Chloe and Anna are at home. Anna is due to go out on observations with Comfort and Nikki, but Chloe, facing a shift at the hospital and knowing that, after what Tony told them, the police will be looking for her, begs her to switch places with her. Anna agrees. Suddenly there is a knock at the door. Anna goes, and it’s the two detectives who are looking for Chloe. Anna tells them she’s not in. They come in for a quick look around, but Chloe successfully hides. They tell Anna to tell Chloe to go to them, then leave. Chloe and Anna go to work, and Chloe joins Comfort and Nikki, telling them she’s OK’d the swap with Duffy.
Their first call is to a house where a heavily overweight man, Ian, is having difficulty breathing. They try to get him out of the house but he tells them he can’t get through the door. They call the fire service for assistance. While they are waiting, Ian tells Chloe how he became so fat. He was going out with a woman, years ago, when she had to move to South Africa with her family. He had a good job with a good career ahead of him, and decided to stay. His girlfriend wrote to him for a year, but after that she met and married someone else. He asks if Chloe has a man, and, with tears in her eyes, she tells him she doesn’t know. Eventually the fire service manage to get Ian out of the window and into the ambulance. Comfort radios ahead that they’ll need assistance carrying him. The detectives are talking to Tony when the call for help comes through, and DC Newby goes to help them. Seeing him, Chloe disappears out of sight. As they are taking Ian into resusc, he arrests, and they put him on the floor to treat him. Comfort and Nikki have to leave, and Chloe turns up again; Comfort rebukes her for not helping them.
At Holby A&E, the detectives are still trying to get more out of Tony, telling him he could lose his job. They ask about the ‘missing’ video. Eventually Tony tells them he’s found the video, and shows it to them. They watch it, and find out for certain that Chloe helped Jason and his brother to escape.
The paramedics and Chloe get another shout, to a fight in a shopping precinct. The police have also been called, to Chloe’s horror, but the ambulance gets there first. The fight, between two men with sandwich boards, is still going on, and Comfort tries to break it up, but it isn’t till Fin turns up to help that they succeed. The fight started because one man said the other, Martin, was stealing his pitch. Comfort knows Martin, as he is one of their regulars. He has an obsession with shoes and had just got a job advertising a local shoe shop. The police eventually arrive, and Chloe quickly takes Martin to the back of the ambulance to treat him. They set off to A&E, and Martin tells her about how he’s fitting into society again. He says she looks like he did when he was depressed. He talks about her trainers, saying they’re good for running – she can run away from all life’s problems. Chloe says she wishes she could. She says she’s got nowhere to go – she can’t even go home tonight. She says she might as well face the music. Martin tells her there’s no place like home. She takes Martin into A&E, and Anna grabs her. Chloe says she’s going to go to the detectives, but Anna tells her that the detectives have seen everything on video and are ready to arrest her. Chloe runs off. She returns to the ambulance, then as they set off, she says she has something to tell the others. She tells them the whole story, saying that she didn’t have time to think about what she was doing, she just found herself helping Jason’s brother escape. Nikki, whose relationship with Jack is going well, thinks it’s really romantic that she did all that for Jason, but Comfort is outraged. She wishes Chloe hadn’t told them, and says she’s going to have to turn her in – she could lose her job if she was found harbouring a fugitive. The others try to persuade her against it, but Comfort is adamant. As she is about to radio in the news, however, they get another shout. Chloe joins them as they set off, to a rough area of town. They knock on the door of the address they’ve been given, and a man opens it and roughly drags them inside and through to the garden. Three men there have been injured, and there are a few vicious-looking dogs chained or caged up around the garden – it’s obvious that they were fighting the dogs, or training them for fights. The men insist that they are treated there, not taken to hospital, but some of the injuries are too severe. As Comfort goes to treat one, he tells her to get his filthy black hands off him. Knowing that the police are around somewhere, looking for the right house, Comfort screams. A man goes to gag her, and she punches him in the face. He gets up and is about to charge towards her, but Chloe runs up and pushes him out of the way. The police arrive and manage to hold all the men. Comfort tells Chloe she’s not going to turn her in – she could lose her job anyway for punching that bloke, and Chloe saved her life. The man Comfort punched threatens to sue her as he is taken away. Comfort is told it by a policeman that it probably wasn’t wise for her to go to that area at all. As they take the injured men to hospital, a police constable joins them in the ambulance. He obviously doesn’t know anything about Chloe, though, and as they get out of the ambulance, he asks her what she’s doing after the shift. Chloe says she’s busy.
A parcel arrives at A&E, addressed to Chloe. Tony puts it in an envelope and asks Fin to take it to Comfort. Fin does so, and turns up to the place where Comfort, Nikki and Chloe are discussing Chloe’s options – she says she still trusts Jason, and thinks he’s still thinking of her. Fin, after flirting with Comfort – they’ve been doing so all day – eventually hands over the envelope and leaves. She takes it back to the ambulance and pulls the package out – it’s addressed to Chloe, and has come from the USA. Inside is a fake passport with Chloe’s photo, a plane ticket in the same name, and a note from Jason, telling her he wants her to join her, to make a new start. Chloe wants to just go to the airport to catch the flight, but Comfort doesn’t think it’s such a good idea to run away from everything. As they are arguing, they get another shout, and Chloe joins them. They arrive at a house where Dave, working on his wife Mandy’s car as a surprise, had accidentally dropped a lamp onto a pool of petrol. The whole thing went up in flames. Mandy, who had just turned up, managed to put out the fire, but Dave is very badly burned. He can’t feel any pain – Mandy thinks this is a good sign, but Nikki points out to Comfort that his pain receptors have probably been damaged. They put him in the ambulance and set off, but Dave arrests on the way. Mandy watches in disbelief as they attempt to resuscitate him. He is in a very bad way as they take him to A&E.
As they are on standby, Chloe suddenly spots a passing taxi. She jumps out of the ambulance, but Comfort tries to stop her. As they are arguing, a car pulls up, asking them for help, as a car as just gone into a lorry further up the road. Chloe reluctantly joins them as they go up the road. The driver of the lorry is already dead, and the paramedics go to treat the car driver, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was thrown into the road. The lorry was carrying gas canisters which are now leaking, so they enlist the help of passers-by to drag the driver to a safer place to be treated. As a taxi passes, Chloe, realising it’s her last chance to catch the flight, flags it down and gets in. As they pass the crashed car, however, Chloe sees a little girl in the back of it, who turns her head to see her. Chloe gets out of the taxi and goes to help, despite Comfort’s warning shouts. She manages to get into the car and puts her arms around the girl, but as she moves, the gas from the lorry suddenly ignites. Comfort and Nikki watch in horror as a ball of fire explodes from the car. Comfort runs over to the smoking car, followed by Nikki, but on their way they spot Chloe and the girl down a slope from the car. They are apparently unharmed, having been thrown clear by the blast. Comfort tells Chloe that was the stupidest, bravest thing she’s ever seen, and Chloe is never to do it again. She agrees to take Chloe to the airport. When they get there, she thanks them with a hug, and runs in. Nikki wonders if she’ll be happy; Comfort says sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Martin is still in A&E, although he has been treated. He is talking to another patient, about shoes. He talks about the nurse in the ambulance, saying she ran away from a policeman, just as the two detectives are passing. As Comfort and Nikki are driving along, they see a police car behind them, siren on and lights flashing. Comfort decides she might as well use the ambulance one last time before she loses it. She turns on her own blues and twos and puts her foot down. They soon get a call from control, saying the police are asking why they’re not responding to their request for them to pull over. Comfort says she thought they were responding to a 999 and enlisting their assistance. She pulls over, and she and Nikki say they haven’t seen Chloe since they were last at the hospital. The police are satisfied with this story, but say Chloe won’t fool them again.
At the airport’s departure gate, Chloe hands over her passport and boarding pass. She is waved through and heads for the plane, ready to start a new life.
Episode first broadcast 19th January 2002
Additional Cast
Martin
Ken Christiansen
Eric
Malcolm Shields
Mandy
Laila Rouass
Dave
Parvez Qadir
Ian
Chris Attenborrow
Lee
Adam Burton
Watch commander
Tony Guilfoyle
Fireman
Mark Byron
Sean
James Daffern
Matt
Ian Peck
DC Newby
Jonathan Linsley
PC Evans
Daniel Tomlinson
WDS Bridgeman
Jo Martin
SERIES 16
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