did you not love the reactions on all the docs faces when Kerry pulled out the saw and proceeded to tear open lucy's chest???????? no one is ever really phased by kerry use of the saw but last night you could tell that everyone felt as if it were their very own sister, mother, wife chest being opened up. i kept thinking no no no they are not going to do this. it was so great. poor lucy

-- dawn stinson (qstnevrythng@hotmail.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

That moment really burned in my brain just how invasive and traumatizing to the body many of those emergency lifesaving procedures we see ever week really are. How many times have we heard them say "thorakotomy" and it never really hit me just what that meant to the patient lying on the table. If Lucy had survived, can you imagine what her recovery would have been like, after that kind of trauma to the body?

-- ar (droy00@home.com), February 18, 2000.

ar - that same thought occured to me - how traumatic it all was on Lucy's body, when they talked about having "wired her rib cage shut". Good god! And when Romano and Corday kept trying to revive her, all I could think was, "How much can her body take?"

-- Joann (joannshmiller@yahoo.com), February 18, 2000.

I agree! And to think that others on the site are upset seeing Kerry throwing up feeling it was out of character for her. How could she not have a reaction to doing just that to someone she was once a mentor to!! She did a great job in this episode. Kudos to her!!

-- Steph (smrock@worldnet.att.net), February 18, 2000.

I was literally squirming on my couch watching that scene. I mean, obviously it wasn't Kellie Martin's chest that was being cut, but it seemed so real that it unsettled me. And when Mark asked for the rib spreader I almost had to leave the room. I thought that scene was well done by all of the actors involved.

-- Shawn Sanders (sanders169@earthlink.net), February 18, 2000.

Do you think Dr. Weaver's little quest of keeping a sternal saw in the OR earlier this season lead up to this scene? Or was it just serendipity?

-- fred (fred_golden@3com.com), February 18, 2000.

The chest cracking was pretty realistic - I've seen it, I've done it. When it turns out alright, it's worth it.

-- M Steiner (MESteiner@aol.com), February 18, 2000.

The moment with the saw--it was riveting--but, would it be possible to actually cut into the sternum at the angle Weaver used? She was on the right side of the table and she used her right hand and started near the throat and PUSHED the saw towards the stomach. She didn't even steady herself, by grabbing the table with her free hand. It seems to me, you would HAVE to use a pulling, rather than a pushing motion to cut through the breastbone.

Aside from that rather picky remark, I thought it was the best episode of Er, to date. Cudos to Laura Innes on a brilliant job of acting/directing!

-- Shari Moore (shari_moore@yahoo.com), February 18, 2000.

"no no they are not going to do this. It was so great." That sums up my feelings during the entire episode, and when Be Still ended and they left us dangling, and now until next week :)

-- May Archer (archerl@cadvision.com), February 18, 2000.

Did anyone notice that when Kerry was using the saw on Lucy that her hands were trembling? Imagine, using a sternal saw with your hands shaking! I thought Laura Innes' perfamance from the time of her scream to the closing when she pulled the shhet over Lucy's face was excellent. The writers will have a hard time ever topping the episode.

-- joan (joanofarc24@hotmail.com), February 19, 2000.

I really felt that the whole saw thing is what made Kerry puke. Remember how excited she was about that saw (was it last season?). And now to use it on a colleague. I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that it's one thing to do these procedures on total strangers, but to do it on someone you really know and care about...maybe it's the first time she really grasped just how horrible-looking that procedure is and it just overwhelmed her. Laura Innes was fantastic in this episode!

-- cherry (hoffner@mail.icongrp.com), February 19, 2000.