Dispatches - Season 8 / Year 1993

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

In Fire Country, seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence, young convict Bode Donovan joins a firefighting program that returns him to his small Northern California hometown, where he and other inmates work alongside elite firefighters to extinguish massive blazes across the region.

An emotional thrill ride through the day-to-day chaos of the city's newest state-of-the-art trauma center and into the lives of the courageous doctors, nurses and staff who hold it all together. This is one of those days.

District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups. There are the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and go head to head with the city's street crimes. And there's the Intelligence Unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses - organized crime, drug trafficking, high profile murders and beyond. These are their stories.

No job is more stressful, dangerous or exhilarating than those of the Firefighters, Rescue Squad and Paramedics of Chicago Firehouse 51. These are the courageous men and women who forge headfirst into danger when everyone else is running the other way and whose actions make the difference between life and death. These are their stories.