As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Season One
Episode 2 - Let Go
- When Buck fails to save the life of a man who falls to his death from a roller coaster. He goes to the man's funeral only to have his sister blame him for his death, at the end she visits him at the firehouse to apologize, then reveals that 7 years prior the man had tried to kill himself, after being sent to therapy he got better, then several months prior to the accident he started to become depressed again. So she asked his friend to take him to the fair, so she thinks it's her fault that he died, Buckley tells her otherwise.Buck: There is nothing either of us could have done for Devon. Some people just don't want to be saved.
- May’s suicide attempt and Athena’s reaction when she finds her.
- Bobby taking the plane crash job rather hard. After he fails to show up at work, Hen and Buck go to check on him. As expected, Bobby tells them he's fine, even though they found him passed out on the bed with an empty alcohol bottle beside him. After Hen tells him that it's okay for everyone to ask for some help from time to time, he just squeaks out a pained "Help" before breaking into tears.
- A woman whose husband was on the plane left a message with Abby before the crash, knowing that all 911 calls are recorded. Unfortunately, he doesn't make it. Knowing that it could at least give the woman some closure, Abby invites her to the station to hear her husband's voice message. We don't get to hear it a second time, but the woman's—and Abby's—reactions are enough, especially when the call abruptly cuts off.
- Bobby admitting to Chimney that he couldn't save his own family from himself when it's revealed his blood can save the lives of probably a bunch of kids.
- Abby's mom dies, her pained voice is heart-wrenching.
- The death of the motorcyclist that cut in half. At first he doesn't grasp the situation and is babbling that he needs to get to his son, bragging about how his new bike made him feel like a badass...and then it seems like he registers the seriousness of the situation in his last few seconds, telling his son that he loves him before passing away. Bobby has to step to the side to process this, despite having arguably seen much worse in his line of work.
Season Two
Episode 4 - Stuck
- Chimney's Heroic BSoD triggered by his accident last season when the 118 fails to save a man who died as he was proposing to his girlfriend. He has difficulty reconciling the fact that he, called by his doctor a "modern medical miracle", survived and yet his life hasn't changed except being dumped by his girlfriend immediately after the accident. Yet this man who was about to get engaged to the woman he loved died before she even has a chance to tell him yes.
- His break-down has him reveal that he's been lying about not remembering the accident and actually has constant nightmares and flashbacks that he tries to ignore. Bobby tells him that he needs to face what Chimney experienced if he wants to move on:
Bobby: A life-altering event doesn't alter anything if you ignored it happened.
- Despite all the trouble Gloria gave her, when Maddie realizes that Gloria has been in an accident and can't reach her phone due to the airbags and being too dazed, guilt-ridden, and blind without her glasses, Maddie stays on the line as Gloria does an Engineered Public Confession as part of her Heel Realization, and when the LAFD arrive, Gloria breaks down in relief and joy that Maddie did not hang up on her as a "dead-end call" and stayed with her until help arrived. This led to Gloria's Heel–Face Turn in a later episode.
- The scene where the police horse has to be put to sleep really tugs at your heart strings especially if you’re an animal lover.
- Made even more tearjerking and heartwarming when the cops and firefighters link arms in mourning as the overdose of morphine is administered.
- The way the cop was speaking to his horse, trying to keep him calm and comfort him in his final moments, assuring him he’d be free to be a horse again in an ever expanding field of sage where he can run forever.
- Athena, after finding out who the dead hiker was, goes to his wife to tell her they found him. She breaks down crying.
- Hen struggling with the decision to turn off her father’s life support is really going to hit close to home to those who’ve had to go through that as well.
- The Marine that was returning from deployment before his bus got in an accident is given a lift to his daughter's Christmas recital by the 118, allowing him to enter the auditorium during her solo, and reunite with her and his wife, who are happy to have him home from his tour of duty. Even Buck can't help but cry at seeing the family get their Earn Your Happy Ending, as he's always a sucker for videos of U.S. military forces reuniting with their families when they return home from deployment.
- Chimney is stabbed by Maddie's insane and abusive husband, who he thought was becoming his friend.
- This episode gives us Chimney's backstory. He is basically treated like trash by the rest of his team, and when he tries to call his father (who is in Seoul), he is coldly dismissed as wanting some money. Oh, and his best friend Kevin dies after saving a pregnant woman on top of a burning building.
- The scenes of Kevin's funeral are particularly heartbreaking as its the first time we've seen a firefighter funeral. The ringing off the bell and the hand off of the flag hit pretty damn hard.
- Also Chimney in the waiting room montage. In his flashback he is waiting to see if a fellow firefighter is ok, but we see flashes of him jerking, clutching his stomach, even covered in blood, as the reality- that he is fighting for his life after having been stabbed- is leaking into his memories.
- After a woman gives birth, she collapses into cardiac arrest. Hen administers CPR all the way to L.A. General, but by the time they get there, the E.R. staff believe it's too late as the monitor showed flatline the entire way. As the 118 apologize to the husband over his loss, he mourns his wife and places their newborn baby on her chest, heartbroken over gaining a child but losing her in exchange.
- Thankfully, this becomes a Heartwarming moment when the monitor then detects a pulse again, and realizing the mother is alive, the E.R. staff quickly get her into surgery to keep it that way. Hen, relieved, collapses, while the 118 are amazed by the miracle they just witnessed. Lazarus Syndrome or Divine Intervention from above, this was a Tears of Joy moment for all involved.
- The first 15 minutes of this episode. We’ve already seen what happened beforehand in "Point Of Origin" and the last thing we saw was him being dragged away as he's screaming for his wife and kids. Bobby Begins opens up Bobby in a frantic daze yelling for his kids and wife until his eyes lands firefighters bringing out his two kids from the fire not alive. Cue him sobbing. THEN we have his wife, badly burned up and possibly in extreme pain, asking where are the kids and are they ok. With tears in his eyes, Bobby puts on a smile and lies that they are ok. After this she passes. The moment she does, he cries and begs for her to not go. By the time the medics are trying to revive her, the camera cuts to him having a BSOD.
- Not to mention that he spent the rest of his days in Minnesota drinking himself to death. When he's revived back after another OD on drinking, he's angry that he's brought back to life because just seconds earlier, he was with his family again.
- Shannon's death and also her letter to Christopher.
- Eddie breaks down sobbing on the beach while reading her letter.
- All the civilians rushing forward without a second thought to help lift the crashed ladder truck off of Buck's leg. Its tear jerking in a heartwarming way to see the love the community have for their first responders
- Maddie watching the news report on the attack. She starts by just cataloguing his possible injuries in a detached way, but then finally starts crying seeing her little brother all alone and in pain, effectively being used as a hostage.
- Bucks screams of pain are also pretty heart wrenching.
Season Three
Episode 1 - Kids Today
- Buck is told that, due to his newly developed clotting issue, he won't be able to return to active duty, instead of being pushed towards a desk job. He quits, and the ensuing depression makes clear that, for all of his gregariousness and swagger, Buck's entire sense of self-worth is tied into a job he can no longer do.
- Maddie gets a 9-1-1 call from a man who is trapped in his house and after he is unable to escape, Maddie listens to him die.
- One of her co-workers is still on the line 20 minutes after her caller stopped responding, hoping the caller will respond. Their supervisor has to hang up for her.
- When the Harbourmaster who sets off the Tsunami siren has nowhere to hide or run to and you see the fear on his face as he just sits against a wall as the wave comes crashing in.
- Actually just in general the moment you realise how many people wouldn't have been able to get to safety in time.
- Bucks desperation and panic while searching for Christopher who got separated from him during a surge wave. By the time he gets to the VA Hospital, he has clearly been searching all day and well into the night, and he is exhausted, but still looking.
- Buck having to tell Eddie that he can't find Chris, and then nearly collapsing with relief when a civilian brings him in and they reunite.
- So much of this episode particularly the loss of her first love.
- The episode ends with Athena coming to see her late fiance's mother. It mixes with flashbacks to the night of his death as Athena took it upon herself to break the news in person and the woman collapsed into her arms. In the present, they embrace again, this time with happiness at Athena finding the killer.
- The revelation that the killer was just a teenage heroin addict going through severe withdrawal who hadn't even meant to kill Athena's fiancee. He was racked with guilt when he learned what he had done and dedicated the rest of his life to helping others in the community. But when Athena shows up, he knows the day he always feared has come and that he has to face the consequences. Even though she still wants justice, Athena can't help but feel a bit sorry at ruining the guy's own family for his past mistake.
- Athena breaks down in tears after the events of the episode in Bobby's arms.
- Hen crashes the ambulance right into the car of a young woman. Hen is so devastated when she finds out that the woman has died, that she collapses into Athena's arms, bawling her eyes out
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- Maddie is on the line with a 10-year-old boy and his mom, who collapses from a heart attack. He's confused and scared, thinking he broke his mom while performing compressions when he hears a crack (which Maddie assures him is a good thing). And when the team gets there, he tells them "the 9-1-1 lady told me to keep doing it", but they have to take over. His mother is revived, but he is still saddened when told he couldn't go with her in the ambulance. Even more so, he learns that she might not be released from the hospital in time for Christmas and, as all their relatives are back east from where they had recently moved, he'll have to stay alone in a group home over the holidays until she gets better. Thankfully she recovers on Christmas Day, just in time to rejoin at the 118 fire station, who happens to be hosting Christmas for his group home.
- Chimney's younger half-brother Albert comes to visit after leaving home. On a Skype call with their father, Chimney realizes how little his father cares for him. Ouch...
- Josh's date turns out to be ruse so the guy can beat and mug him. Its particularly hard to watch as Josh was so excited, and its also a real life fear a lot of gay people deal with.
- The problem of the week is a little boy trapped down a tiny well, and seeing him down there shivering, and hearing his Mom's voice breaking as she talks to him to keep him calm is pretty hard to watch for some
- For a minute there, it looks like Eddie might have died in a well cave in, and Buck does not handle it well.
- The whole team declines to celebrate Buck's save of the deaf woman, then his attempts to reunite Red with his lost love go off the rails because she has dementia and no longer remembers him—which has Red snapping that he isn't sure he can survive more of Buck's help. When he later dies, Buck tells Maddie tearfully that no matter what, he's always being left behind.
- He does manage to get a proper firefighters send off for Red as he leaves the hospital just before his death.
Season Four
Episode 5 - Buck Begins
- Buck finally discovers the deep, dark secret of the family: He had an older brother named Daniel, who was diagnosed by leukemia. No one in the family was a match for a bone marrow transplant...so they had Buck. Daniel died anyway and his parents hid it from him. Buck is rocked at the realization he was never truly wanted, that Maddie was keeping this secret from him all his life and the realization that the reason his parents were distant all this time has been because they never truly wanted him.
- During the first flashback it is revealed that Buck and Maddie's father didn't want to ignore Daniel but their mother was the one to press him to do it. The man couldn't even keep a single item to remember his son because his wife became too emotional.
- Buck decided after getting kicked out of community college that he needed to escape his family and discover who he was and asked Maddie to come with him. But on the day they were supposed to leave she refused to see him, leaving him only a letter saying she couldn't, leaving Buck to feel abandoned once again
- Later on Chimney reveals the real reason Maddie didn't go with him: the night before her husband Doug savagely beat her, leaving her with a black eye, a busted lip, swelling, and cuts all over her face. Maddie knew that if Buck saw her like that he'd confront Doug and either kill him or get killed himself and thus sent him away to save him.
- As Maddie is figuring out her COVID birth plan, she decides she wants a home birth because Chimney can use his paramedic skills to deliver it, but Chimney finally breaks down on her and says he is terrified of the thought because as a paramedic he knows exactly how wrong things can go during birth, and he doesn't want anything to happen to her or the baby.
- The 118 responds to a drunk driver who has her kid in the car. The fear in the little boy's voice is gut wrenching.
- The whole event is a massive trigger for Bobby's PTSD, especially when Athena spends a whole lot of time talking about how terrible and irresponsible the driver was as she nearly killed her kid "because she was drunk and stupid". Poor Bobby.
- Hen and Karen have to give back their foster daughter now that her mother can take back custody. It has been nearly a year of them caring for Nia, and they can barely keep it together as she is taken away.
- Hen and Chimney attending a call for a drug overdose. It turns out the caller was a mother with cancer who had purposefully overdosed herself and her DNR prepared. She called the paramedics so that her adult daughter, who dedicated her life to caring for her, wouldn't be alone when died and could finally live her own life.
- Eddie getting shot out of nowhere by a sniper.
- The final shots of Eddie losing consciousness, and also Buck's traumatized face as he's in shock and covered by his friend's blood.
- The glassy eyes and trembling voice Buck has when he's performing first aid on Eddie and reassuring him that they are getting close to the hospital.
- Buck breaking down with Christopher when he tells him that Eddie has been shoot and won't be coming home that night.
- The survivor guilt Buck feels throughout the episode, to the point of him being reckless when the crew is saving a bleeding guy on a crane and saying that it would've been better for Christopher if he had been the one getting shot toward Eddie when he regains consciousness.
- Maddie's post-partum depression.
Season Five
Episode 4 - Home And Away
- Early in the episode, a truck slams into a high school homecoming parade. Two best friends, Makayla and Cassie, are directly caught in the path of the truck. One girl dies at the scene, while the other sustains serious facial and head trauma but ultimately survives. At the hospital, the girls are accidentally switched, leading to both sets of parents feeling devastated when they learn the truth. The saddest part is that the reason this switch occurred was because the girl who lived (Cassie) was calling the name of her friend (Makayla), more concerned for her wellbeing over her own, when Hen asked her what her name was.
- Chim's breakdown over not being able to help Maddie during her PPD she has to leave. His voice and tears are so heartbreaking.Chimney: She left me a message saying that the baby wasn't safe with her. Which, if you knew her, that's just... it's crazy because she's a great mother. She just doesn't know it yet. Or she doesn't believe it, I guess. Uh... You see, she-she... she has postpartum, and it's been really tough on her. And I know that she's tired. I mean, we both are, but, uh, she's had to do most of it alone. You see, uh, the day that she brought Jee-Yun to see you... That's the week that the world went crazy, more than usual. Uh, see, I'm a firefighter, and I was on call the whole time, so, uh, I didn't get to go home, and, uh... I really didn't check on her a lot. I tried. I tried a lot, but the power was out, and the phones were down half the time. And there was a giraffe on Hollywood Boulevard. (Laughs) I'm-I'm so sorry. I'm-I'm not crazy. I'm-I'm just completely in the dark here, and I just need to know what's going on with her. (Sighs) With the both of them. That's all. (Sniffles, sighs) Please?
- Christopher's nightmare, and what caused his nightmare and his insistence on making the Christmas party in the Diaz household right. Poor child.Christopher: You could be DEAD next year!
- Eddie's slow downward spiral throughout the episode is hard to watch.
- His eyebags and dark circles start to form as the episode goes on. Later it's revealed that the cause is not only him still accustomed to 24-hour shift for three months, but he also misses being a firefighter.
- Eddie tries to and succeeds in helping (whether he did it in a good way is debatable) Linda during the Speed-inspired call, but Josh harshly reprimands him for stepping in line after, calling him "A guest" and he should not interfere with a protocol.
- When Eddie arrives at the bar where the 118 goes to drink after the Speed emergency, but when Eddie sees new members already warming up to the team and Buck laughing hard at Lucy who he thought replaced him, he immediately goes home thinking he's not needed. The sadness and longing on his face is painful.
- After a talk with Christopher makes him decide he want to go back only for Bobby to reject it since he's well aware Eddie hasn't been doing well mentally. The way Eddie tries to convince Bobby, to then bringing up Bobby's Dark and Troubled Past in anger is heartbreaking
Eddie: Is this my punishment for leaving?
- The episode starts strong (by strong it means painful) with this by having Maddie trying to drown herself in the beach to punish herself for accidentally drowning Jee.
- The fact that Margaret Buckley is said to lose her will to live after Daniel's death reveals two things; Having to outlive someone's children is a very painful experience and that depression runs in the Buckley household.
- EDDIE'S. BREAKDOWN. Even though it ends up having less screen time than fandom expected, Ryan, Oliver, and Gavin bring their A-game in this scene.
- What triggers his breakdown? Eddie learning that the comrades he saved during the helicopter crash in Afghanistan, the incident that gave him the silver star, DIED afterwards, the latest shooting herself last August.
- Poor Christopher having to hear his dad in his own room destroying everything without being able to help. The panic is his voice when he talks to Buck about it is palpable.
- This is the fourth time Buck has been worried sick about Eddie's well-being. Learning that Eddie locked himself in his own bedroom, Buck busted the door open seeing how thrashed the room becomes. The tremble in his voice when he calls Eddie's name for the last time before he hears Eddie's sob is heartbreaking. Keep in mind that with Buck's history of failing to save someone from committing suicide way back in Season 1 and the latest call involving someone who tries to commit suicide in this episode, his trembling voice is likely him half-dreading he'll find Eddie's lifeless body on the other side of the door.
- And then Eddie... he looks so vulnerable in that scene and the aftermath of it. The survivor guilt he felt for not being able to prevent their death is very pronounced.
Eddie: I pulled them out... (chokes) but I didn't save them.- And of course, the last two lines from both Buck and Eddie.
Buck: OK... OK... Well, what are you afraid of?Eddie: That I'm never gonna feel normal again.
- A talk between Christopher and Eddie about their share of trauma manages to be this when it's implied Christopher has been thinking that the sadness Eddie is having is because of him.Eddie: (Tightly hugs Christopher) Never.
- The last call of the episode involves a divorced mother and her three girls playing in an abandoned missile base when one of them almost fell into a hole on the ground before the mother pushed her daughter away and took the fall. When the 118 reached her, the 80-feet fall has caused so much internal bleeding to the mother the chance of her surviving is next to none. Realizing her time is due, the mother requested that the team allowed her to talk through walkie-talkie for the last time before she succumbs to the wound. The team, agreeing that the death of the kids' mother should be told by their father, decides to formally bring her to the hospital to give proper moment for the family while a slower, somber version of "You Are My Sunshine" plays during the entire scene.
- This devastating dialogue.
Youngest Daughter: Hey, why aren't the sirens on?Eldest Daughter: (Already realizes that her mother didn't make it) Mom doesn't need them anymore.
- One can't help but be on Hen's side as she watches helplessly as Jonah intentionally stops Chimney's heart and Hen fears she just lost her partner as Jonah sadistically then resuscitates him to taunt Hen.
- Then after Chimney subdues Jonah with knocking him out via electrocution from the defibrillator after playing the Not Quite Dead card, the relief from Hen seeing Chimney is alright is heart wrenching before they know it is all over as the red and blues of the LAPD are seen outside as they arrive to rescue them and capture Jonah.
Season Six
Episode 2 - Crash and Learn
- A call at the happiness center ends with the 118 having to choose whether to save an old man called Lev trapped under a rubble or a young man trapped on a different rubble with punctured lung, both needing immediate help. Lev then understands that the team wants to save the younger man first, also knowing that he has less chance of surviving. He mumbles to Buck about how he goes to the convention because he wants to find happiness that despite living normally with a wife, kids, and job he doesn't feel. It's when he mumbles about understanding what it means to be happy that he flatlines. Buck, who listens to the old man and is having existential crisis from the beginning of the season looks so lost in the aftermath, trying very hard to understand what Lev means by his last words.
- Hen breaking down after failing her finals and having to redo her second year. After seeing her happiness at having the chance to fulfill her dream as a doctor two seasons prior and her struggle at the beginning of the episode to juggle the responsibilities, her breakdown is very painful to see.
Season Seven
Episode 2 - Rock the Boat
- Bobby and Athena's Anguished Declaration of Love while they're trapped on the ship in a flooded room, thinking that they're about to drown.
- Athena having to break the news to an elderly woman that she killed her son earlier in the episode after mistaking him for an intruder.
