97 Seconds

"97 Seconds" is the third episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-third episode overall. It aired on October 9, 2007. The primary patient in the episode is a man with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who develops symptoms that could be related to his SMA or something else. However, the episode title is linked to a different patient in this episode who was clinically dead for 97 seconds after a car accident.

Thomas Stark is a man with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), using an electric wheelchair. While he and his assistance dog were crossing the street he faints (syncope) and is almost hit by an SUV.

House sets his team of ten fellowship candidates to compete in a race to find the diagnosis first. To do this he splits them into two teams: men and women, but Amber Volakis (Anne Dudek) elects to defect to the men's team. When House suggests this is because she thinks the female candidates are inept, she says it's because House has never had more than one woman on his staff so if he's going to fire an entire gender it will be the women's team. Because of her previous behavior trying to get on the team, including getting others fired, House and the other fellowship candidates begin calling her " Bitch." Amber continues to do whatever she feels it takes to get the job, initially starting by attempting to schmooze Dr. Cameron into giving her advice.

Initially, Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) treats him for strongyloides with ivermectin but with no favorable changes. The doctors eventually decide that they have cured him, and House holds a "tribal council" and fires some of the doctors, including Amber. Amber then turns to Dr. Chase, and attempts to appeal to his grudge against House for firing him in order to get him to help perform some blood tests that she no longer has privileges to do. However, Stark develops a pulmonary aspiration then renal failure and pneumonia and eventually dies from asphyxiation because of the pneumonia. House, Thirteen, and Jody discover that his assistance dog has also died. Based on Dr. House's knowledge of the dog's genes (as an English Shepherd, it has a defect in the MDR1 gene), a search of the room reveals that Stark did not take the ivermectin, but the dog did. Autopsy of Stark reveals that he indeed had Strongyloides, confirming Thirteen's diagnosis.