JAMES GRANT

James Grant had been a respected English surgeon. One day, while he was stitching up a stab wound in the emergency room of a London hospital, a wild-eyed man, high on drugs, had kicked open the door and entered, carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Without considering the danger, Dr. Grant had stepped forward, extended his arm, and asked the gunman to hand over his weapon. Instead, the gunman had fired at close range, and although no one else was hurt, the shot disintegrated Dr. Grant's right arm, requiring that it be amputated. No longer able to perform surgery, Dr. Grant had given up practicing medicine, and he was still dealing with the physical effects of his injury, such as phantom pain, and the emotional loss of his career, often indulging in self-pity and alcohol.

Seven weeks after the incident, Dr. Grant was aboard a train headed for Rajmir, India, and fellow passengers included Andrea Collins, a courier for the US State Department, Andy Ellis and Laura Dillion, Americans who had recently met and had begun a relationship, Diana Kingman, a meek American young woman travelling with her domineering mother Eleanor, Peter Kramer, a mysterious European traveling alone, Paul Webster, an American, Lyman and Blade, who wore the uniform of a conductor, and MacGyver. However, Hassan, a leader from a nearby village, hijacked the train by blowing up a trestle bridge and forcing it to stop. Hassan explained that he came from a poor village that had struggled to build a clinic but that when they had bought medicines from two Western businessmen, the medicine turned out to be poisoned, and 26 of his people had died. The businessmen had boarded the train, but because Hassan did not know their identities, he announced that all Westerners aboard the train would be held hostage without food or water until they themselves identified the two men and turned them over to face justice.

During the hijacking, Badur, one of Hassan's men, had accidentally shot Lyman, the conductor, and Dr. Grant insisted that he be permitted to see to him. Although he had considered himself to be now quite useless as a doctor, his medical training kept Lyman alive, and when Diana Kingman, whom he had just met and who considered herself to be painfully shy and unneeded, offered her help, together they found a mutual attraction and came to see value in each other that they hadn't seen in themselves.

Having secured Hassan's promise that the men responsible would be given a fair trial, MacGyver fashioned a makeshift lie detector using Dr. Grant's sphygmomanometer and an alarm clock in order to question each of the passengers. Once attached to the device, Paul Webster was unable to respond truthfully, and he set off the alarm, revealing as he did so that his partner was Blade and that they had been responsible for the tainted drugs. Webster fired his weapon, striking Hassan in the right arm, and he attempted to escape by restarting the train engine. However, MacGyver had previously booby-trapped the control panel circuits to overload, and despite MacGyver's warnings, Webster threw the switch and received a fatal electric shock. Dr. Grant dressed Hassan's wound, and Blade, who was forced to return the gold coins that Hassan's people had paid for the medicines, was taken into custody to face trial in Rajmir. As the passengers returned to the train and were allowed to continue their journey by another route, Hassan made an offer to Dr. Grant to remain and to use the gold and his medical expertise to help rebuild the clinic. At first, Dr. Grant insisted that it wasn't possible to take on such a responsibility "single handed," but when Diana offered to stay behind and help him, he cautiously agreed, and the two made plans to remain and work together in India.

Portrayed by: Warwick Sims

Cross Reference: Badur, Batu Das, Blade, Andrea Collins, Laura Dillon, Andy Ellis, Hassan, India, Diana Kingman, Eleanor Kingman, Peter Kramer, Lyman, Paul Webster

Episode Reference: Slow Death