Emergency!
Smoke Eater
Season 4, Episode 16 · Aired 1975-01-11
Synopsis
An "old school" captain replaces a vacationing Capt. Stanley and immediately runs into a conflict with the paramedics, as he does not feel they should be practicing medicine. An elderly man falls asleep smoking and sets his chair on fire. Dr. Early and Roy want an apple out of the vending machine and keeps getting oranges, as did John (who really wanted an orange, from the same vending machine); Dixie bops her hips into the vending machine and is the only one to get an apple. The paramedics fight to keep a heart-attack victim alive. A boy with asthma gets trapped in a storm drain. A biker screams at Dixie to get a bandage for a head injury, and after he punches Dr. Brackett, the latter knocks the biker out. The firefighters encounter ethyl bromide fumes when fighting a fire inside a lab.
In the series
This episode is part of Emergency! (1972–1979) on NBC.
Squad 51 rolling — paramedics as heroes before medical dramas went steadicam.
Key cast
- Robert Fuller as Dr. Kelly Brackett
- Julie London as Dixie McCall
- Randolph Mantooth as Firefighter John Gage
- Kevin Tighe as Firefighter Roy DeSoto
- Bobby Troup as Dr. Joe Early