Original air date: March 22, 1997

Written by: Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Lawrence Meyers

Directed by: Charles Siebert

While Sydney tries to revive his comatose brother, Jarod pretends to be a paramedic so he can investigate why a young man went into a coma after an accident.

Jarod’s Discoveries: Lucky Rabbit’s Foot, Classic Horror Films

Jarod’s Occupations: EMT, Ph.D Research Scientist , Organ Transplant Courier

Jarod’s Aliases: Jarod Hollstrom, Jarod Randolph

Behind the scenes insights and the Creator’s Take

Official Synopsis

Jarod goes undercover as a paramedic to expose a health insurance fraud; Sydney tries to revive his brother, who has been in a coma since being in a car accident with Sydney at the wheel.

After a flashback showing an experiment that teaches young Jarod he can’t save everyone, present day Jarod, in a medical lab, injects a comatose rat with a drug and revives it.  Several weeks later, Sydney and Miss Parker visit the lab…but Jarod has already moved on to a new job, as a paramedic.  Later, at the Centre, Broots tells Miss Parker that Sydney has disappeared, along with some experimental drugs.  Meanwhile, Jarod’s ambulance delivers a patient to the emergency room at Queen of Mercy Hospital in Atlanta, and when Jarod is reluctant to let the doctor, Sarah Corey, take over, his partner, Rennert, tells Jarod not to get so attached.  Later, back at the ambulance, Jarod chats with another EMT, Julie, but is interrupted by a state inspector, Max Vargas, who hassles Jarod about paperwork missing from his personnel file.  Meanwhile, at the Mt. Pleasant nursing home, Sydney sits next to the bed of his brother, Jacob, and flashes back to the car accident that left Jacob comatose years ago.  The next day, Jarod looks at a clipping about a young man, Steven Chambers, who also went into a coma after a car accident, then visits his room at Queen of Mercy.

Later that day, Jarod and Rennert pick up another patient with a head injury, but even though another hospital is closer, Rennert insists on bringing him to Queen of Mercy.  Back at the Centre, Broots and Miss Parker go through Sydney’s personal files, and Miss Parker sees he makes an annual donation to the Mount Pleasant home.  Meanwhile, Jarod visits Steven again, and learns from Steven’s father that doctors have started him on a new therapy, which successfully wakes one in five coma patients.  A bit later, Vargas finds Jarod again, and threatens to pull him off duty if he doesn’t provide his missing paperwork by noon.  Meanwhile, at Mount Pleasant, Sydney tells a nurse to increase Jacob’s dose of a new drug, and another flashback reveals that just before the accident, Jacob voiced concerns about the Centre’s work to Sydney.  A bit later, Jarod calls Sydney to see how Jacob’s doing, but Sydney says there’s no progress.  Later, Jarod digs Steven’s file out of the hospital’s records, and notes that Rennert and Julie brought Steven to the hospital the day he was injured.  The next day, Dr. Corey tells Jarod that the new head trauma patient he brought in has been flown to another hospital, which is better equipped to deal with his injuries…surprising news, since Rennert had insisted Queen of Mercy was the best place for him, despite the longer drive to get there.  Just then, however, Jarod looks up and sees Rennert in another room, talking to the hospital’s administrator, Fletcher.

That night, Miss Parker finds Sydney at Mt. Pleasant, and is shocked to see Jacob there, still alive.  Sydney tells her about the car accident, and his own feelings of guilt…and just then, Jacob’s eyes flutter, and he wakes.  Meanwhile, Jarod asks Julie why she and Rennert took extra time to take Steven to Queen of Mercy, when another hospital was closer.  She says it was Rennert’s decision…and Jarod notes that Rennert made the same risky choice 30 times in the last five years.  Later, while Mr. Raines forces Broots to tell him where Sydney and Miss Parker went, Jarod talks to Steven’s mother, Elizabeth, who says Steven isn’t responding to the new treatment, and notes they are starting to consider donating his organs.  Jarod, however, tells her about another new treatment, Hallstrom’s technique, which he used on the lab rat, and which Sydney has been using on Jacob.  That night, however, Jarod finds his lab rat comatose again and calls Sydney to warn him the effects of Hallstrom’s technique seem to be temporary.  And while they talk, Mr. Raines arrives, warns Miss Parker that Jacob is a threat to Centre interests, and insists Jacob must never be allowed to wake again.

The next day, Jarod outfits a friend with a broken bicycle, poses him in the street like an accident victim, and responds to the emergency call with Rennert.  Meanwhile, at Mt. Pleasant, Miss Parker puts on rubber gloves, goes into Jacob’s room, and smothers him with a pillow.  But while she is doing this, a nurse delivers a note Jacob wrote to Sydney, which says the car accident was “not your fault.”  Meanwhile, at Queen of Mercy, Julie gives evidence of Rennert’s negligence in Steven’s case to Dr. Corey, and then gives her a walkie talkie so she can hear what’s going on in Jarod’s ambulance…where Rennert once again opts for a longer journey to Queen of Mercy over a trip to a closer hospital.  A bit later, at the hospital, Jarod hands off the fake patient to Dr. Corey, watches as Rennert takes a cash payment from Fletcher…and then cues the police, who arrest Rennert and Fletcher for conspiring to bring the most lucrative insurance cases into their hospital, regardless of need.  Later, in Steven’s room, Jarod and Dr. Corey watch, sadly, as Steven’s parents disconnect his life support…but a bit later, we see Jarod, now dressed as a helicopter pilot, rushing Steven’s heart into another hospital across the country.  Then, finally, as Jarod watches the transplant surgery, he calls Sydney, whose guilt has been eased, and who now assures Jarod that Hallstrom’s technique helped “enough.”