The Nine Lives of Meredith Grey
The Nine Lives of Meredith Grey
After surviving everything from a plane crash to drowning, Meredith Grey proves she has as many lives as a cat.
After surviving everything from a plane crash to drowning, Meredith Grey proves she has as many lives as a cat.
She held a bomb inside a patient’s body
Episode: "It's the End of the World" (Season 2, Episode 16)
Event: While Meredith operates on a man who accidentally shot himself with a bazooka, the paramedic beside her has to hold the bomb inside the patient's body cavity in place. After the paramedic gets scared and runs off, Meredith is left holding onto the bomb alone. She manages to pass it off to the head of the bomb squad, who makes it down the hospital hallway before the bomb explodes and kills him within feet from Meredith.
She was exposed to toxic blood
Episode: "Wishin' and Hopin'" (Season 3, Episode 14)
Event: A female patient who had a tumor removed from her colon eight months prior returns to the hospital for another surgery. It is discovered that anyone who is exposed to the woman's toxic blood becomes ill and collapses. Derek Shepherd and Preston Burke wear borrowed suits from orthopedics to do the surgery but are unable to finish because they run out of oxygen. Then-interns Meredith, Cristina, and Izzie must then take turns closing up the patient with only 20 seconds of time each before falling ill. Meredith, being the last to go, exceeds the amount of time but manages to make it out of the OR without collapsing.
She has the Alzheimer’s gene
Episode: "She's Killing Me" (Season 9, Episode 20)
Event: Meredith wants to know if she's going to get Alzheimer's like her mother, and Bailey agrees to map them. Bailey reveals Meredith has tested positive for more than one of the genetic markers for Alzheimer's. Terrified she'll turn into her mother, Meredith then tries to convince Derek to administer "a lethal dose of morphine the minute I don't know where my keys are." Ellis eventually dies from cardiac arrest and Meredith has yet to display any physical symptoms of the disease.
She drowned amidst a ferry boat crash
Episode: "Drowning on Dry Land" (Season 3, Episode 16)
Event: Amid a frightening ferry boat crash, Meredith is knocked into the water and begins to drown. Derek jumps in to save her but may be too late and she appears to flatline at the hospital. While the doctors work to save her, Meredith awakes in a dream-like afterlife vision in which she admits that, while drowning, she didn't see the sense in living anymore. However just before doctors are ready to give up, they give her one more shock that gets her heart beating again.
She told a gunman to shoot her
Episode: "Death and All His Friends" (Season 6, Episode 24)
Event: A man whose wife was just taken off life support returns to the hospital on a mission to kill her doctors: Derek Shepherd, Lexie Grey, and Richard Webber. He manages to shoot Derek, who undergoes emergency surgery conducted by Cristina Yang. As Cristina attempts to save him in the OR, the grieving man holds her at gunpoint and demands she stop in order to let him die. Meredith enters the OR and pleads with the man to shoot her instead of Derek.
Her plane crashed
Episode: "Flight" (Season 8, Episode 24)
Event: While doctors Derek Shepherd, Meredith Grey, Lexie Grey, Mark Sloan, Arizona Robbins and Cristina Yang are on a flight from Seattle to Boise to help separate a set of conjoined twins, the plane crashes in the woods. Derek injures his hand, Lexie dies, Mark Sloan is injured (and eventually dies after being taken off life support while in a coma), Arizona ultimately loses her leg, and Cristina dislocated her shoulder. Meredith makes out with some cuts and bruises.
She underwent a C-section during a blackout
Episode: "Perfect Storm" (Season 9, Episode 24)
Event: Meredith goes into labor as the hospital loses power during a storm. She undergoes a C-section that's performed in the dark and delivers her first born. However as Shane begin to stitch her up, he notices blood coming through her IV, presumably caused by internal bleeding from an earlier fall on the stairs. Meredith instructs Shane to open her back up to find the source of the bleeding, which is coming from her spleen. As she talks him through the procedure, she begins to lose consciousness. Bailey comes to the rescue and Meredith survives.
She was brutally attacked
Episode: "The Sound of Silence" (Season 12, Episode 9)
Event: During the midseason premiere, a patient with brain damage violently attacks Meredith at the hospital, leaving her bloodied and battered on the ground. Among her many injuries, she's left with her jaw wired shut and damage to her ears leaving her temporarily deaf. "She’s attacked really brutally, really viciously and in a completely surprising, weird way," costar Sarah Drew told EW about the episode directed by Denzel Washington.
She nearly died from humiliation
Episode: "Who's Zoomin' Who?" (Season 1, Episode 9)
Event: Imagine being young and naive Meredith who suddenly finds out the man she's in love with is still married to a gorgeous, successful surgeon from New York. Sure, she doesn't have a literal near-death experience, but Meredith learning the truth after coming face-to-face with Addison Shepherd may be the closest anyone has ever come to actually dying from embarrassment.