The paramedics complain when a rule forbidding squads to cross each other's territories causes them to come late to an accident scene. An elderly woman is treated at the hospital. While transporting a non-vital patient, the paramedics respond to an auto accident. A prisoner breaks out of jail and gets trapped on a ledge

Johnny tries to win a ticket-selling contest. Dr. Backett blames himself when he is involved in a car accident that leaves the other driver dead and The driver's daughter refuses to speak. While repairing the squad, the paramedics find themselves in the middle of a shootout and treat a policeman with heart trouble. A boxcar full of ammonia complicates a fire on a pier.

Captain Stanley is dismayed when he learns one of his former commanding captains is now his Battalion Chief, causing the others to worry about his increased paranoia. Two men's carelessness starts a fire at a gas station. A new hospital administrator causes problems. A woman accidentally shoots her husband with a nail gun. Two clowns start a fight at an ice rink. A car leaves an overpass and crashes into a transfer truck filled with pesticides.

Richard Bakalyan returns as Charlie, Squad 51's trouble-prone mechanic. The paramedics decide to purchase a boat from Charlie, intendig to sail it on their days off and rent it to others when they're on duty. Of course, things don't quite go as planned, thanks to a wide variety of emergency calls, including the rescue of two boaters from a particularly treacherous stretch of water off Catalina Island, a bookie suffering from a coronary in a locked office, and an explosion in the hospital lab.

Captain Stanley worries that the Chief will sabotage his attempt to pass the Chief's exam because of an incident in their past; a soap opera doctor with mono causes havoc on the set and in the hospital; John, Roy, and a retired doctor with a self-diagnosed heart aneurysm get stuck in an elevator.

Captain Stanley convinces himself he has arthritis. A man gets his hand caught in his garage door opener; a woman passes out and has an auto accident; the doctors treat a woman infected from plastic surgery gone awry; Johnny tests a new type of rope; the station responds to a two-alarm fire at an oil refinery.