ER Episode 14.01 The War Comes Home

Unhappy with Moretti's management style, Abby, Pratt and Morris commiserate over a beer after their shift. Back in the ER, a new intern, precocious Grady reports to work. Sam reports that there's been a crowd trampling at the demonstration. Moretti tells her to accept two patients, but she's already accepted four majors and two minors, per protocol. They'll arrive in ten minutes. In an ambulance, Gates works on Aaron, a kid who's been impaled by a protest sign, and worries - what happened to Neela?

Several ambulances pass the bar, and Abby is just suggesting that they leave, when everyone's paged back to the hospital. Outside the ER Gates searches the other ambulances, but there's still no sign of Neela. Pratt and Morris get to work on Candice, who has been crushed by a public address speaker, while arguing with Moretti on how to proceed. Abby and Gates work on Aaron while talking on a speaker phone to ambulance dispatch, trying to find Neela. Moretti hangs up the phone, telling the doctors to concentrate on Aaron.

Gates prepares to insert a tube in Aaron's partially collapsed lung to relieve pressure, but Moretti interrupts, telling Abby to do it instead, since Gates isn't on. Jared Morgan, Candice's grandfather and a former activist, arrives in time to watch Moretti perform an epidural to relieve the pain of five broken ribs on each side. While reviewing chest film with Morris and Pratt, Moretti smells alcohol on their breath. Even though they've consumed less that a beer a piece, he tells them they can no longer work.

Abby informs the staff that an ambulance is on the way with a woman in full arrest. A second ambulance contains Neela, who has extensive crush injuries. Moretti and Abby disagree on how to proceed, but Abby prevails, and Dubenko is called off the surgical floor to help. Aaron asks Gates to take a picture of the sign sticking out of his chest to show the kids at school, just as Neela is wheeled past. Gates rushes to her side, offering to help, but Moretti declines, telling him to take care of Aaron.

When Aaron takes a turn for the worse, Gates asks Pratt to give him a hand. Pratt explains that he can't, then jumps in to help Candice. Morris warns that Moretti is working next door, and pulls Pratt out. Morris wants to draw blood to test their blood alcohol levels, proving to Moretti that they can continue to work. Despite Moretti's protests, Dubenko insists on operating on Neela right away. Gates hovers, angering Moretti. Abby explains that Gates and Neela used to date, and Moretti takes her off Neela's case.

Candice is having trouble breathing, so Pratt puts her on a ventilator. Abby helps an old man, who insists that someone set off a bomb at the demonstration. Dubenko is irate when Neela goes into arrest, and Abby arrives back on the scene in time to paddle her. Neela's potassium test comes back, proving that Moretti's diagnosis was right. Moretti tries to send Abby back to the floor, but she refuses to leave Neela.

Moretti returns to the floor to find Morris and Gates working on a guy who's lost his fingers in a lawnmower accident. Moretti wants to take over, but Morris gives him the result of his blood alcohol test. Moretti checks on Candice, who is bleeding in her lungs. Although he allows that Pratt is okay to work, he wants him to work on other patients, because Candice is "a dead girl." Jared is infuriated, and demands that Moretti leave, as Candice's alarms sound.

In surgery, blood runs like a river out of Neela's open chest cavity. Worked up, Dubenko argues with Crenshaw on how to proceed. Abby steps in - they will clip the hepatic artery giving them an hour to save Neela's liver, but Crenshaw will take over the surgery. Dubenko's too close to Neela. A cop brings in an older man into the ER, who's tripping on mushrooms. Gates and Morris ask the cop about the bomb, but the bomb squad thinks it was just a guy setting off fireworks.

Gates looks on as Candice is covered with a sheet, then looks in on the guy with no fingers, questioning him intently. When the guy tries to leave, Gates grabs him by the neck, convinced that this is the guy who set off the bomb at the protest. Furious, Gates makes the guy look at all the agony he has caused. Later, Moretti has a talk with Gates - he can't be attacking patients. Gates promises to check himself next time, but Moretti transfers him to the ICU, which will force him to slow down and think.

Neela's surgery winds up and seems to have been successful - all anyone can do now is wait for her to wake up. Down in the ER, Morris hears the guy tripping on mushrooms attending to a patient, and demands to know what he's doing. The guy introduces himself as Dr. James Broderick, a leading orthopedist, who has just put the most beautiful cast that Morris has ever seen on a patient. Morris sends Broderick back to bed.

Abby sees Moretti, sitting alone, head in hands. He muses that the reason they are working in the ER is because of war, which allowed for the development of emergency medicine. If Moretti can't manage the floor during a mass casualty, what good is he? They are interrupted by screaming. Jared is trying to choke the fingerless guy who killed his granddaughter. Moretti and Abby break it up, only to find that the fingerless guy is no longer breathing.

Gates runs into Neela as she's being wheeled into recovery. Dubenko informs that Neela won't be ready for visitors for some time, but stays by her bedside, holding her hand. As the day winds down, the staff gathers in the waiting room, settling in to wait for Neela to wake up.