Gunshots, car crashes and plane crashes...oh my!
What's the worst tragedy that the Grey's Anatomy doctors have had to survive? Let's look back on all the horrific events from least heartbreaking to most heartbreaking...and be prepared to cry all of the tears. Sniffle.
19. Calzona breaks up
After going through a 30-day trial separation mandated by their couples therapist, Arizona realized how much she loved and needed Callie, but Callie came to the realization that she felt happier and free when she was alone, leading this fan-favorite couple to break up. It was shocking to see Callie pull the plug on their relationship, but seeing how liberated the newly-single Callie was, dancing around in her underwear for the first time in years, definitely softened the blow.
18. Cristina's impaled by an icicle
The best way to end an argument? Getting impaled by a falling icicle. That's exactly what happened to Cristina, right outside the doors to the hospital. But hey, then she had her first kiss with Owen Hunt, so karma was definitely in effect.
17. Cristina loses the Harper Avery Award...for political reasons
When we found out the real reason Cristina didn't win the Harper Avery Award, it made her loss all the more unfair and unjust and all-around wrong. She didn't lose because her competitors had better research or results than her. Nope, she lost because an Avery (Jackson) sits on the board of her hospital. It was just politics. And that kicked off the reason why she left Grey Sloan Memorial for good: a doctor from their hospital will never win a Harper Avery Award, and that's the reason why she wanted to be a doctor in the first place—to change the face of medicine, and get recognized for it. So Cristina left to take over Burke's research hospital in Switzerland to continue her work on 3D printed hearts, leaving Grey's Anatomy for good.
16. Cristina's miscarriage
Cristina suffers a miscarriage in the OR, leading everyone to find out that she's pregnant…with Burke's baby. The rest of her intern friends had no idea (besides Meredith) and therefore had no idea how to comfort her or help her, and Bailey realized she was quickly losing control of her interns. Watching Cristina finally break down in her hospital bed? Our first clue that there was way more to this stone-cold competitive doc than meets the eye.
15. Arizona's miscarriage
You thought Arizona and Callie's life was heartbreaking enough after the car crash and plane crash? Well, we found out a season and a half later that after the plane crash, Arizona and Callie got Arizona pregnant so they could have another kid and put all their tough times behind them, but she miscarried. Seriously, how many tragedies can one couple take?! Calzona is certainly gunning for the record, huh?
14. Shane kills Alex's dad
Knowing that it's pretty much his fault that Heather died, Shane goes through PTSD because of her death and takes on way too many shifts in the hospital without sleeping in between. He ends up killing Alex's dad in surgery because of a mistake he makes. Pretty sure there's no Hallmark card for that...
13. Richard gets electrocuted, Meredith gives birth without power
Nothing comes easy for Meredith Grey; she can't even have a normal birth! She was forced to give birth during a massive power outage at the hospital, but thanks to Bailey and Shane, she and her baby both pulled through. Bonus tears: Richard is electrocuted trying to turn the generators on, and is left lying alone on the ground for hours before anyone discovers him and helps him. All summer long, fans wondered if he was dead, but he pulled through...with many, many, long-lasting injuries.
12. Mousey dies
The tears didn't end with Richard's electrocution, either. Poor intern Heather a.k.a. Mousey is sent by Shane to go find the missing Chief since he wanted to steal her surgery, and when she sees him lying on the ground, she immediately goes to try and help him, stepping in the same puddle of water that electrocuted him. She died from her injuries, but Richard survived.
11. Dr. Thomas dies next to Cristina
Mr. Feeny's (William Daniels) storyline on Grey's was pretty much that he's old. He was so old, his boss kept trying to force him into early retirement, and Cristina bonded with him and kept trying to save his job. But then he suffered a heart attack while performing a surgery and literally dies in the OR right next to her while she's forced to continue working on the patient, and unable to save him. Talk about grace under pressure.
10. April loses her baby
This newlywed couple was so happy to start a family...until Jackson and April learned their baby suffered from a rare and fatal bone disease, meaning not only would the baby not survive once it was born, it was also in pain while still inside April. That horrifying realization led the religious April to induce labor early, and hold her newborn son for the few minutes he lived. The fact that April was so strong throughout the entire traumatizing ordeal made the tears fall even harder.
9. Ambulance/car crash and Henry's death
Alex and Meredith were just trying to do the right thing and stay in the ambulance with a baby when it broke down on the side of the road during a thunderstorm, but because it was so dark and dangerous outside, another car crashed into them, injuring them both (yet the baby miraculously was okay). Bonus tears: Cristina failed to save Henry's life in the OR, not knowing it was Teddy's husband she was operating on. Teddy, Owen and Richard all thought it would be best to tell her it was just another random patient. They thought wrong.
8. Meredith drowns after the ferry boat crashes
Derek used to love ferry boats. But when a huge ferry boat crashed, Meredith got knocked into the water while trying to help the injured…and doesn't swim, almost drowning. Was she depressed and giving up on life, or was she just too cold and tired to keep her head above water? Only Meredith knows the answer to that question. Seeing McDreamy completely broken, sitting on the floor outside Meredith's hospital room, tears streaming down his beautiful, beautiful face should be a crime against humanity. She lived...but only just barely.
7. Callie's car crash
OK, watching all the Grey's actors try and sing while still remaining dramatic and serious was a little bit hilarious, but watching Callie and her prematurely-born baby fight for their lives after that brutal car crash was so NOT. Thankfully both Callie and Sofia pulled through, but due to her injuries, Callie will never be able to get pregnant again. Will surrogacy be the answer to her problems in season 11?
6. Burke gets shot, Denny dies
Call this a case of the absolute worst timing ever. Just as Izzie decided to cut Denny's LVAD wire, knowing that Burke would be able to give him the heart transplant he so desperately needed, Burke is shot just outside the hospital, ending up on the OR table himself. Bonus tears: even after Denny got his heart transplant from another cardio doc, he still died from complications of the surgery. We'll never forget the image of Izzie curled up next to Denny's dead body, the doc still wearing her pink prom dress.
5. 007 and Izzie's cancer
Never has the nickname "007" sounded so downright chilling. For the entire episode, everyone assumed the horribly injured man that was run over by a bus was just some random good Samaritan. But it was actually one of their own: George, who had just joined the army and saved a random girl on the street from his same fate. Unfortunately, even though all the doctors realized who he was hours later, there was nothing they could do to save him, and he was the first Seattle Grace doctor to lose his life on Grey's. Bonus tears: Izzie almost joined her BFF George in death, succumbing to her cancer, but pulled through in the next episode.
4. Code black/pink mist
How could we forget the time that Meredith literally held everyone's lives in her hand? When a patient came into the OR with a live bazooka shell inside him, Meredith held it steady to try and keep it from exploding after Christina Ricci's paramedic freaked out and let go of it. When a bomb expert took it from her hands and you think that everything's going to be OK, and the emotional and uplifting music starts swelling…then it exploded, turning Kyle Chandler's cute but stern bomb squad leader into pink mist. Whoa.
3. The plane crash
As if these poor people haven't suffered enough, they had to endure an actual plane crash. An. Actual. Plane. Crash. Meredith, Derek, Cristina, Arizona, Mark and Lexie are left stranded in the woods for four days. Before they are even rescued, Lexie dies after Mark confessed his love for her, and then Mark almost dies multiple times before finally succumbing to his injuries back in the hospital. Arizona's leg is amputated due to her injuries (and she blames Callie for losing it and Alex for making her take his spot on the plane), Derek's hand is crushed and takes multiple surgeries to finally get it back to normal, and Cristina has her worst case of PTSD yet.
2. Gary Clark shoots up the hospital
These two episodes will go down in history books as one of the most emotionally-scarring story arcs ever. Gary Clark lost his wife after Derek failed to save her in surgery, and decided to get revenge for the hospital following her directives to be taken off life support. He brought a gun to the hospital and started shooting anyone and everyone he sees, trying to find and kill Derek before eventually killing himself (SWAT actually gets to him first). Even though the whole hospital goes into lockdown, he still managed to kill Mercy Westers Reed and Charles, plus countless others and horribly injuring Alex, Derek, and causing Meredith to have a miscarriage and Lexie and Cristina to suffer from PTSD. The part that really brought the tears? Watching Bailey come to the horrifying realization that SWAT turned the hospital elevators off and she and Mandy Moore's patient Mary couldn't get Charles to the OR to save him in time. TEARS.
1. Derek Dies
Even though his death was spoiled less than an hour before the episode aired, the fact that McDreamy was killed off Grey's Anatomy will never not be the most shocking and heartbreaking thing we've ever seen on this show. Making matters worse? His death could have been avoided. After his car was hit by a truck, he was taken to a hospital that was not Grey Sloan, and a team of not properly trained doctors didn't take him for a head CT, missing his biggest injured organ: his brain. Because they made that tiny, simple mistake, Derek ended up brain dead on the OR table, forcing Meredith to pull the plug on him...all while "Chasing Cars" was playing. Excuse us while we go cry forever.
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