When Station 19 premiered in 2018 as the second spinoff in the Grey’s Anatomy universe, it was to be expected that the characters would be no strangers to tragedy. The medical drama, as well as the Kate Walsh-led Private Practice, both proved they weren’t afraid to put characters like Meredith Grey in life-or-death situations, and as medical professionals, those characters weren’t even running into burning buildings for a living. In its seven seasons, the firehouse definitely saw its share of trauma, and unfortunately for the fans, that included losing some of Seattle’s bravest along the way.
The Season 6 finale spelled the end for Pat Healy’s Michael Dixon, and Station 19’s final episode killed off Kate Powell (Kiele Sanchez), but given their history with the firefighters, I wouldn’t count their deaths among the most devastating of the series. There definitely were several other times, though, when we were not prepared for the anguish we witnessed. Let’s take a look at Station 19’s most heartbreaking deaths.
Chief Lucas Ripley (Season 2)
The writers of Station 19 proved just how cruel they could be when they took away fire chief Lucas Ripley (Brett Tucker), robbing us of seeing what his relationship — and possible marriage — with Vic Hughes (Barrett Doss) would have been like out in the open. It wasn’t to be, however, as Ripley was exposed to hydrofluoric acid when he jumped in to help during a coffee plant fire. On his way to accept Vic’s marriage proposal in Season 2’s “Always Ready,” he collapsed and was taken to Grey Sloan Memorial.
Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary) tried her best, but she was unable to save him, and Vic sat with Ripley until he died. The scene gave Grey’s Anatomy fans flashbacks of Denny Duquette’s death and the unfulfilled potential of what could have been between Denny (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Katherine Heigl’s character, Izzie Stevens. For Vic, the grief of losing Ripley continued to rear its ugly head throughout the series, especially given another tragedy to come later on this list.
Ryan Tanner (Season 3)
Ryan Tanner’s death was the first of several Season 3 heartbreaks endured by the firefighters and fans alike, and it didn’t even have anything to do with a fire. Ryan (Alberto Frezza) had gone to Andy Herrera’s apartment in the episode “Indoor Fireworks” to profess his love. They ended up babysitting one of her neighbor’s kids, a young boy who wanted to play Cops and Robbers. The child found a loaded gun in his apartment, and took aim at “bad guy” Andy (Jaina Lee Ortiz), prompting Ryan to jump in front of the bullet. Despite Andy’s efforts to save him, in the next episode, “Eulogy,” Ryan’s death was confirmed.
Krista Vernoff, who had just taken over as showrunner, told EW at the time that she really wanted to “put Andy through some darkness,” in Season 3, and what better way to do that than killing off her childhood best friend?
Rigo Vasquez (Season 3)
Tensions were high around the fire station after Rigo Vasquez (Rigo Sanchez) discovered that his wife Eva had slept with Jack Gibson (Grey Damon). That was apparently the reason why Rigo didn’t listen to Jack in “Satellite of Love” when he tried to stop Rigo from using a fire extinguisher on what turned out to be liquid oxygen. There was an explosion, and Rigo was badly injured. It was thought he’d make a full recovery; however, he died just before being discharged from the hospital.
This death would go on to haunt Jack for years — literally, Rigo’s ghost stalked the spiraling firefighter in Season 6 — but fans were possibly more upset with the messed up way Station 19 handled it. While Rigo’s death was revealed at the end of “Poor Wandering One,” it wasn’t until the episode of Grey’s Anatomy that followed that Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) explained what had even happened. She said Rigo “threw a [pulmonary embolism] as we were about to discharge him.”
Pruitt Herrera (Season 3)
The third big Season 3 death came just a few episodes later, in “I’ll Be Seeing You,” when Pruitt Herrera (Miguel Sandoval) made the ultimate sacrifice to save his former team, including daughter Andy. The retired fire captain knew he didn’t have long to live, due to his terminal cancer, so when he overheard on the radio that a storage unit facility blaze had gotten out of control, he rushed to the scene. It looked pretty dire for many of the first responders lost inside the building, as there was no way to safely vent the roof. Herrera climbed up there and did what he had to do, dying in the process.
This was almost certainly part of Krista Vernoff’s big plan to put Andy through some tragedy — and it definitely succeeded in that — but it could be argued that Station 19 really needed that death. Herrera was going to die soon anyway, and this allowed him to go out like the hero he was.
Dean Miller (Season 5)
ABC heavily promoted the fact that someone would not survive the Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy crossover event that started with the firefighter drama’s 2021 episode “Things We Lost in the Fire.” The team responded to a ruptured gas line that had caused an explosion in a Seattle neighborhood, and tragedy struck for Dean Miller (original cast member Okieriete Onaodowan) who was ultimately the one we lost in the fire, when there was a second explosion.
Fans were destroyed over the loss of the beloved character, and the effects of Miller’s death remained ever-present in the halls of the fire station, particularly for Jack and Vic, the latter of whom suffered a heart attack in the aftermath. Most tragic of all, however, was that Miller’s young daughter, Pru, was effectively orphaned before being adopted by Ben Warren and Miranda Bailey.
Onaodowan actually reprised the role in a brief scene in the series finale, appearing in a flash-forward sequence to tell Vic (a.k.a. “Hughie”) how proud he was of the work she’d continued with his passion project, Crisis One.
Ahead of Station 19’s seventh season, ABC announced that the drama’s final 10 episodes would be its last. New showrunners Peter Paige and Zoanne Clack sent the firefighters off in new directions, graciously sparing the lives of our favorite Seattle first responders. If you want to relive any of the beloved series — either the uplifting or the heartbreaking — all seven seasons can be streamed with a Hulu subscription.
