Hanako Greensmith Admits She Sometimes Forgets A Step Of Administering An IV On Chicago Fire
NBC's "Chicago Fire” is one of several TV dramas that make up the "One Chicago" franchise, a series of interconnected shows created by Dick Wolf that cover various public services in Chicago such as medical, police, and fire departments. On "Chicago Fire," the cast not only needs to memorize their lines and accurately portray a profession, but they also need to know how to conduct different medical procedures and use specific equipment.
It is very important for showrunners and the actors to pay very close attention to detail because nothing pulls a fan out of the moment quicker than something that is obviously wrong — whether it's incorrectly doing chest compressions while performing CPR, or not properly applying pressure to a wound, actors and actresses need to know the correct procedure in order to keep the realism of the show.
Having to memorize complicated lines full of medical jargon isn't the easiest thing for an actor to do, so combining that with having to know how to correctly use medical equipment can sometimes lead to mistakes, which actress Hanako Greensmith (Violet Mikami) can relate to.
Accurately depicting medical procedures can be difficult
Having to memorize your lines and remember how an intricate medical procedure goes isn't the easiest thing to do which Hanako Greensmith admitted to in an interview with co-stars Miranda Rae Mayo (Stella Kidd) and Kara Killmer (Sylvie Brett). "I think a lot of the medical equipment can get tricky," Greensmith shared in an interview. The actress plays a paramedic on the show, so she is constantly using all sorts of medical tools and performing various procedures, including one very common procedure that she says she gets wrong from time to time. "The IV, I can forget a step, which a nurse or primary care doctor never would," Greensmith admits.
In Greensmith's defense, learning how to put in an IV isn't something that you can learn overnight, the procedure is over a dozen steps and it is known to sometimes take years to master. But luckily for Greensmith, if she misses a step while filming, they can either reshoot the scene or do some creative editing where it appears like she didn't miss a thing.