Emergency Hospital (1956)

One graveyard shift in a Los Angeles area city run Emergency Hospital is presented. With the nature of medical emergencies being what they are, the hospital is not only staffed by doctors and nurses, tonight led by Drs. Janet Carey and Herb Ellis, but also members of the police department, tonight led by Sgt. Paul Arnold, there being a separate wing of cells for any admitted patient who is or will be charged with a crime. Who the doctors end up seeing this shift include a chronic hypochondriac well known to them who wants to be diagnosed with the most exotic of ailments, a teenage boy with a head wound whose father wants him charged for attempting to break into his store, an attempted suicide victim whose reasons for wanting to kill herself are her pregnancy in relationship to her uncaring husband, a criminal gunshot victim who confesses believing he is on his deathbed, an infant abuse victim and his intoxicated mother, and a teenage rape victim whose father seems more concerned about the public perception of what happened to her on his business than about her. Two patients in three separate incidents hit home on a personal level with those on duty. One is Sgt. Arnold's teenage son, Jimmy Arnold, well known to the staff in a personal sense, he who was involved in a car accident caused by him in avoiding a potentially more problematic criminal issue. Two is race car enthusiast Ben Caldwell, who has been dating Dr. Carey for a year, who dropped her off this evening at the hospital after a date, and who has been trying not only to get her to marry him but give up her work for marriage. She has resisted taking their relationship to the next level in not wanting to see him in the hospital the result of what seems to be his need for speed on the road. While Caldwell's visit to the hospital is solely to see her, something that happens later in the shift may show Dr. Carey if there is a future for them.