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Emergency!: Survival on Charter #220 (1978)
Squad 51 badly damaged by jet engine and uprooted tree
I first watched this movie (the second of six 2-hour Emergency! made for-TV movies) when it premiered in 1978, when I was 15 years old; I cried when I saw the wrecked L.A. County Fire Department Rescue Squad 51...I was so upset. I got the opportunity to watch the second part of the episode very recently and nearly cried again. I understand the need for Albert J. Zuniga to want more realism as it pertained to the emergency calls the paramedics of squad 51 responded to, but that rescue squad was the ultimate star of the show and destroying the vehicle was way over the top. John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) gave that vehicle life, but when the producers and writers called for its destruction, they destroyed the show. It's no wonder why Michael Norell (Captain Hank Stanley), Mike Stoker (Engineer Specialist Mike Stoker), Marco Lopez (Firefighter Marco Lopez) and Tim Donnelly (Firefighter Chet Kelly) didn't want to appear in the final six two-hour episodes. After "Survival on Charter #220", Squad 51 was never seen again except for the series-finale that featured a retrospective where Gage and DeSoto are promoted to Captains.