Grey's Anatomy: Crash Into Me, Part I (Episode 70)

This week's Grey's Anatomy was a must-see special event, so special in fact that it is two parts. The main event is an ambulance crashing into another ambulance just outside the hospital seriously injuring the patients, paramedics and drivers inside.

Before we get to the main event though, we begin with Cristina dancing and having a great 'ole morning. Then, Meredith comes in with her typical negative energy and tries to ruin it by babbling about how she's having sex with Derek while he is dating other people. Finally after Cristina tells her to loosen up she starts dancing too. Now with Cristina and Meredith in good spirits who is the next negative person to try to ruin a good morning? Izzie, come on down! After seeing them dancing she runs to George and complains about Cristina and Meredith's love affair and wonders why she and George aren't the ones dancing. She decides to go to work early to get on a kick ass cardio surgery to piss off Cristina.

We finally get to go see Miranda at home with her husband and son. She and her husband are fighting because he doesn't feel like she's ever at home. She has to run off to work though and doesn't want to fight in front of their son so she gets him to agree to have lunch to discuss things. All the junior residents have a morning meeting with Sloane. He is introducing them all to his patient, Nick (played by Seth Green), who has just had a tumor removed in his neck, but now his corroded artery is only covered by one thin layer of skin and could burst at any time. After the meeting the docs scatter to their next assignments. Izzie, Cristina, Meredith, Callie and Meredith go to get some new patients arriving by ambulance. They wheel the patient from the first ambulance toward the hospital doors, but before they get inside Meredith notices another ambulance speeding right toward the other ambulance. She yells to move and they all run closer to the doors. The speeding ambulance hits the other ambulance which sends that one flipping end over end before finally stopping upside down.

Meredith and Callie check on the two in the front of the upside down ambulance. The passenger, Ray, seems to be doing alright, but the driver Stan is bleeding a lot and it looks like everything below is waist is crushed. Miranda checks on the patient and paramedic in the back of the other ambulance. The patient has already died, likely from his other problems not from the crash, the paramedic says he's fine but it seems like there is probably some internal injuries, and the driver, Mary, is unconscious. Mary had a seizure which is what caused the crash. The paramedic, Shane, pisses off Miranda right off the bat when he asks if he can have a male doctor. Miranda gets the Chief, but when Shane notices the Chief, like Miranda, is black he requests a different doctor. The Chief and Miranda are pissed because they realize he wants a white doctor. 

When Derek notices that the board was almost entirely erased he asks what's going on. Of course, his new friend, Rose, who we (him included) just met last week, happens to be sitting right there and fills him in on the ambulances crashing. Izzie and Cristina are taking care of the first patient from the ambulances. His whole family shows up just before Hahn comes and the kids won't leave Izzie alone. Cristina explains the situation to Hahn. Hahn notices Izzie smiling at the kids and dismisses her. Apparently just acknowledging the patient's family is a bad thing. They make Izzie always seem like a bad person just because she has a heart. In my opinion she's the best doctor out of the whole group because she actually has a heart. Callie and George are taking care of Mary, the driver, whose arm from the elbow down is going the wrong way. Callie snaps (oh yes, we get to hear the snap and it's not pretty) it back in place. Derek's mission is to find out what caused Mary's seizure to begin with. As Alex is bandaging a patient Ava shows up. Seriously, I'm sick of her... she needs to just get lost again. She begs him to seat her in the gallery while he does a surgery. He knows it's not right, but he does it anyway. We go back to Izzie and Cristina, and now Callie, who are still with the ambulance patient who was originally being brought in for an infection he got after having heart surgery, now he needs his sternum removed. After the ambulance accident he also got a piece of shrapnel in the leg. Cristina is prepping him for surgery and he's feeling guilty because he doesn't want his wife and kids to have to worry about him. Izzie makes him feel better by telling him that they aren't just sitting around worrying, they're busy going to the cafeteria and whatnot. She promises him to keep them updated during surgery.

Miranda requests Cristina from Hahn so that she can have Cristina work on Shane. Izzie now gets to do what she wanted from the get-go which is to do the surgery with Hahn. Cristina is pissed off about the new arrangement. Her day gets a little more interesting though when she lifts up Shane's shirt to reveal a swastika on his abdomen. She later tells Miranda and refuses to work on him any further because her step father's parents died at Auschwitz. Miranda tells her they will do the surgery on him together and rise above it all. Personally, I know that they might be pissed off, as would most people, but they are doctors and their goal in life is to help people. When they make such a big deal of it and don't want to work on the patient it really makes me wonder how strong their determination is to save people. Fortunately, Miranda "rises above" and agrees to do the surgery so that she's not like him, which I think is absolutely right. Sure, he shouldn't be the way he is, but if she treats him the same way back then she's just lowering herself to his level. On the way to surgery Shane demands at least one white doctor in the room because he's afraid considering their hatred toward him that they may just let him die on the table. Miranda gets George to join the surgery even though he's not so thrilled about it either. Finally after a last "rising above" moment Miranda starts surgery by cutting straight down the swastika. She tells the other docs to never call her "the Nazi" ever again. Whatever you say, Miranda. While she's is doing surgery her husband is waiting on her for lunch. She's not going to be making it to lunch though. 

Back to the upside down ambulance - Stan asks the Chief why he can't feel anything from the waist down. Just then we see blood coming out his ears. It's not looking good at all for Stan. He asks Meredith to get his wife who works at Seattle Grace. Meanwhile, firefighters start to get the ambulance ready to move so they can try to get Ray and Stan out. Ray talks to Stan to try to keep him alive long enough until his wife can get there. Stan's wife, Sarah, arrives and Stan is still holding on. As Stan and his wife are talking, crying and saying their goodbyes, Meredith tells the Chief that she's never seen the woman her entire time of working at the hospital and now to the lady she'll always be the person that told her the horrible news. The Chief tells her to be grateful that she gets to make a difference at all. After Stan and his wife say goodbye the firefighters start to move the ambulance. As they are moving it Stan and Meredith notice Ray having problems and yell for them to stop. The Chief comes over and Stan tells them that Ray has an oxygen tank valve sticking in his back and if they continue to move the ambulance chances are that it will continue to tear his body and kill him. Chief tells Stan he's a hero, but it's too late, Stan has died. They decide they have to work on Ray inside the ambulance and Meredith is the only one that will fit in there. She has to crawl over Stan to work on Ray.

Derek and George learn that the driver, Mary, has a brain tumor which is what caused the seizure. As they are telling her about the surgery they are going to have to do she has another seizure. Later before surgery on Mary, Derek and Rose meet up and flirt some more. We find out that she was engaged a year ago, but that it ended because she always knew what she wanted but he never did. Hmm... sounds familiar. In the middle of surgery on Mary the computer screens showing the inside of Mary's brain crashes. They have to call the computer company and get somenoe over pronto. Izzie and Alex are now with Hahn in surgery on the ambulance patient. Izzie notices Ava in the gallery, she's not happy but she keeps it between her and Alex. As Ava is watching Lexie comes in and the two start talking. Before long Ava spills the beans that she has something with Alex, Lexie acts like she doesn't even know who Alex is.

Back to the first patient we met today, Nick. Lexie gets the great job of taking care of him all day. He tells her that she's pretty and then tells her that he's allowed to say that now that his girlfriend broke up with him because of the whole exposed artery thing. Throughout the day Nick calls Lexie in to talk to because he has nothing else to do. At the end of the day as she is giving him new bandages over the exposed artery they start talking and Nick starts laughing. As he's laughing you can really start to see the artery pumping and next thing you know it bursts and blood is just shooting everywhere. As the blood is shooting all over Lexie she just stands there in shock.

The episode ends there with "to be continued" and Part II won't air for two weeks. Any guesses on what's going to happen?