Lieutenant Foster asks Dr. Scott for a checkup because she feels it "would be weird getting a pregnancy checkup from the HMC". HMC stands for Chief Hospital Corpsman ("Doc" Rios), and is the senior health care provider on smaller Navy ships like frigates and destroyers. Training and duty wise Hospital Corpsman are the Navy equivalent of a paramedic, they often serve as combat medics for U.S. Marine Corps units, Navy special ground warfare units like SEAL's and Seabees. More senior and experienced Hospital Corpsman are assigned as the primary healthcare provider to most Fleet units like frigates, submarines and destroyers, they often perform duties of both a nurse and a physician while at sea. They are able to treat almost any injury and illness and can even perform limited emergency surgery if needed to stabilize a seriously wounded sailor until they can be airlifted to a hospital; which is why a boat's crew often use the nickname of "Doc" for the HMC as a sign of respect, even though they are not an actual doctor. Typically only Navy bases and large ships like carriers are staffed full time with highly trained medical personnel like nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and doctors.
The rotors of a helicopter can generate massive amounts of static electricity, which is why it is important for a person standing on the ground to never touch a helicopter while it is hovering or to touch a cable being lowered from it without being properly insulated. This is also one of the main reasons why it is important for anyone riding in the helicopter to not step out onto the ground until the helicopter has touched down and the electric charge grounds out through the wheels; if a person were holding onto the side of a helicopter while it was near the ground and stepped out before it touched down they would then be completing a circuit between the chopper and the ground and the charge would travel through their hand and down and out through their foot into the ground. Helicopter logging crews, specifically the hook tenders on the ground, when learning the job are first instructed the most important thing to remember is not to touch the cable being lowered from the helicopter until it has touched the ground or to use a special insulated grounding rod to grab the cable with if lowering the cable to the ground is not practical. The static electric charge that accumulates on the skin of a helicopter can easily be powerful enough to stop a human heart if the charge grounds out to a person.
It is for this reason that Lt. Burk advises the helicopter to not land on the oil rig, if there was a natural gas leak the static electricity generated by the choppers rotors could easily ignite the gas.
It is for this reason that Lt. Burk advises the helicopter to not land on the oil rig, if there was a natural gas leak the static electricity generated by the choppers rotors could easily ignite the gas.
Lt. Green says that it appears Limpet mines were used to sink the New Orleans flotilla. A limpet is a magnetic naval mine, it is typically attached to the underside of a ship's hull by a diver and held in place by a magnet. Limpet mines are usually set off using a timed fuse and often have an anti-tampering device that will cause the mine to detonate if it is removed from the hull while armed. Sometimes the mines can be fitted with a small turbine, which causes the mine to detonate after a ship has traveled a certain distance, this is often used to to sink a ship once it reaches a certain point in a channel or harbor in order to block it off.
Per the opening credits, one of this episode's producers is Eric Dane aka Captain Chandler.
At 21:25 Chandler says "The truth is in here" which brings to mind the tagline from the "X Files" - "The truth is out there."