The Good Doctor – Hurt

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) and Glassman (Richard Schiff) are at a charity fundraiser hosted at a local brewpub. Lea (Paige Spara) is there too. They are greeted by Marta (Lesley Boone) and Noreen (Kim Hawthorne), the hosts as well as marital partners. Noreen takes them on a tour and suddenly the place gets struck by an earthquake. Lea falls through the floor getting trapped under the brewing tanks and the ceiling caves in on Melendez and Glassman. Both surgeons are mildly injured but conscious. Lim (Christina Chang) calls Melendez and learns about the developments. She lets Melendez know that the HURT team will be arriving shortly. Glassman fixes his own dislocated shoulder and goes on to look for Lea but has no luck. Melendez escorts Noreen to safety. Lim announces mass casualty incident protocol. Upon learning about the fundraiser, Claire (Antonia Thomas) realizes that Melendez and Glassman were among the attendees. Shaun looks worried until Lim assures that they are safe. The HURT team consists of Claire, Shaun (Freddie Highmore), Park (Will Yun Lee) and Lim. They leave immediately while Andrews (Hill Harper) offers to cover surgery and triage simultaneously.

Melendez and Noreen find Marta stuck under a collapsed beam unable to move her back. The HURT team arrives. Glassman guides people to safety and informs Shaun about Lea. He rushes inside. Glassman returns to St. Bonaventure to help with the surgical load, as advised by Lim. Claire does a superficial check up on Melendez and finds a blood clot in his thoracic area. She advises an MRI and complete evaluation. Melendez agrees to do so upon returning to the hospital. Both surgeons worry about a spinal fracture in Marta’s case and decide to stabilize her with a cervical collar but Marta winces upon being moved. Shaun asks them not to touch Marta as her spinal cord looks to be impinged by a foreign object and any movement could cause permanent paralysis. Melendez asks Claire to arrange for a portable X-Ray.

Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann), who just had a synovectomy surgery 48 hours ago, sees Andrews preoccupied with an overflowing ER and offers to help. Andrews turns down her offer. While looking for Lea, Shaun locates a trapped person. The First Responders and Park look into it and soon find a teenager Casey (Bentley Green) trapped in there. He had come to the fundraiser to enjoy some beer. Realizing that Casey is practically Kellan’s age, Park empathizes with him. Claire and Melendez inform Marta about a screw pressing on her spinal cord which needs immediate surgery. Unlike her partner, Noreen fears the risks involved with operating in such a non-sterile environment. Still searching, Shaun hears a familiar voice and jumps through a narrow hole despite warnings from First Responders. Panting and struggling with his medical kit and flashlight, Shaun drags himself through the rubble while reminding himself that he is not afraid. An image of his brother Steve (Dylan Kingwell) appears before him saying that the opposite is true.

Glassman returns to the ER. He asks Andrews to let Morgan help as she can manage ER while they can handle the surgeries. Morgan promises to handle triage with the help of nurses who shall be her hands for the night.  Morgan calls Nurse Petringa (Karin Konoval), Nurse Villanueva (Elfina Luk), Nurse Hawks (April Cameron) and Nurse Lucy (Abbie Jenkins) and asks them to call her a bitch. When they remain silent, she explains how they need to follow her instructions closely to seamlessly manage triage and while doing so she won’t say please or thank you. Presuming that it would make her look like a bitch anyway, they might as well utilize this opportunity. They do. Meanwhile, Park wants Casey’s parents to be informed but the boy reveals that his mom’s dead and his dad, who’s on a plane, already thinks of him as a screw up.

Steve reminds Shaun that no act of heroism would change Lea’s feelings towards him as he shall continue to be limited. Teary-eyed, Shaun rethinks his actions but upon hearing Lea’s call for help he treads forward. As the surgeons prepare for Marta’s surgery, Noreen begs her partner to reconsider. She promises to take care of her as five years has seemed too less of a time and that she shouldn’t risk her life. Marta realizes that Noreen a lot for cares for her and thanks her for having been by her side through her failed marriage with her husband, being thrown out of church and for giving her the best five years of her life. She wants Noreen to trust Dr. Melendez and be brave with her. Both give consent to the surgery. Shaun struggles through the wreckage kicking a huge mass of accumulated concrete and rubble. Exhausted and breathless, he stands up to see Lea on the other side. To his utter surprise, instead of Lea he apparently ended up rescuing someone else, a woman named Vera (Marin Ireland). She has shoulder and leg impalements and is stuck. She seems to have no damage done to her vital organs, but later after having a word with Dr. Lim it seems Shaun decides to extract Vera’s shoulder by himself while waiting for First Responders to arrive before extracting the steel rebar from her leg which could have fatally severed her posterior tibial artery. Lim asks Shaun to not lose connectivity and also informs him that Lea has not been found yet. Worried, Shaun keeps the walkie talkie by his side.

Melendez and Claire operate on Marta. Noreen helps in keeping Marta’s neck stabilized. Park entertains Casey keeping his mind off the depressing situation while Lim and First Responders find Casey’s bleeding ice cold legs suspended below the pressing wreckage devoid of any femoral pulse. Morgan looks over triage. Nurse Patringa’s patient, Tamara (Avery Konrad), is having breathing difficulties. Morgan advises treatment for lung hyperinflation and goes on to check on the other cases. Marta’s surgery goes fine until the surgeons realize that she’s lost too much blood and needs a transfusion. Claire gets an idea. Lim informs Park about Casey’s severed spine and dead legs from the bars cross-clamping Casey’s abdominal aorta. Nurse Patringa informs Morgan that Tamara seems to be pregnant as she’s complaining of back pain and breathlessness. Morgan, who’s already pissed by the rest of the nurses’ sloppy pace, asks Patringa to discharge Tamara as ordered.  Patringa curtly asks Morgan to trust her “hands.”

While sterilizing his scalpel, Shaun asks Vera why she attended the fundraiser. It turns out that she wanted to rekindle with her ex-boyfriend who was on the board of the charity. Shaun speaks about Lea turning him down because of his Autism and suddenly extracts Vera’s impaled shoulder without drawing her attention to it. As Melendez and Noreen wait for Claire, they chat about how she and Marta met at church. Claire arrives with a beer engine. She arranges it so that the device would pump Marta’s own blood into her surgical cavity. Noreen and Melendez are in complete awe of Claire’s innovative mind. While searching for bodies under wreckage, Lim and First Responders locate Lea who looks unhurt except for a few minor bruises.

Casey is getting impatient as he wants the bar lifted. Park looks helpless and asks the kid if his dad actually called him a screw up. When Casey says no Park reveals about his son Kellan being the same age and states that as a dad he would have wanted to remain involved in such a situation. Casey reminds him that neither he nor his dad really know him. Park gets up and Lim lets him know that Casey’s dad will be picked up shortly as he lands in three hours. Park suggests compressing Casey’s aorta against his spine, creating a higher cross-clamp. Lim realizes that Park hasn’t told Casey yet as he doesn’t want a kid of Kellan’s age to die. She gives a nod to the risky surgery.

Marta’s surgery is done successfully. Morgan finds Patringa running sonography on Tamara’s uterus. In spite of feeling pissed at being overruled, Morgan realizes that Patringa was right. Unfortunately, it’s a case of ectopic pregnancy that needs to be terminated immediately. Vera asks Shaun to promise that he’ll move on from Lea as she’ll try to move on from her own ex. Shaun recalls how Lea helped him grow as a person who could drive, enjoy music, sing karaoke, take tequila shots and fall in love. He doesn’t want to change, but wishes that he made Lea feel “more,” too. He wishes she would have been his girlfriend. Tears well up in Lea’s eyes as she listens to Shaun’s words from her walkie talkie outside the brewery. Morgan checks on Tamara and determines that her fallopian tubes have ruptured. She needs immediate surgery but none of the surgeons are available. Morgan decides to do the surgery herself and removes her dressing to put on the surgical gloves despite battling immense pain from her own synovectomy sutures. Casey thanks Park for informing his dad before going under anesthesia. Marta is wheeled out of the wreckage and she is responsive.

Suddenly, there is a massive aftershock. Lim and Park huddle up over Casey. Shaun asks Vera to cover her head as wreckage around them worsens. As the aftershock passes, Melendez and Claire are relieved to find Marta okay. However, Melendez starts feeling sick. He vomits and passes out. Claire finds his pulse weakening and orders for oxygen immediately. Lim and Park are okay and so are Casey’s vitals. Lim calls Shaun on his walkie talkie to know if he and Vera are fine. Shaun says yes but reveals about water flooding the basement rapidly and asks them to hurry as they need help. Park, Lim and Lea copy his message looking aghast while Shaun looks afraid for the first time that night.