Lucy Knight

Lucy Knight
Kellie Martin as Lucy Knight
First appearance	September 24, 1998. (5x01, "Day for Knight")
Last appearance	February 17, 2000. (6x14, "All in the Family")
Portrayed by	Kellie Martin
Information
Occupation	Physician
Title	Medical Student (1998-2000)
Family	Barbara Knight (mother) Mr. Knight (father)
Born	1975

In the NBC television series ER, the fictional character Lucy Knight is a medical student portrayed by actress Kellie Martin. The character was part of the show for the 5th and 6th seasons. When she was first introduced on ER, Dr. Doug Ross called her a "by the book" medical student. Kellie Martin's removal from the main cast opening credits was in the 15th episode of season 6.

Conception and creation

Prior to this role in ER, Martin called herself "One Take Kellie". She was not used to the medical jargon her character had to say, and claimed that it once took 12 takes to correctly pronounce "renal vein thrombosis."

Medical career

Season 5

During season 5 she was a third year medical student. Dr. John Carter was quickly assigned as her resident while she completed her emergency room rotation. Knight and Carter became close friends after a rocky start.

At the beginning of her rotation at County General, she was popular with the attendings and nurses, who often treated her as another colleague. Lucy does run into trouble with Nurse Carol Hathaway after she asks for help with an IV. Lucy, unable to start an IV asks Carol for help and doesn't own up to Carter that she can't start one until they end up in a trauma. Again Lucy winds up in trouble with Carter after a Halloween party at her med school gets out of control and two students nearly die. Angry about work that has been thrown at him at the last minute, Carter leaves Lucy in charge of the party even though, as RA, that is his responsibility. Carter and Lucy eventually come to an agreement after the episode "The Good Fight" when the pair spend a day and evening searching for a little girl's father who has the same extremely rare blood type as she does.

Although the pair find the father, it is ultimately too late for the girl. At the end of this episode, Carter and Lucy reconcile in their sadness at their failure. During this episode, Lucy reveals to Carter that she was brought up by her mother, and that she did not know her father.

During the episode The Storm: Part 1, Lucy accidentally karate kicks Carter while performing a work-out video with Chuny (one of the nurses) in an exam room. Carter is knocked over and has to be put on a gurney and treated for a cut head. The pair did make out in the x-ray room, but nothing came from it. Carter ended their brief relationship since it is unethical for medical students and their residents to be romantically involved.

Near the end of Season 5, it is revealed that Lucy is on Ritalin and has been since high school. Carter urges her to quit and she eventually does. When her performance at County begins to suffer, Lucy goes back on the Ritalin without telling Carter.

Season 6

Lucy's role in the early episodes of season 6 are rather small, having only minor sub plots such as helping a young artist who was taking cocaine or by urging Dr. Dave Malucci to come forward and admit his possible mistake when using a Bunsen Burner that was thought to have caused an explosion in the ER. The explosion was later proven to have nothing to do with the Bunsen Burner which Dave, thanks to Lucy's urging, admitted to using.

Lucy clashed with nurse Carol Hathaway when they both made a plea for the last bed in a rehab clinic, the bed ultimately went to Carol's patient which led to outright friction between the pair. Lucy also clashed with Dr. Cleo Finch when Cleo undermined Lucy's judgment in regard to a young boy and his Mother who both had alcohol abuse problems.

Lucy was finally able to come into her own and show her potential in the Christmas episode How the Finch Stole Christmas when patient Valerie Paige comes to the ER in desperate need of a heart transplant. Lucy goes above and beyond to ensure Valerie gets the life saving procedure she needs - even going so far as to bang on Dr. Robert Romano's door in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. Though, initially angry with her, Romano agrees to do the operation after Lucy berates him for his seemingly flippant attitude towards the dying patient. Though she faces a reprimand from Romano, he seems to have more respect for her from then on.

Later in the episode The Domino Heart, Valerie dies from complications after another surgery, devastating Lucy. This makes her ponder her time at County General and prompts her to give a moving speech to Dr. Luka Kovac about it, "It's never been very easy for me to be here, sometimes I felt like I would never fit in. But at the beginning of every day I have been grateful that I'm walking in here of my own choosing and not being carried in here on some gurney and at the end of every day if I have helped just one person, it's been worth it. And that didn't happen today and it makes me sad...". Luka reminds her that her day is not yet over and that she may still help that one person. At that moment another patient arrives near the ambulance bay, and Luka asks her to assist. The episode ends with them rushing the patient into the ER and Luka teaching her procedures and asking her questions.

Death

In various interviews, Kellie Martin stated that she and the producers felt the character of Lucy was not working, so it was decided that Lucy would be written out of the show permanently. On February 14, 2000, over the course of two episodes, "Be Still My Heart" and "All In The Family", Paul Sobriki (played by David Krumholtz), a man with schizophrenia, checks into the emergency room. While in a delusional state, he acquires a knife that was to be used to cut a Valentine's Day cake and stabs Knight multiple times: twice in the abdomen, once in the chest and once in the neck. Dr. Carter enters the room, seeing a Valentine for Lucy on the floor, he picks it up and looks over it smiling, then from the shadows Paul comes up behind Dr. Carter and stabs him twice in his lower back. Dr. Carter falls into shock and hits the floor, gazing in surprise at Lucy lying in blood on the other side of the gurney. Her face is pale, and her hair is wet with blood. She is in shock and soon passes out. Lucy had received 4 serious stab wounds to her internal organs, lung, and neck. Although Dr. Weaver and Dr. Corday are able to stabilize Lucy in the ER, and Corday and Dr. Romano are then able to repair her tissue damage, she soon develops complications, including a pulmonary embolism. Despite the efforts of Drs. Corday and Romano, Knight dies while in the catheter lab awaiting a Greenfield filter; her time of death, as pronounced by Dr. Corday, is 02:56 hours.

Lucy's memorial service takes place in the episode "Be Patient," although it is not seen on-screen. In the episode, Carter asks Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen how the funeral was; Deb replies that it was quite pleasant, but that it was strange to be attending a funeral for Lucy. That same day, Lucy's mother, Barbara Knight, arrives to clear out her locker. She eventually seeks Carter out and, after an afternoon of talking, asks Carter if being stabbed hurts, as her daughter spoke highly of him. Carter lies and says that it didn't hurt at all in order to put her mind at ease.

In the episode "A Match Made In Heaven," a letter for Lucy arrives from a med school. She had matched to County, and, had she lived, she would have been given a position as a psych resident.

Season 15 Remention

Eight years later, during the 15th season of ER, at the end of the October 16, 2008 episode The Book of Abby, long-serving nurse Haleh Adams shows the departing Abby Lockhart a closet wall where all the past doctors and employees have put their locker name tags. Amongst them, the tag "Knight" can be seen. The same happens when Dr. Neela Rasgotra on episode 20 Shifting Equilibrium put her tag name on that wall.

External links

• Lucy Knight at the Internet Movie Database