helicoptER

Every time I walk by the hospital when the helicopter is taking off or landing, my heart skips a little faster. I think it's because of that episode of ER where the chopper skids off the roof, breaks hospital windows and finally crushes Dr. Romano as it lands on the ground. As a side note, I find the crushing of Romano pretty ridiculous because dude had his damn arm chopped off by the thing a season or two before and we're expected to believe that lightning strikes twice in the form of a helicopter?

Anyway, I finally convince myself that this is ridiculous and walk by the copter without freaking out when I was informed by our pharmacist that pretty much the same thing happened at UH in 2002. Okay, so Paul McCrane didn't get crushed in the blaze, but the wind changed and the thing crashed onto an unoccupied car, blowing out all the windows on one side of Lerner Tower (which is the part of the hospital I work in). Two of the people on the helicopter died, the third person on it actually managed to jump onto the roof before it crashed, and none of the patients in the building were hurt. It was most likely the "real life story" that the episode was based on.

So this initially tips the scales in the direction of fear, because dude, it actually happened at UH. But then you can take the rationale that it's less likely to happen again if it already happened again. But then you think of Dr. Romano with the evil chopper taking the arm and coming back again to finish the job and can only come to one conclusion: I should watch less television.