Emergency!/Decision

Decision
Season 2, Episode 1
Airdate	September 16, 1972
Production Number	35701
Written by	Preston Wood
Directed by	Christian Nyby
Produced by	R.A. Cinader
← 1x11 Crash	2x02 → Kids
Emergency! — Season Two

This article about an episode needs to be expanded with more information. Please help out by editing it.

Decision is the first episode of the second season of Emergency!, and the thirteenth episode overall.

Starring: Robert Fuller (Kelly Brackett, M.D., F.A.C.S.), Julie London (Dixie McCall, R.N.), Bobby Troup (Joe Early, M.D., F.A.C.S.), Randolph Mantooth (Fireman John Gage), Kevin Tighe (Fireman Roy DeSoto)

Guest Star: Lloyd Bochner (Dr. Sutherland)

Co-Starring: Jessica Rains (Edna), Willard Sage (Dr. Eccles), Michael Richardson (Doug)

with Michael W. Stokey (Chuck), Vic Mohica (Husband), Annette Cardona (Wife), Kevin Dobson (1st Deputy), James Byrd (2nd Deputy), Michael Norell (Captain), Tim Donnelly (Fireman Kelly), Mike Stoker (Fireman Stoker), Marco Lopez (Fireman Lopez), Candace Howerton (Virginia Phillips)

and Jack Dodson (George)

Plot Overview

The Station 51 crew is called to rescue a man pinned underneath a heavy car engine while fixing his car. While transporting the man to Rampart Hospital, DeSoto makes a snap medical decision on his own when the ambulance loses its biophone connection after the biophone antenna is snapped off by accident. Despite Desoto's efforts, the man later dies of his injuries at Rampart. DeSoto contemplates quitting the paramedic program after he is berated by the dead man's physician, Dr. Sutherland, who opposes the program based on his opinion that he considers the paramedics "underqualified" to handle serious medical emergencies in the field. Dr. Brackett takes issue with Sutherland's attitude toward the paramedics, then assures DeSoto that the extent of the man's injuries were such that nothing he did or could have done would have prevented the inevitable.

Gage and DeSoto are called to rescue a dirt bike rider trapped in a bull pen with an angry bull. When a friend of Sutherland's, another doctor at Rampart, suffers a sudden heart attack during a routine examination and dies despite the efforts of Sutherland and some of the ER staff to save him, a despondent and angry Dixie chastizes Sutherland for his earlier harsh treatment of DeSoto, which makes him have second thoughts about his views on the paramedic program in the wake of his friend's death. Brackett has a talk with DeSoto about his plan to leave the paramedic program and gets him to reconsider his decision. Station 51 is among the crews called to battle a house fire, and DeSoto braves the flames in the engulfed house to rescue a boy and his dog trapped inside.