Danica Powell

Dr. **Danica Powell** was a first year surgical resident at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. She is a former Navy lieutenant who lost her right leg in a flight deck accident. She was later fired for an unauthorized surgery to save her friend Vince's life.

## History

### Season 6

Danica is first introduced in "Change of Perspective" as a first-year surgical resident, along with Dr. Daniel Perez. She has a rough start when she refuses to be a part of a xenotransplant, claiming that it is unethical. Shaun threatens to fire her for her defiance but changes his mind after consulting with Dr. Lim.

In "A Big Sign", Danica is paired with Dr. Alex Park to treat a bipolar patient named Cady. Due to her rage, Cady is restrained, but Danica shows her defiance again and frees her, causing tension between Dr. Park and herself. She later redeems herself when she reunites Cady's parents, who were angry with each other regarding Cady's treatment.

In "Shrapnel", Danica, Shaun, and Asher treat a military reenactor. Due to her experience in the military and being injured, she develops hate for him. She begrudgingly helps him through a set of difficult surgeries.

In "Growth Opportunities", Powell and Asher are delegated to tell a patient's family that their daughter's father is not her biological dad. They start by telling the patient's mother, who admits to cheating. When they tell the patient's biological father, her other father shows up, and the two fathers get into a fight, with Asher getting hurt in the process. Both Powell and Asher are scolded for handling the situation poorly.

Dr. Lim asks Danica about her experience as an amputee and whether she should do the surgery to fix her paralysis. Danica talks about how she accepted her fate as an amputee and learned to live with it. Lim then denies the surgery that Shaun proposes.

In "Hot and Bothered", Danica tells Shaun that she convinced Dr. Lim not to get the surgery, which causes Shaun to become upset with her. Throughout the day, Danica and Shaun argue, making Shaun increasingly irritated. As the patient's condition worsens, they continue to debate the best treatment plan until Shaun takes her off the case.

After their shift, Danica introduces Dr. Lim to her wheelchair basketball team to prove that Dr. Lim is more than her injury, but Dr. Lim is reluctant. She is shy at first, but after she plays some basketball, she starts to have fun.

After discussing with Glassman, Shaun puts Danica back on the case to help with the surgery. Shaun tries to find common ground, but Danica is stubborn. In the middle of the surgery, the backup generators fail due to the heat, and they are forced to improvise. Danica uses her knowledge of surgical history to make a plan, and they find common ground: they are both surgical history nerds.

In "Boys Don't Cry", the entire team works to deliver sextuplets. Danica and Dr. Lim are paired together with "Baby F", who needs surgery on her trachea due to a birth defect. As soon as she is born, Dr. Lim and Danica rush the baby to surgery, still connected to her placenta. Lim and Danica bond over treating Baby F, and Lim reveals her crush on a member of Danica's wheelchair basketball team. Danica then sets up a date between them. In the end, Baby F survives along with her siblings.

In "Broken or Not", Shaun devises a new system to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Dr. Perez and Danica, which leads to competition between them. They are given a patient, Teddy, who has a strangulated hernia. However, he experiences complications during surgery due to an underlying condition that was not previously known. In an attempt to find out what's wrong with Teddy, Shaun offers extra credit to whoever figures it out, causing Dr. Perez and Danica to call a truce and work together. Despite their efforts, they fail to diagnose Teddy's condition, which turns out to be bulimia nervosa. Dr. Perez discovers Teddy with an esophageal rupture in the bathroom and takes him to surgery immediately. After the operation, Shaun abandons the scoring system.

In "The Good Boy", Danica arrives home from her night shift to find her old friend (Vince) from the Navy bleeding on her doorstep. He reveals that he was shot in the leg at a party. There was a gang member, which violates his parole, so he cannot go to the hospital because they will investigate. She tries to talk Vince into going to the hospital, but he insists on Danica removing the bullet. After inspecting the wound, she believes that the bullet is close to the surface and that she can remove it.

Danica goes to the hospital to get supplies for Vince's surgery when she runs into Dr. Lim. Dr. Lim invites Danica over for dinner the next day, and she accepts. Then she is spotted by Asher, who is curious about why she came back after finishing her shift. She says that she is going to practice removing foreign bodies, and he is skeptical at first, but then shrugs it off.

After starting to cut into Vince's leg, Danica realizes that the bullet has shattered, making the procedure much more difficult. She calls Asher for a second opinion, passing it off as surgical practice. As the conversation continues, Asher becomes more and more skeptical, and eventually Danica runs out of lies. She switches to a video call and shows Asher what is really happening. He advises her to close up the wound and calls her out for lying to him. She apologizes and promises to never do it again.

The next day, Vince comes back with an infected leg wound, putting him at risk of developing sepsis. Danica agrees to take the bullet out and calls in sick. She then calls Asher, begging him to help and promising to take the fall. He agrees but only to talk her through the procedure. Dr. Lim comes to Danica's house to check in, since she called in sick, and Danica lies. After Dr. Lim hears a man groaning in pain, she barges in to the horror scene unfolding. Danica begs Dr. Lim to help Vince, and after manipulating her with their friendship and Danica's past experience with Vince, she agrees to help. During the surgery, Vince loses consciousness, and in a split-second decision, Danica calls for an ambulance.

After Vince is taken to the hospital, Dr. Andrews looks at Danica's file, and due to her many incidents of defiance, Dr. Lim and Marcus agree that Danica has a problem following rules and fires her, even though it pains Dr. Lim. Vince ends up staying out of prison, and Asher is put on probation.

## Trivia

* In real life, Savannah Welch is an amputee, having lost her right leg after being hit by a car on November 2, 2016.