We swooned over Shane West as a selfish teenager who changed his outlook on life after falling in love with a cancer-stricken Mandy Moore in A Walk To Remember. We loved seeing him in cheesy teen comedies like Whatever It Takes. And we can never forget his arc as Dr. Ray Barnett on ER.
For a long time, ER was the hospital drama that had been on the air the longest after airing for 15 seasons from 1994 to 2009. Of course, Grey’s Anatomy has since knocked it out of the top spot and is about to ring in its record-breaking 21st season. While everyone remembers watching George Clooney on ER, West played an important character. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay on the show for very long. Why did Ray leave ER?
How did Ray’s time on ER end?
West began playing Dr. Ray Barnett in season 11 of ER and fell in love with Neela Rasgotra (Parminder Nagra). After getting into an argument, Ray was involved in one of the worst accidents seen on the popular series. In season 13, episode 23 ⏤ “The Honeymoon is Over” ⏤ a truck slams into Ray and he ends up with his legs amputated. (Anyone who wants to watch this sad and wild moment all over again can check out ER on streaming.)
Following this terrible moment in his life, it seemed like Ray would leave ER forever since it changed everything so profoundly. But unlike Greg Pratt on ER, Ray lived. After going to Baton Rouge, where he was from, he came back to Chicago in season 15 armed with prosthetics. ER fans got exactly what they wanted when Ray and Neela reunited. Since that doesn’t always happen when characters come back for an episode or two, audiences were positively cheering. West told Entertainment Weekly that Ray had “matured,” adding, “He’s coming back at the right time, when she needs that friend and possibly that romance back. There are definitely sparks reignited.”
Ray’s ER storyline was especially emotional since it honestly came out of nowhere. While he wasn’t always a likable character, it’s hard to watch West and not root for him. He had some conflict at the hospital, as he was also a musician and he had to balance his two passions. When West joined the cast of ER, he was just coming off his three seasons of the corny and underrated TV drama Once and Again, where he also played a rebellious and tough musician.
While we never wanted to see Ray and Neela broken up, or Ray in any kind of trouble, we can’t argue with the fact that this is a plotline we’re still talking about so many years later.