Emergency!

A screenwriter follows Squad 51 during a typical day, which includes a motorcycle accident caused by a drunk driver named Gene; the wives of the victim and the drunk driver deal with both their husbands's issues; a construction worker is exposed to tetraethyl lead and becomes combative to the point that it takes five firefighters to restrain him; the paramedics assist in the birth of a baby to a deaf-mute couple at a supermarket and, later, rescue three men trapped in a toy factory fire that turns explosive.

A man is trapped under their house when it begins collapsing into itself due to the house being built on a natural oil well. Dixie asks Johnny to fix a bike for the fire victim. Chet and Johnny tried (and failed) to repair the bike for the fire victim, prior to Dixie's visitation at Station 51. A bookworm teenager who wants to be a doctor is admitted with abdominal pain, and speaks to Drs. Brackett and Morton using medical terminology. The firefighters rescue a child stuck in a pipe, and remove a ring–from the finger of a young man–that belongs to a woman with a jealous husband. Later, Roy and Capt. Stanley work on a stuck shut-off valve at a chemical plant fire.

When an armored car is involved in an accident, Roy and John have to break into it to rescue a trapped passenger. The victim driving the car that hit it has a skull fracture that needs consent from his wife, with whom Dixie discusses the situation, but it turns out that he's a bigamist. One of the Rampart nurses starts spreading rumors about Dr. Morton's financial situation, leading Dixie to confront the young nurse about spreading gossip. A child is brought in with cyanide poisoning from eating peach pits. Roy tries to get Johnny to enter the Fireman's Olympics track events. The firefighters rescue a man hanging in mid-air from live power lines, an electrocution victim hanging in mid-air, and a man trapped in an explosive warehouse fire.

Johnny wants to get through to Roy, in giving up his "system" for picking winning horses out of the newspaper. The firefighters rescue a woman who fell into the lion's cage at the zoo and was bitten; help an exotic dancer who became ill from mono at a strip club, to whom Dr. Brackett and Dixie tend; then assist an adult, who fell off a skateboard into a cactus patch on his rump (Johnny then does the very same thing); and save a wounded policeman from a sniper.

The DeSotos appear on a TV quiz show. The firefighters then respond to a liquor store shooting involving a policeman; another officer opposes to John and Roy (and pretty much does the same thing to Dixie) in treating the suspect. Dr. Brackett treats an abused child brought into Rampart; later, the paramedics assist a man who inhaled too much nitrous oxide, treat a boy in anaphylatic shock from a bee sting, and aid the victims of a collision between a station wagon and a pickup truck carrying kerosene, causing a brush fire.

The firefighters assist a woman thrown from her motorcycle onto a cactus patch. John, Roy, and the Rampart doctors plan a surprise birthday party for Ms. McCall; when she breaks her ankle while shopping, the party plans and the ER begin to fall apart. Dixie then tells an incompetent nurse that she will have to work the entire shift for the rest of the week when she has been ordered to get some foot therapy. Rescues include two men trapped on the side of a building with a 1/2-ton sign hanging near them; a man trapped in his new sauna after passing out, whom the doctors find to be suffering from Addison's Disease; and an old woman whose apartment building explodes during a gas leak–with John inside. John then suffers a broken foot. While recovering, Dr. Brackett brings along his first surprise for John–the recuperated Dixie, who has brought Gage a cake, while Dr. Early gives John a tape recorder, in honor of his (and DeSoto's) teacher's birthday.

Dixie hears so much about a new nurse at Rampart, known as Daisy, and the firefighters, especially Johnny, are all competing for a date with her. Later, the firefighters find an engineer literally frozen in refrigeration equipment, and an old-time sailor, who got both hands stuck in Cyanoacrylate adhesive he used on his model ship. A boy who may be suffering from Tay-Sachs disease is found comatose, and gets support from Dr. Brackett, Dixie and Johnny in the hospital, and the paramedics rescue a man trapped in a theater fire.

A pregnant woman is accidentally shot through the abdomen, and her husband is incoherent and unable to advise how far along she is, when Dr. Brackett seriously asks him. Johnny and Roy decide to get even with Chet for his recent antics. The paramedics assist a construction worker caught under a boat at a filming location, but he refuses any IVs or needles; and a man in a motorbike accident can only move his left thumb, which he uses to help the paramedics find his son, who is in a trailer a half-mile away and in a diabetic coma, before Dixie, Dr. Early, Johnny and Roy all treat them.

John wants to trade his vehicle for Roy's convertible. The paramedics help a fraternity pledge choking on raw liver as a hazing stunt. Dixie declares war on the new hospital administrator for reducing staff due to budget cuts, then is offered a promotion to Nursing Supervisor; she later rejects the promotion. Dr. Early's young patient cures his hiccups with soda pop. The firefighters assist a basketball player when he is stuck in his luxury car, and a hot rod Chevrolet El Camino crashes through a drawbridge gate and teeters on the edge of the structure.

John takes up photography and constantly pesters Roy for candid shots. The firemen assist a teenager suffering from smoke inhalation during a fire at a school he does not attend; he then becomes violent and attacks Dr. Brackett, until Dr. Morton and the boy's mother calm him down. A woman is bitten by a scorpion. A fellow fireman mistakes a heart attack for stomach problems brought on by his chili, and a truck driver hauling dynamite is pinned in his vehicle when it catches fire. Dixie and Dr. Brackett assist in the delivery of a baby at a restaurant during their lunch hour.

The station (except Roy) is entering the firefighters's barbershop quartet contest. Johnny clarifies his situation with Dixie, when his problem is actually with Roy, who says it takes a lot of work, whom they will all side with him. In between practices, the firemen have to render almost-constant assistance to a man who is trying various ways to exercise while on a crash diet, and a woman OD's on sleeping pills.

John talks about settling down after another date goes wrong. Station 51 is responding to a traffic accident; en route, another accident occurs and Squad 51 has to handle it before responding to the other accident; one is dead, two are injured, and the injured man asks about his wife, who was badly burned. The woman hit in the first accident takes a shine to John. A man is suffering from watching too many medical TV shows instead of stomach cancer. A belly dancer overdoses on diet pills, then flirts with Dr. Early, until Dixie catches her, and offers a career change. John and Roy, assist a child (who turns out to be one of three children John's love interest has) who has a dog bite after the child bit the dog first, and a victim in a fire that gets so intense that John and Roy have to jump to safety.

Roy and John finally get their old fire engine restored to ride in the California Firefighters Parade. The paramedics try to stop a man from driving with heart problems and cause an accident which kills him; the woman he hit blames herself for his death. Dixie and Dr. Early assists a man having a seizure resulting from hypertension in the ER, while Roy and John help a man having trouble breathing while on a date; he accidentally drank a Mickey meant for his date. Two divorced parents fight over their child's medical condition; this leads Dr. Brackett to seek help from them. Dixie takes care of the child's wrist. En route to the parade, John and Roy notice a fire and are the first responders, in the old fire engine.

An actor is trapped on a film set by a bear, after John and Roy save him, he invites them to a bash, and John goes about trying to get Roy to "dress to the nines" for it; while there, the paramedics resuscitate a musician who had received an electric shock on his microphone. Dr. Brackett treats a man suffering from trichinosis linked to bear meat. A bomb blast injures two men.

John's high school classmate is assigned as Squad 51's new trainee, and Dixie escorts John to him. The firefighters rescue a man trapped in his kitchen by a hydrogen sulfide explosion. An accident near Rampart brings three victims into the ER; with limited capacity, the paramedics jump in to help, and the trainee's inexperience shows. A child has an injured nose at an amusement park go-kart track; later at the same park, a man having a heart attack is trapped on the Sky Ride. Later, a man thought to be intoxicated was actually bitten by a cobra; Roy is subsequently sprayed in the eyes with the cobra's venom and temporarily blinded.

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.

John is assigned to conduct a tour of Rampart with several very inquisitive fifth-graders. A Vietnam War veteran thought to be suffering from PTSD is holding his wife at knifepoint; after the paramedics subdue him, the ER doctors determine he has a brain tumor. A woman gets stuck in a dog door. A famous novelist attempts suicide because he feels the new generation does not know him; when John's tour encounters the author, who is surprised. Dixie tells John that she used to watch a movie based on one of the author's books. A cargo plane crashes in a residential area, hitting a school bus.

After the paramedics rescue a magician trapped in his trunk, he gives Roy and Johnny, a magic orb. Dr. Brackett's father is treated at the hospital for phlebitis. Later the paramedics assist a man injured when his home fireplace explodes on him, the firefighters help when an auto accident causes a power transformer to land in a man's bed, and they rescue a woman trapped when her car collides with a fuel truck and sparks a fire.

Johnny makes a bet with Squad 36 that the loser of their baseball game at the firemen's picnic pays for the entire picnic, which angers the firehouse until Chet becomes their pitcher after their regular pitcher breaks his arm. In rescuing a drunk man from a car accident, the man punches Johnny in the nose; he then throws a witty remark to Dixie, who herself, reveals, threw one at an unruly man. When two more people come into the ER with the same symptoms, the cause is traced to lead poisoning from moonshine; later the man making the illegal brew sets fire to the place and the firefighters have to rescue him. The firefighters also save a famous car dealer trapped inside one of his cars with a tiger while filming a commercial and a man with back problems stuck in his waterbed.

The firefighters rescue an elderly man from his burning house. Chet is determined to exterminate an uninvited guest in the station. A man is continually going into cardiac arrest and the doctors try to find a reason. An elderly woman is brought in with breathing problems, and Dixie comforts her worried husband. Roy and John help break up a barfight, then join several fire companies in putting out a blaze caused by a jet fighter crashing into an apartment house; John is injured in an explosion and one of the Pasadena firefighters goes in to rescue him.

Two young men dump off a female OD victim at the ER, then run away; further examination showed she was injected with milk. John gets upset at all the non-emergency calls they get, then sees a man falsifying a back injury for a free ride to the hospital. The paramedics help an ex-Los Angeles Rams player who kicked his TV screen when his old team blew a close game and received an electrical shock. The ER is being visited by administrators, during which time Dixie is swamped with so many issues, including a woman who complains about waiting two hours with a cigarette burn. Roy and John respond to a non-emergency while another squad 15 minutes away is called to a cardiac victim from which Squad 51 is only two minutes away–after responding to the cardiac case the paramedics are involved in a traffic accident in the ambulance en route to Rampart. With no replacement ambulance available for 15 minutes, Engine 51 comes to the rescue to transport the patient who then goes into full cardiac arrest. He is brought into Rampart and, with its hospital administrators looking on, doctors frantically try to save the patient's life.

John and Roy find a surprise–a Bengal tiger–when assisting a man down in a grocery store; Animal Control is called in on a 905-Wild (Wild Animal Loose-Threatening) and the officers help get the tiger out. The officers later check an animal preserve and find several animals dead and missing. A family pet goat having heart problems is brought into Rampart, over Dr. Brackett's objections. Later, a big brush fire threatens a suburban canyon area with numerous domesticated animals, and things get dicey all around for the fire department and the Animal Control personnel.