That season featured a mid-service elimination for the first time since Season 7. The contestants were (in alphabetical order):Īt the end of each episode, one chef is eliminated from the losing team by Ramsay. Jason Zepaltas was a returning contestant who initially competed on Season 9 but left for health reasons. The teams were divided by gender, male contestants in the blue team and female contestants in the red team. Oprah had been wanting to do a story about AIDS, and once she became aware of this story's circumstances, decided to do her show from Williamson some five months later.This season marked the second time 20 contestants competed and tied with Season 11 for the most contestants competing. It was the overreaction by the locals that gave this story legs. The story was first reported locally, then nationally. Not knowing what else to do, the manager declared a chlorine emergency, the pool was emptied, drained, and scrubbed with disinfectants. It was through sheer desperation that he went to the swimming pool to cool off from summer's heat, when he was noticed by some other swimmers who then notified the pool's manager. He had come back home to die, and was, he alleged, discriminated against in every manner. A young man from that area, who was gay, had left his home and moved to Texas, where he contracted AIDS by engaging in unprotected sex.

The whole thing was about an incident at the community swimming pool in Williamson, WV, a coal mining town, the county seat of Mingo County in the southwestern part of the state. This show was about the reaction to AIDS in small town, America in the years after the disease began to make itself known.

Er season 11 episode 19 youtube