The WORST episodes of Emergency!

Every episode of Emergency! ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Emergency!!

Emergency! is a reality-based show that takes a good look at what goes on in the daily lives of the fire department and hospital work, and everyday life-and-happenings. The series focuses on two locations: LA Fire Station 51 with paramedics John Gage and Roy DeSoto, and Rampart General Hospital with Doctors Kelly Brackett and Joe Early and Nurse Dixie McCall. Another work of Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited, the show was based on the paramedic program that started in Los Angeles, California in 1969. Produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Department of Hospitals, it is well-regarded for its realism. Senator Alan Cranston actually praised the show for informing the public about the value of funding such programs!

Last Updated: 2/29/2024Network: NBCStatus: Ended
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Hang-up
star
6.13
94 votes

#1 - Hang-up

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/8/1972

John misses the end of an Adam-12 episode. A jewel thief is trapped in an air-conditioning duct. Two battered men continue their brawl in the hospital. A man ruins his cast by going surfing. Dr. Brackett treats a woman with a neurological disorder. Radioactivity impedes the rescue of a lab worker. NOTE: Features footage from the Adam-12 season 4 episode "Ambush".

Writer: Preston Wood
Watch Now:Apple TV
Greatest Rescues of Emergency
star
6.22
9 votes

#2 - Greatest Rescues of Emergency

Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/31/1978

When Johnny and Roy are promoted to Captain, they reminisce about their years working together. Flash-back sequences include the rescue of airplane passengers after a crash-landing, a potential suicide threatening to leap from a crane tower, and a girl whose toe is stuck in a faucet

Women
star
6.49
82 votes

#3 - Women

Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/1972

A woman journalist covers the Squad's rescues. A man trapped is in a truck under live power lines. Doctors treat a boy poisoned by wild hemlock and a girl addicted to drugs. The paramedics rescue a man trapped in a sofabed, a man wihose arm is stuck in a garbage disposal, and a man trapped in a bombed building.

Directors: Georg Fenady
Writer: Daryl Henry
Peace Pipe
star
6.51
57 votes

#4 - Peace Pipe

Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/14/1972

A drunk driver rams a parked car, trapping a child inside. Chet pesters John about his Native American heritage. A kid gets his finger stuck in a gumball machine. A woman's new girdle causes breathing difficulties. A worker's error leads to fuel being mixed with the water supply, causing explosive results. A sniper makes a scaffold rescue dangerous.

Directors: Christian Nyby
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Survival on Charter #220
star
6.69
13 votes

#5 - Survival on Charter #220

Season 7 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/25/1978

Squad 51 C-shift paramedics rescue a stuntman from a tower. Gage and Desoto respond to treat the injured child of a fireman's widow. A small plane and a chartered jetliner collide in midair, landing in a residential neighborhood, trapping Johnny and Roy. Station 18 leads a massive response from Battalion 14 and the Compton city fire department. Dr. Morton heads up a triage team from Rampart. Multiple rescues include passengers from both planes and people in the subdivision. Dr. Early performs brain surgery on the injured child. An elderly man's dog leads Chief McConnike to its owner.

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Most Deadly Passage
star
6.75
8 votes

#6 - Most Deadly Passage

Season 7 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/4/1978

Roy and Johnny are sent to Seattle to study the techniques used there. A skydiver jumps off the Space Needle, a worker is trapped at the top of the Kingdome, and a fuel pumper loads a ferry with gasoline instead of diesel fuel, which sets the ferry on fire in the middle of the Elliot Bay.

Trainee
star
6.94
83 votes

#7 - Trainee

Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/11/1972

A former Vietnam medic is now a paramedic trainee and constantly thinks he knows more than the doctors at Rampart. Roy, John, and the trainee interrupt a purse-snatching, rescue a man who fell down a cliff, help a woman overdosed on prescription drugs, and save a man with an insulin reaction.

Directors: Dennis Donnelly
Writer: Jim Owens
What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing...
star
7.00
5 votes

#8 - What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing...

Season 7 - Episode 5 - Aired 6/26/1979

Gage and DeSoto travel to San Francisco, where they observe some topnotch women paramedics in action during major rescue missions. An injured worker is stranded on the Golden Gate bridge. Ambulance squads treat a heart attack victim at a dance bar and an epileptic at a coffee shop. A bad driver causes a traffic accident involving an ambulance carrying the heart patient, resulting in his death and five other injuries. Johnny dates a nurse interested in a long-term relationship. Careless workers and deadly chemicals combine to spark an explosive fire at a pier on the Embarcadero.

Directors: Georg Fenady
The Game
star
7.00
18 votes

#9 - The Game

Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/25/1976

Roy and John are assigned to work the big football game at the Coliseum. A woman accidentally pulls her husband off the roof into a tree. At the game, the paramedics treat a choking victim, a man with breathing difficulties, an injured photographer, and a TV announcer with heart trouble.

Directors: Christian Nyby
Crash
star
7.03
90 votes

#10 - Crash

Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/15/1972

John and Roy bring in a football player who was tackled too hard. A burglar has a heart attack. John wants Roy to apologize for calling him "some kind of nut." Dr. Early treats a hypochondriac. A babysitter brings in a child who has swallowed some pills. Roy and John rescue the occupants of a light plane that crashed in a tree.

Directors: Christian Nyby
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Kids
star
7.10
62 votes

#11 - Kids

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/23/1972

The station adopts a stray dog, which they name Boot. The firemen rescue a boy from a hole; he turns out to be an abused child. Roy and John rescue another boy whose head is stuck in a basement window. Dr. Early extracts a child's arm from a steering wheel. At a brush fire, Boot helps locate an injured hiker, then leaves with a hook and ladder truck.

Directors: Georg Fenady
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Dilemma
star
7.16
69 votes

#12 - Dilemma

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/25/1972

An elevator gets stuck between floors, and then the brake drum fails; inside, a man has a heart attack. A nursing student is in awe of Dr. Brackett; a fireman buff develops a crush on John, who tries to get rid of her. A man is injured in his junkyard. An industrial accident takes place at a railroad yard.

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Fuzz Lady
star
7.17
86 votes

#13 - Fuzz Lady

Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/4/1972

John falls for a lady deputy when called to treat a mugger. Items are stolen from Rampart. The firemen rescue an elderly man from a house fire. Boot returns to Station 51. A grandfather is injured by a model rocket. The paramedics rescue a boat thief trapped on a crane.

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The Steel Inferno
star
7.18
11 votes

#14 - The Steel Inferno

Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/7/1978

A careless worker sparks an explosive fire in a high-rise building. Station 110 leads a full alarm response, assisted by Squad 51. A triage team from Rampart Hospital, led by Dr. Brackett, sets up in a nearby garage. Several workmen and two women - including the fiancée of a paramedic - remain trapped on the 16th floor. A Coast Guard helicopter assists in rooftop evacuation; Dixie and Dr. Early take charge of the many patients at Rampart. A paramedic is injured attempting a rescue, while Gage and DeSoto extricate themselves from a broken elevator. An explosion on the 21st floor injures a fire captain, necessitating a dangerous rescue down an elevator shaft.

Directors: Georg Fenady
Upward and Onward
star
7.25
12 votes

#15 - Upward and Onward

Season 6 - Episode 22 - Aired 4/2/1977

Captain Stanley worries that the Chief will sabotage his attempt to pass the Chief's exam because of an incident in their past; a soap opera doctor with mono causes havoc on the set and in the hospital; John, Roy, and a retired doctor with a self-diagnosed heart aneurysm get stuck in an elevator.

Directors: Dennis Donnelly
Dinner Date
star
7.25
52 votes

#16 - Dinner Date

Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/2/1972

A woman almost hits a kid on a bike, who starts choking; she later has an epileptic fit. A man is shot by his father-in-law when he learns his daughter is married and pregnant. Roy tries to set John up with his wife's cousin. Three drug addicts are treated in the hospital: a woman with a gangrenous hand, a poison victim and a man showing signs of tetanus. In the field: an alcoholic, an obese man with a pacemaker, and a child whose arm is caught in a swimming pool drain.

Directors: Dennis Donnelly
Writer: Dick Morgan
The Indirect Method
star
7.27
22 votes

#17 - The Indirect Method

Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/18/1975

Station 51 receives a new trainee: Karen Overstreet, who is determined to prove a woman can do the paramedic's job. A man tries to gas himself, and then changes his mind. During a house fire, Roy tries to save an invalid, and nearly dies when broken wires send electricity through his body. Fortunately for him, trainee Overstreet knows how to use a defibrillator!

Directors: Joel Oliansky
Nagging Suspicion
star
7.29
17 votes

#18 - Nagging Suspicion

Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1974

The men at the station find out that Roy picks winning racehorses and pester him to choose one for them to bet on. A lion bites a woman at the zoo, a go-go dancer collapses, a man's ego punctured by cactus, and the squad rescues a policeman shot during an exchange of gunfire with a sniper.

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Decision a.k.a. Problem
star
7.31
123 votes

#19 - Decision a.k.a. Problem

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/16/1972

Roy and John rescue a man whose engine has fallen on him during his car repair work. When their two-way radio is broken, Roy treats the man without proper medical supervision, causing the man's doctor to attack the paramedic program. Also: a bull gores a motorcyclist, a doctor on a consult at the hospital dies of a heart attack, Roy rescues a child from a house fire.

Directors: Christian Nyby
Writer: Preston Wood
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Mascot
star
7.32
144 votes

#20 - Mascot

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/22/1972

A woman who was injured in her car accident is worried about her dog, yet John makes an agreement with Dixie and Roy, to take care of the dog, which complicates his life. At the hospital, Doctors treat a girl who has breathing problems and a man who shows up drunk. Dixie tells both the orderly and security to find a young lady, who's a close friend. Once found, she also talks to the close friend, whose man is a diabetic. At a party, when a man is experiencing chest pains, his guests thinks he's kidding. The paramedics rescue an injured hunter.

Directors: Lawrence Dobkin
Writer: Preston Wood
Watch Now:Apple TV
Weird Wednesday
star
7.39
95 votes

#21 - Weird Wednesday

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/18/1972

John is convinced that weird things will happen on their shift: a parachutist lands in a tree, an obese man collapses while jogging, an 80-year old woman breaks her ankle while dancing, a man can't stop the hiccups, a boy tries to cryogenically freeze himself, an golfer is bitten by a snake, a prostitute brings in a customer suffering from chest pains, and John is injured during the rescue of a drunk driver.

Directors: Lawrence Dobkin
Writer: Daryl Henry
Watch Now:Apple TV
Election
star
7.39
23 votes

#22 - Election

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/27/1975

A construction worker trapped on a crane forces a perilous high rescue. A man finds himself trapped in an appliance drain, and his brother has an entirely different emergency. A sculptor cannot free her model from a full-body plaster mold. And Roy and Johnny stand for an election.

Directors: Bruce Bilson
Writer: John Groves
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The Stewardess
star
7.40
50 votes

#23 - The Stewardess

Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/13/1975

Gage, flying back to Los Angeles, tries to chat up a stewardess. That's actually good news for another passenger who has a heart attack; she knows right where to find him help. Back at the station, the firefighters respond to a motorcycle accident and a chemical fire.

Writer: Preston Wood
Watch Now:Apple TV
Dealer's Wild
star
7.40
72 votes

#24 - Dealer's Wild

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/26/1972

John keeps losing at cards and being stuck with doing the dishes at the station, so he creates his own card game. Roy talks down a boy in a plane after the pilot (his father) has a heart attack. The paramedics respond to an attempted suicide, an overturned truck and a teenage overdose victim.

Directors: Lawrence Dobkin
Writer: Carey Wilber
Watch Now:Apple TV
Simple Adjustment
star
7.41
17 votes

#25 - Simple Adjustment

Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/22/1975

Johnny's got another of his "brilliant" ideas: this time he's sure he knows a better way to log the squad's calls than the mountains of paperwork presently required. A diet pill overdose causes a personality change, and the daughter of a man who has suffered a stroke demands a specific hospital - one farther away than Rampart. Firefighters battle an oil fire on a cargo ship.

Directors: Dennis Donnelly