Special to the Director's Cut
By Mark Barger
The doors at County General Hospital are officially closed now, as "ER" aired its final episode Thursday night. As you might imagine, a lot has gone into the production of the show over its 15 years on NBC.
For instance, the trauma doors at County General have swung open more than 3,000 times with more than 5,453 actors passing through. 750 of those actors were trauma patients arriving by ambulance another 500 patients just walked right in to talk to one of 10 different desk clerks.
Those patients have spurted more than 180 gallons of fake blood. That's brought on more than 160 chest tubes and 300 intubations. There've been 23 different doctors and they've ordered up more than 450 x-rays.
And along with the 31 different nurses they used more than 447,000 latex gloves and worn more than 130,000 pairs of hospital scrubs. Add in more than 4 dozen directors almost 3 dozen writers and hundreds of crew members it all adds up to one legendary medical drama.
As for other "ER" numbers, it took 34,000 hours of photography to shoot those 332 episodes. 180 days of that photography was done in Chicago.
