ER's Top 10 Most Memorable Moments

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We take a look at the top 10 most memorable moments on ER.

1. Season 6: Lucy and Carter are stabbed
While the staff celebrates Valentine's Day in the lobby, Lucy (Kellie Martin) and Carter are stabbed by a schizophrenic patient in an exam room and left for dead. Seeing the doctors lying in pools of their own blood, unable to call for help amidst the din of revelry just outside the door, is a scene we'll never forget.

2. Season 3: Jeanie Boulet learns she has HIV
Young, black, female, beautiful, and married, Jeanie (Gloria Reuben) was hardly the type of character we would associate with AIDS. So when the dutiful physician's assistant found out her philandering husband had given her HIV, we were stunned, and ER officially became more than just a "hospital show".

3. Season 9: Dr. Romano's arm is severed by a helicopter rotor
Romano, ER's most convincing villain, suffers the show's most elaborate injury while on the roof of the hospital in this episode. But instead of killing him off (which, incidentally, would happen later in the series), producers took advantage of an opportunity to humanise a truly hateful man and strip him of his voracious God complex.

4. Season 1: Carol Hathaway attempts suicide in the premiere
The series premiere was a flurry of dramatic moments: Carter (Noah Wyle) shows up for his first day interning at County General Hospital, Dr Greene mulls an offer to go into private practice, Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) deals with an advanced cancer patient, Doug Ross confronts a woman over potential abuse of her daughter, and the ER's stoic lead nurse, Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), is wheeled into the ER after an apparent suicide attempt. What a way to start the show.

5. Season 8: Mark Greene dies
The ER's resident Everyman, Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) was the moral compass of the show, making his lengthy brain cancer story arc pretty hard to watch. After he retreated to Hawaii to spend his last days with Elizabeth (Alex Kingston), a letter arrives to the ER relaying the news of Mark's death - one of ER's most profoundly sad milestones.

6. Season 7: Kerry Weaver comes out
Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) was already one of the show's most fascinating characters, so her struggle to come to terms with her homosexuality only deepened her humanity. Seeing her go ga-ga for hot Dr Legaspi (Elizabeth Mitchell) was fun; seeing her come out publicly for the first time to nasty Dr Romano (Paul McCrane), and threaten to quit if Legaspi wasn't rehired, was pretty fantastic TV.

7. Season 13: Abby and Luka finally get married
No couple was as adorably dysfunctional as Abby (Maura Tierney) and Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic). When the off-on-off-on pair (who'd already spawned baby Joe) finally married in a surprise secret ceremony, planned by Luka, it would take a hard person not to have got a little weepy!

8. Season 5: Doug Ross leaves the ER
Could he? Would he? Will he? The buzz surrounding George Clooney's departure was thick before his Dr Ross actually took off for Seattle, so it wasn't a surprising event, per se. But Clooney was the only real male looker on the show, so we were left a little worried that we were out of eye candy...then Dr Luka Kovac came along!

9. Season 13: Neela discovers Ray's fate
After scuffling with Dr. Gates (John Stamos) at Abby and Luka's wedding, Ray Barnett (Shane West) stormed out drunk and smack-dab into an oncoming car. We don't learn of his injuries until this episode when Neela (Parminder Nagra) visits him in the hospital to find him missing both his legs.

10. Season 12: Prisoners escape the ER
As season finale moments go, one of the most intense in ER's history occurred in season 12. Sam's ex is brought into the ER following a prison fight; however, their plan was to escape to freedom via the ER. When Luka puts a wrench in their plan, the prisoners drug him and strap the doctor to a gurney. The prisoners grab Sam and her son and head towards the door, but a shootout ensues and Jerry is shot. A pregnant Abby collapses outside the trauma room where Luka is lying paralysed on a gurney, watching his wife suffer - and there wasn't anything he could do to help.