Grey’s Anatomy has put Meredith Grey through a lot. Throughout 21 seasons, the main character has faced death several times. Her near-death experiences almost always allow her to see other characters who have passed in dream-like sequences. In these dream sequences, Denny Duquette comes back a few times. The show also brings back Dylan Young, who died while trying to move a homemade bomb to safety.
Meredith Grey’s near-death experiences can also be crucial to character development. By confronting death, Meredith also learns a little more about herself while fighting harder each time to come back. Life has proven to be unpredictable and hard, but Meredith is tougher. She has proven that nothing can take her down.
Updated on May 9, 2025, by Arthur Goyaz: Fans still haven’t recovered from Meredith Grey’s departure from Grey’s Anatomy. While she still appears occasionally, she is no longer the show’s main protagonist. This lack of screentime is particularly frustrating after everything she’s been through — after surviving many life-threatening situations, Meredith deserves closure. This article is updated to include the latest news about Meredith Grey and reflect CBR’s current style guide.
8 Meredith Puts Her Hand on a Bomb
Season 2, Episode 16, "It's the End of the World"
Meredith Grey made some seriously questionable choices in the early days of Grey’s Anatomy. As a young intern, she often gets into dangerous situations with her heroic — but not necessarily smart — actions. This is particularly obvious when she puts her hand inside the patient who has an unstable homemade bomb inside his body. Hannah took her hand out, so the bomb might have exploded if Meredith hadn’t taken her place in time.
With the bomb being very unpredictable, Meredith could die at any minute. In the very tense scene, Meredith is confronted with her love for Derek. The bomb squad successfully takes the bomb from her hand. While it may seem that everyone is safe, Dylan Young takes the bomb into the hallway. It explodes when Meredith is on her way to the elevator. She really could have died.
7 Meredith Drowns but Comes Back to Life
Season 3, Episode 16, "Drowning on Dry Land"
A particularly harrowing episode is «Drowning on Dry Land.» When Meredith tries to help a man who has broken his leg, the man pushes her into the ocean. Derek tries to track her down. He eventually finds a little girl who points him to where Meredith is. He then saves her. What’s interesting is, Meredith had a really strange feeling in the morning. She didn’t initially want to go to work, but Cristina Yang forced her out of bed.
Meredith stays in a «limbo state» for a while. Her heart flatlines during that time, so technically, Meredith is dead for a moment. The episode is about her finding the strength to live and healing her unresolved issues with her mother. Ellis Grey dropped in to give Meredith the encouragement she needed. Before that, Meredith realizes that her death will have a great impact on her friends, and she can’t let them live with the fact that she’s dead. Despite almost being stuck on the other side forever, Meredith runs toward the light and comes back to life.
6 Meredith Faces a Shooter in the Building
Season 6, Episode 24, "Death And All His Friends”
There’s a huge jump between the time Meredith almost drowned to when she wants to sacrifice her own life to save Derek in Grey’s Anatomy, in the episode where a grieving Gary Clark becomes the shooter who terrorizes Seattle Grey to avenge his wife. Derek, being the one who signed off on the action to take his wife off of life support, is Clark’s ultimate target. After Clark pulls the trigger and injures Derek, Cristina operates on his heart, trying to save his life, but Clark finds out about the surgery and orders Cristina to stop.
To protect her best friend and husband, Meredith tells Clark to take his revenge on her instead. While this action again puts herself in harm’s way, this time is different. Meredith doesn’t want to die. She’s trying to save those she loves, which speaks about her selflessness. She’s willing to sacrifice herself to save her husband and best friend, which is something that not everyone will or can do. Avery eventually tricks Clark into thinking that Derek is dead and resolves the situation. However, Meredith didn’t know about the twist and thought she had lost him forever. Her immense grief could have resulted in her having a miscarriage.
5 Meredith Is in a Plane Crash
Season 8, Episode 23, "Migration”
On the way to performing a surgery that would separate a pair of conjoined twins in Grey’s Anatomy, the plane that carries Meredith, Derek, Lexie, Mark, Arizona and Cristina crashes in the woods. The surgeons are trapped in the woods for a couple of days, during which they have to fight for their survival. Meredith loses her half-sister, Lexie, during the crash. She’s generally unharmed, but Derek severely damages his hand. Mark is in critical condition, and Arizona ends up losing her leg.
Speaking about all the trauma that Meredith has gone through, this one is particularly harsh, which makes this one of the saddest episodes on Grey’s Anatomy. While it doesn’t kill Meredith, it takes someone she loves away from her, and Meredith has just gotten into a good spot with Lexie. After the plane crash, everything changed. With Derek’s hand taking its time to heal, Cristina wanting to leave and Mark’s death, Meredith has a lot of challenges to navigate. The plane crash is one of the worst things that has happened to her.
4 Meredith Almost Bleeds Out During Birth
Season 9, Episode 24, "Perfect Storm"
No childbirth or wedding goes smoothly on Grey’s Anatomy. There is no exception when Meredith gives birth for the first time. She slips and falls earlier that day. While her scan looks great, there turns out to be internal bleeding. However, the storm hits the hospital and cuts the electricity. Meredith ends up in the hands of Ross, who has to do an emergency C-section. Meredith almost bleeds out on the table during the operation, but Bailey steps up and interferes. This incident is part of what pushes Bailey to step out of the fear of infecting more patients with diseases.
Meredith survives the surgery and meets her son, who she names after Bailey. While the scene is scary, something beautiful comes out of it. Meredith and Derek welcome a new member into their family. Bailey overcomes her fear of performing surgery, which also marks a big step forward in dealing with her OCD. Meredith may have saved Bailey’s career since Bailey’s refusal to do surgery was starting to become an issue.
3 Meredith Is Attacked by a Patient
Season 12, Episode 9, "The Sound of Silence"
Many Grey’s Anatomy fans dislike the patient attack that leaves Meredith in a critical condition. The patient in question is Lou, who becomes hyper-aggressive after waking up from sedation. In his confused state, he attacks Meredith brutally, throwing her across the room. Meredith suffers from a displaced jaw and loses her hearing for a while, during which she struggles with reconnecting with her daughter.
This Grey’s Anatomy storyline feels unnecessary in a way, since the show has put Meredith through so much trauma already. The attack also comes after Derek’s death. Meredith is struggling enough as a widow and a single mother. It’d be nice for her to rest instead of being attacked by a patient. Lou’s attack also doesn’t really serve any purpose in her character development, aside from the fact that Penny provides some help cutting the wires in Meredith’s jaw. In the end, Meredith forgives Lou, who has no memory of what he did, but even the forgiveness arc seems a little weak, given that the theme would be stronger if it was between Meredith and Penny.
2 Meredith Sees Derek While in a COVID-19 Coma
Season 17, Episode 2, "The Center Won't Hold"
When Derek is killed off at the end of season 11 of Grey’s Anatomy, no one expects that he’ll come back one day. But the magic of television proves that nothing is impossible. Derek, Lexie and even George manage to come back to Grey’s Anatomy when Meredith once again fights for her life when she’s hospitalized with COVID-19. Her fellow doctors are debating with each other on treatment plans. Unlike the empty hospital halls that young Meredith would go to every time life brings her to a limbo state, this time, Meredith finds herself on a dreamy beach.
The scenery is much nicer, and it represents peace rather than «death.» By this time, Meredith has lost many who are close to her, which makes this dream sequence different from before. Similarly, Meredith visits the beach as a way to find the strength to continue on with the fight. It’s an emotional reunion that she needs. With Meredith leaving a DNR medical direction, there’s very little that her team can do. The good thing is, Meredith survives and makes a full recovery just as she did previous times.
1 Will Fans See Meredith Grey as a Regular on Grey's Anatomy Again?
She Is Still the Show's Narrator
Meredith Grey goes through a lot during her 21 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, even though she officially departed the show as a regular in 2023 in Season 19, Episode 7, «I’ll Follow the Sun.» Since then, the actress who plays Meredith, Ellen Pompeo, has mostly appeared on the show through her signature voice-overs and occasional cameos in key episodes. After nearly two decades of being the guiding thread of the show, Pompeo felt she needed to move on from it for a while.
Meredith’s decision to resign from Grey’s Anatomy has more to do with Pompeo than the character. The actress wanted to spend more time with her family, opting to reduce her episodes on the show. This decision left fans confused about Meredith’s overall purpose on the show. After surviving so many near-death situations, it doesn’t seem fair that Meredith gradually fades away from Grey’s Anatomy’s overarching storyline. At best, the character deserves a fitting closure.
Naturally, killing off her character after everything she’s been through is the worst option for many fans. The biggest question is whether Pompeo will ever return as Grey’s Anatomy‘s main protagonist. ABC has renewed the show for Season 22, and showrunners have been open about Pompeo returning as a regular. Talking to the LA Times, Meg Marinis claimed that Pompeo is welcome to return «as much as she can and she wants.» Meredith’s role in Grey’s Anatomy seems solely dependent on Pompeo’s level of commitment.
