Tom and Kate are on a clinicround. It's Tom's birthday. There they see a patient named Ted, who complains of stomach-ache. His family situation isn't the best, he doesn't care about his sons and they don't care about him. He is taken to hospital, where he finally makes up with his family. A new doctor, Chris Randall, arrives and everybody is upset that the RFDS headoffice sent a female doctor, especially Violet. Chris has to go out to see a patient with a smashed leg. She does everything she can to help the patient, Jim Spencer. But he really needs to go to hospital. They move Jim to the plane, but the weather is too rough, and Ray, the pilot, can't take off. They have to take Jim back to the house, and Chris makes a very difficult decision - she has to amputate Jim's leg to save his life, despite mrs. Spencer's vishes.

Chris has horrible nightmares about the amputation. Everybody is accusing her, they are convinced that she could have treated Jim Spencer without taking off his leg. Her patients avoid her, and George Baxter even threatens to sue her. A few days later Chris is out on an overnight clinic where she finds a four-year-old girl with croup. It gets very bad, and Tom decides to come. For some reason George Baxter is on the plane as well. Chris realizes that Tom won't be able to get there in time, so she needs to do a tracheotomy(?) (it's when you make a little whole in the patients windpipe, so he/she will be able to breath).The girl's mother won't let Chris perform the rather simple procedure, she has heard what happened to Jim Spencer. Tom tries to talk to her over the radio but she won't listen. So Tom maked George Baxter understand that the little girl will die if Chris doesn't operate, and Baxter talks to the mother on the radio. he claims he has been wrong about Chris all the time an