put into a jeep and is taken back
to a Missionary Hospital, where some
French speaking doctors are
tending to several patients and a child who is broken out with
a severe rash, much like the girl who died
in Season eight's finale, "Lockdown".
They swab the young girl's rash and send it by
boat and other means of transportation to
Hamburg, Germany. The results
are then sent on to the Infectious
Disease Control in Atlanta,
Georgia, where the results show a
match in the virus that was contained in
the chimp and the young girl who died in
Chicago.
Carter and Abby are still locked up
together and are quarantined. Carter
is trying to keep Abby entertained by
doing shadow puppets, but this does not
help. Susan walks up to the door and
speaks to them by phone. She tells
them that the entire hospital needs to be
evacuated. She tells them everyone,
but them.
Elizabeth is in England and
is working in a hospital. She is not
getting along well with her supervisor. He
corrects her on her "American" ways. She
doesn't really seem thrilled to be there.
Back at Cook County Hospital,
an evacuation is taking place. The
patients are being transported to Mercy
hospital. A woman is still waiting for her
boyfriend, Colin, to be released. She asks
Dr. Weaver where he is and Weaver tells Lily to
help the young lady find him. Susan tells
Kerry that they did the best that they could do
under the circumstances and Kerry lets her know
that she is happy about the way they handled
everything.
Gallant is administering the
vaccination to the exposed patients that were in
the ER. One guy tries to leave without
getting one, but Susan stops him. Abby
vaccinates Carter and Susan tells her to be
careful not to touch it. Carter sees the
Turner family (the family who brought the pox
into the ER) leaving and he asks Susan where
they are going. She tells him that they
are being taken upstairs to Respiratory
Isolation and that Adam is doing better.
Susan tells Carter and Abby that they will have
to remain where they are because of prolonged
exposure. The virus is a variant of monkey
pox and they are unsure if it has spread.
Abby and Carter will have to remain isolated for
two weeks. Mr. Turner tells Carter that he
is sorry and thanks him for his help.
Pratt, Stan and Jing-Mei are
still isolated also due to their fevers.
Stan coughs up blood and Pratt and Jing-Mei are
concerned that he may have tuberculosis.
They ask him if he has ever been tested for TB
and he tells them no. Jing-Mei tells him
to put on a mask. She begins to pick up
the phone to call to have someone test him, but
Pratt stops her. He tells her that the
doctors are already freaked out about the pox
and he doesn't want them to have to double
quarantine them because of this. He tells
her that they can test him themselves. She
reminds him that they are not suppose to leave
their room.
Susan and Luka are still
taken care of Colin. There is a helicopter
waiting on the roof to transport him to another
location. He is afraid of flying and tells
them that he has a very bad feeling about it.
Romano is in the process of transporting four
surgical patients to Saint Rafe's hospital.
Shirley is on the phone with them and they tell
her that they can only accept one patient.
Romano takes the phone from her and speaks to
the person on the phone. He tells them
that they will take all four. The
helicopter lands on the roof where Luka and
Susan are waiting with their patient. The
elevator opens up and Romano comes out with
a nurse and their sixty-eight-year-old patient
with diabetes. Romano wants his patient on
the helicopter and Luka tells him that their
patient is more critical. Romano heads to
the chopper and ignores Luka. The
patient's chart falls off of the gurney and
Romano goes to pick it up. Romano stands
back up from getting the chart and his arm gets
hit by the tail rotor. His arm gets cut
right off and Romano falls to the ground.
Luka and Susan and tending to
Romano, who happens to still be conscious, but
in shock. He begins to vomit and they have
to roll him on to his side. There is a
twenty centimeter laceration over the fifth rib,
but no Sub Q air. He has lost half of his
volume of blood and they are trying to clamp his
arm. Romano tells them that he is cold.
We see his arm lying on the floor of the roof.
Jing-Mei and Pratt run the test on the sputum
from Stan. They see that it is only
pneumococcus and that he has old fashion
pneumonia. Pratt removes his mask and is
ready to raid the cafeteria. Jing-Mei
tells him to put his mask back on. He
replies, "Starve a cold, feed a fever".
Back on the roof, the
helicopter pilot is concerned that they can no
longer fly because of the tail rotor being hit
by the arm. Susan tells him that they have
to get Romano to the OR. Romano will have
to go by ambulance. Luka tells them that
they need ice and that a orthopedic and trauma
surgeon needs to come to the roof.
Carter and Abby discuss the
monkey pox. Carter tells her that it
sounds like a video game or a venereal disease.
Abby scratches her back and Carter is concerned
that she may have a rash. Her wants to
take a look to see. She asks him if he
thinks that someone exposed them to the pox
virus on purpose, as some kind of terrorist
attack. He tells her that it is not
likely. He doesn't find a rash on her
back, but does find something else. He
sees that she has a nice tattoo. She tells
him that she got it back in college when she was
drunk and that she was going through a religious
phase.
Back on the roof, Colin is
complaining of chest pain and shortness of
breath. They put him into the elevator and
send Romano down with him. They are
awaiting another helicopter to transport the
elderly patient, Mr. Hersch. He is the one
that Dr. Romano was tending to. The pilot
has been on the phone with Weaver and he tells
them that everyone needs to be taken to the
ambulance bay. The Health Department will
not allow anyone to re-enter the hospital.
The elevator goes down and Susan stays with Mr.
Hersch. Mr. Hersch is worried that they
will not return for him. Susan tells him
not to worry. He is concerned that nobody
has called his son, Alan. Susan begins to
speak with him about it, but Mr. Hersch begins
to drop his vitals.
Jing-Mei and Pratt are
roaming the halls. He asks her how often
things like this happen in the hospital.
She tells him only since he came along. He
tells her that it is the Ying and the Yang.
She says, Excuse me? He replies that when
something good happens, something bad has to
happen. She reminds him that he needs to
be wearing his mask. He yells, "The
hospital is abandoned, who are they going to
contaminate?" They here a noise and find
Luka working on Dr. Romano. He tells them
that they need blood. Pratt says that the
blood bank is closed. Luka tells Pratt to
open it and get lots of ice also.
Susan is still with Mr.
Hersch on the roof and he is not doing well.
She needs an IV bag, but she cannot find one.
She leaves Mr. Hersch on the roof long enough to
run downstairs to find a bag. She yells
for help, but gets no reply. She finds an
IV bag and runs back up to the roof. The
monitor alarm is still going off, so she grabs
the paddles to shock his heart.
Pratt breaks through the door
window to get inside of the blood bank. He
grabs what he needs. Lutz tells Dr. Weaver
that they cannot allow anyone in the OR to
assist with Dr. Romano. Weaver replies
that he is the Chief of Staff and that they will
have to stop the re-plantation team by force.
Gallant tells Weaver that dispatch says that
they will have to remove everyone else to
Riverview, Indiana. She tells him NO.
Colin is finally brought out to the ambulance
bay by the helicopter pilot. His fiancée
who has been worried about him sees him, but he
tells them to keep her away. She is the
psycho who ran him into the bus because she was
mad. She has been stalking him.
Gallant holds her back. Kerry asks the
pilot about Romano's condition and he tells her
that it is bad.
Pratt returns to the room
with the blood and ice. Jing-Mei is on top
of Romano performing CPR compressions because
she has lost his pulse. Susan is still
doing compressions on Mr. Hersch in the
elevator. She again yells for help, and
still does not get any. She is worn out
and tired. She picks up the elevator phone
to see if she can find some more help.
Dr. Anspaugh has arrived with
a re-plantation doctor named, Joe Gunn.
Lutz tells them that they all need to be wearing
their masks. Gallant tells Weaver that
dispatch received a call from elevator number
four and that Susan needs help with a crashing
patient; nobody is with her. Anspaugh and
Gunn arrive to assess Romano. Luka tells
them what has been done. Gunn looks at the
arm and sees that it has been cut above the
elbow, which is not good. Anspaugh asks if
he will be able to do anything to save it and he
replies, maybe. Romano comes to and
Anspaugh tries to get a reply from him. He
is upset to find that he is still at County.
Gallant runs up the flight of stairs and arrives
to Susan and her patient. He is already
dead and Susan is on the floor exhausted.
Day 7 - Jing-Mei and
Abby have just finished giving Abby a new
hairdo. Abby tells Jing-Mei that it feels
as if they are the last people on Earth.
Jing-Mei tells her that if she was then she
would be in the nicest suite at the
Ritz-Carlton. Abby tells her that she
would go on a shopping spree. Carter and
Pratt are playing soccer with their hands ties
behind their backs while Stan sleeps on a nearby
gurney. They are discussing which body
parts they could live without and which body
parts they could live with a girl doing without.
Pratt kicks the ball through the door window, so
he and Carter run off laughing. Abby walks
up to see the mess and asks Stan what he has
been up to? He compliments her on her new
hairdo.
Kerry goes to check on
Romano. His hand circulation does not look
well. The doctor tending to him asks her
if she knows of any family members. She
tells him no. Nobody other than her has
come to see him. The doctor want s to o do
more surgery and Kerry knows that Romano would
want to save his arm. She tells the doctor
to let Romano wake up from the narcotics and
make the decision himself. He tells her
that it would be too late. She tells him
to wait. It is Romano's decision and not
hers.
Day 9 - Carter is
shaving and he asks Abby if she thinks that
Pratt and Chen know about him and her? She
tells him that Pratt is clueless, but Chen
knows. Carter checks Abby's arm where she
was vaccinated and tells her that it looks good.
She is worried that it might scar. He
tells her that she can always get her another
tattoo. She tells him that's true, she can
get one that says "CARTER". He likes the
idea and she finishes her sentence, "SUCKS".
Carter says ha-ha.
Back in England, Elizabeth
tells her father that while she was in Chicago,
she often got homesick for London. Now
that she is there, she can't stop thinking about
Chicago. She does not seem happy with the
staff at the hospital that she is currently
working at. She wants to focus more on the
patient care and seems to be criticized for
doing so. Elizabeth is meeting her mother
for lunch, but her father just wants to wave and
leave. He does not get along well with his
ex-wife Isabelle. He tells Elizabeth that
he is really glad that she is back and he kisses
her goodbye. Isabelle tells her daughter
that she is late. Elizabeth explains that
there was a bowel reconstruction that kept her
long. She assures her mother that she has
washed her hands though.
Day 12 - Abby asks
Chen if she thinks that it is possible to die
from boredom. The discussion is
interrupted by the smell of food. A friend
of Pratt slipped some pizza through the window.
Pratt tells them it will cost them ten bucks a
slice. He is just kidding though.
They thank him for the pizza and Stan asks if he
got some beer and Pratt tells him that they got
sodas. Stan is sober now, but not by
choice. They make a toast to Adam, the
young boy who had the pox. His fever broke
and he is out of the woods. Chen toast to
surviving the plague. Stan tells them some
interesting facts about the black plague and
they all look surprised. They learn that
Stan use to be a philosophy teacher and is very
smart. Carter asks what happened and he
tells them "Things" happened. Things
always happen. He killed his daughter in a
D.U.I. years ago. He prefers to be a
drunk. Carter tells him that their is
counseling, but Stan replies that there is no
counseling for what he did and he walks away.
Chen decides to go eat her pizza in bed and
Pratt offers to join her. She declines his
invitation and he walks off leaving Carter and
Abby to themselves. Carter tells Abby that
Stan's story was really sad. He wants to
help Abby with her drinking problem. Not
because he is a nice guy or that he is worried
about her, but because he wants to be with her.
She tells him that he just wants to "fix" her,
so that she is good enough. She tells him
that she is not broken.
Corday has another
confrontation with her colleague. He
wonders why she is not dressed in black and in
grieving. He tells her that it is tragic
that a woman is out of place on two continents.
Elizabeth learns that her house in Chicago has
sold for more than her asking price. She
does not seem as happy as expected about it.
She reads the information over before she signs
it and sends it back.
Day 13 - Dr. Romano is
getting better, he is making snide remarks to
his nurse who wants him to eat. She tells
him that she will have to call Dr. Gunn if he
doesn't. He replies that he has seen his
work and they might as well have someone from
their prosthetics department come down and fit
him for a hook. Kerry has come to visit
him again, but he does not remember the other
visits. He asks her if she has been
fitting his office for new carpet. She
tells him that the surgery went well and that
the ER staff rallied around to save him.
He was lucky. He does not see it as lucky
and tells her that he is going to sleep now.
Elizabeth is in surgery with
a patient when her father comes in and takes
charge. She does not seem to like his
stepping in, so she tells him that he can just
finish up without her. She walks out of
the room upset.
Day 14 - The two weeks
are up and Frank, Chuny and Kerry are ready for
work. The floors have been waxed and the
ER looks great. Frank comments to Kerry
that it took small pox for them to finally
sanitize the place. Kerry tells him that
it wasn't small pox. He replies, "Oh yeah,
mutated monkey scabs". Kerry asks him if
all of the other departments are up and online.
He tells her that ICU and Surgery were opened
since midnight, Peds, PICU, Labor and Delivery
open when they do at 6:00 AM, and everyone else
will be up at noon. Dr. Pratt has been
poked and prodded everywhere possible and has
been cleared to leave. Susan is walking in
for her early morning shift and is not too happy
about getting up early again. Pratt brags
how it was not sweat for him to be contained for
two weeks. Kerry tells him that Gallant
called in sick and that he can cover his shift
then. Pratt doesn't like what he hears and
she tells him that she is just kidding.
Abby walks up to Kerry and hands her a timecard.
She wants her to sign it for two weeks of
straight overtime. Kerry looks at Abby and
Abby lets her know that she is not kidding.
Carter and Jing-Mei are also cleared to leave
now. Carter asks Dr. Lutz if they know if
the virus was engineered or natural, but she
does not give him a straight answer.
Carter sees Susan and notices her tan. She
tells him that she spent two weeks in Barbados
and chuckles. It is 5:59 AM and Kerry is
declaring the ER opened for business. She
looks a little concerned about nobody being
there, but then the phone rings and it cheers
her up.
Outside, Carter sees the
Turner family leaving to go home. Abby
tells Carter that they will have to leave the
trach. in for a few days, but Adam is off of the
ventillator. Carter comments on how well
the parents look. Abby says that they
proably quit blaming each other. Carter
tells her that it is weird, he has been stuck
there for two weeks and now he doesn't want to
go home. He asks if she would like to go
and get some breakfast, but Abby tells him no.
Charles Corday finds his
daughter up on the roof of the hospital.
He jokingly tells her not to jump. She
tells him that at county, they often went to the
roof to escape their troubles. She was not
able to complete the sale of her home in
Chicago. Charles mentions how Elizabeth
use to be a tree-climber and how she always
wanted to climb. She tells her father that
she doesn't know what to do. She and Ella
catch a train and head back home to Chicago.
Carter and Abby are walking
along the beach and he is explaining to her the
Chaos Theory. A virus mutates in the
Congo. We evacuate an ER in Chicago.
Romano gets his arm cut off. Seemingly
random events all leading to a larger equation.
Everything is unpredictable. A butterfly
flaps it's wings in China and creates a tornado
half-way around the world. Abby asks which
one she is, the butterfly or the tornado?
He tells her that she is chaos to him. He
is drawn to her and has been for two years.
Chaos always seems to rule. She removes
her clothes and jumps into the water.
Carter looks on in shock and calls her the
tornado, definitely the tornado. She asks
him if he is coming in?
Reviewed
by Tony Conner on September 28, 2002
NBC Review
NEW SEASON BEGINS AS E.R.
STAFF ABANDONS HOSPITAL LEAVING SOME DOCTORS
QUARANTINED AFTER DEADLY ILLNESS IDENTIFIED --
Resuming from last year's season finale, the
hospital remains in lockdown while the Center
for Disease Control probes a mysterious and
deadly illness that leaves Dr. Carter (Noah
Wyle), Abby (Maura Tierney) and others
quarantined. While Dr. Lewis (Sherry Stringfield)
initially is left alone and fights to save one
patient, Carter and Abby grow resolved to their
romantic fate over the next several days as they
idle away their time inside the hospital with
Drs. Chen (Ming-Na) and Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) --
and veteran patient Stan the Can (guest star
Harrison Page). Meanwhile, newly widowed Dr.
Corday (Alex Kingston) struggles to adapt to her
new medical practice in her native England while
over-shadowed by her attentive parents (guest
stars Paul Freeman and Judy Parfitt). Laura
Innes, Goran Visnjic, Paul McCrane and Sharif
Atkins also star.
