The Wedsworth-Townsend Act - S1-E1
Revealing mistake: When Squad 10 is dispatched to "possible electrocution," just as the apparatus bay door opens and the squad rolls out, we can see a police officer holding back traffic for the filming of this shot.
Continuity mistake: At the scene of the traffic accident, after removing the injured driver from the overturned tanker, when Roy gets the Biophone from the squad and John runs over to the ambulance stretcher, notice the red rectangular material adhered to the front of Engine 51's cab. We know that Engine 51 does not have a license plate on the front of its cab, and during this scene Engine 51 is being played by the real Engine 127, whose license plate is at the front of its cab.
Continuity mistake: When Roy brings the injured tanker driver into the ER, the attendants wheel the stretcher down the hallway passing treatment 3, and after Roy asks Brackett and Early a pointed question about the trucker's condition, the doctors also walk down the hallway passing treatment 3, in the direction of the nurses' station. But then we see that Early and Brackett are with the patient in treatment 3, which is right beside the ER's receiving entrance.
Continuity mistake: When Station 51 is being dispatched to the brush fire, there's black tape on the chrome trim of the squad's lightbar, but when Squad 51 arrives on scene the black tape has vanished. Then later at Rampart, after Brackett calls Roy a hose jockey, the black tape is back, but vanishes again when they rescue the injured looter.
Cook's Tour - S1-E4
Continuity mistake: While Early is trying to remove a young boy's hand from a vase, in the shot from inside the room he's in treatment 3 with a windowless door, but when he steps into the hallway and asks Sharon for ice cubes he's at treatment 5 with a window on the door.
Continuity mistake: When Mrs. Evans complains to Dixie that she's been waiting two hours to have her cigarette burn taken care of, in her closeups her handbag strap is over her shoulder, but in wide shots her handbag is hanging from her arm.
Continuity mistake: Roy and Johnny are at the nurses' station discussing the problem of non-emergency calls for paramedics, then it cuts to Dixie in the waiting room, when a nurse asks Dixie if the ER can take a pediatric patient who needs treatment immediately, and Dixie tells her to go to Morton in treatment 3. Then when Dixie speaks to Mrs. Evans we see that young girl being brought to treatment 3. During the next two minutes while Dix walks up the hallway, she quickly speaks to Brackett, then to an impatient parent, then to that nurse again, then Brackett again, and finally to Roy. When Roy asks Dixie where Johnny is, Dixie tells him in treatment 3 (dubious how she would even know that fact), and when Roy walks in to get Johnny that pediatric patient who was just brought to treatment 3 is not in there, instead Morton is examining Wild Bill.
Continuity mistake: After Johnny and Roy get back to the station and find Bill, who's filling in for Chet, in the kitchen cooking Chet's awful stew recipe, the tones drop and Squad 51 is dispatched to "man unconscious." Just as the bay door opens we can see Engine 51 parked in the bay, but when the squad heads down the driveway the engine's now gone. This presents another problem, because if the footage shows the engine gone, then why is Bill still at the station cooking stew instead of being with the rest of the engine company?
Camera Bug - S4-E10
Continuity mistake: When Roy's using the Ambu bag on the unconscious teenager from the school fire, while the stretcher's being wheeled to treatment 3's door, Roy has a stethoscope hanging around his neck, but in the next shot as they enter treatment 3 the stethoscope has vanished.
Continuity mistake: When Early is examining the boy who had the grand mal seizure in the waiting room, after using his penlight Early puts it back into his pocket just before he examines the boy's ears in the closeup, but in the wide shot that penlight is on the gurney and Dixie picks it up then puts it into her pocket. Yet in Early's closeups the penlight is still in his pocket, and in the wide shots it's gone.
Continuity mistake: When Early examines the boy who had a seizure in the waiting room, Early uses a tongue depressor and his penlight to check the boy's throat. During his examination, in the wide shot the penlight is in Early's right hand and the tongue depressor in his left, but in the closeup they've switched hands. Additionally, in that wide shot Dix is holding the otoscope with her right hand, but in the closeup her right hand in under the boy's head.
Revealing mistake: When John is in the moving ambulance with the pregnant gunshot victim, Brackett asks him if he hears fetal heart tones, and when John removes the stethoscope from his ears he leans back and we can see out the window that the ambulance is quite stationery, despite the siren.
Continuity mistake: When 51's with Cora, the woman who was thrown into the middle of a cactus patch, they lower the ladder horizontally so it's beside her for the rescue, but while Roy treks across the ladder in the next shot of Cora the ladder is nowhere to be seen, then when Roy reaches her we see that it's indeed right beside her.
Continuity mistake: When Brackett is talking to Roy and Johnny in the hallway outside treatment 3 about the guy who will likely lose his injured leg, Brackett is wearing a tie with a pattern, and when he walks into treatment 3 Brackett's tie is tied differently.
Revealing mistake: When Johnny, Marco, and Chet are all on top of Al, the big guy who has a chemically induced psychosis, while Roy injects Al with diazepam we can see the outline of the knee pad that Marco is wearing under his pants. As an aside it's funny to watch Chet's face hamming it up during this scene.
Inventions - S3-E22
Continuity mistake: When Early and Morton are talking to the cab driver, in the overhead shot there's a hat on the desk, but in the shots facing Early the hat vanishes and other things on the desk rearrange themselves.
Propinquity - S3-E20
Continuity mistake: After the ambulance Roy is riding in is involved in a traffic accident, when Johnny arrives he jumps into the back with the injured attendant and patient, and we can see that the stretcher's footrest is light brown. But when the attendants exit, they carry the stretcher out of the back of the first ambulance then wheel it to the second ambulance, and the footrest is now red. It would seem that they merely transferred the patient from the first ambulance's stretcher to the second ambulance's stretcher while still in the ambulance, but they couldn't have done that because two full size stretchers cannot fit into the back of that first station-wagon style ambulance, especially with attendants back there, so they would have had to do the patient transfer on the ground outside. Hence the problem.
Continuity mistake: When Brackett tells Morton that he can go keep Early company while he awaits test results, Brackett's wearing a patterned tie, and when Brackett walks into treatment 3 his tie is tied differently.
How Green Was My Thumb? - S3-E17
Revealing mistake: After Johnny jumps into the wine vat, when he and Roy pull the drowning man out of the vat we can see the rubber/latex suit the man is wearing under his clothes, when his shirt is lifted up.
Continuity mistake: When Chet is being timed while putting on his gear, Squad 51 is parked much further up than the engine, providing more room in the apparatus bay behind the squad to run the drill. Then when Station 51 is dispatched to the explosion, the squad's parked normally. Additionally, we see the front bay door is closed, but that's impossible considering how far up Squad 51 was parked during the drill.
Answer: It is standard practice to wet down driveways so that they stand out in a long shot.
stiiggy