That scene is one of the most dramatic in television history.

TVGuide even named it one of the 100 most important scenes ever - or something like that . I know that it has gotten some type of recognition.

I was in a college libraray the afternoon that the scene aired.

The library had about eight television placed around a carousel. They had once allowed the student to quietly (with headphones) watch anything. But, they had gotten snippy about what shows that were being watched. I was once told that I could only watch something "educational."

I later pointed out that the soap operas were very educational because of the social problems that Agnes Nixon and other writers had been presenting over the past years - such as child abuse, wife abuse, substance addiction, etc. I had even learned about the Hymlic maneuver from an episode of All My Children when Tom Cudahy had used it on Brooke English.

Well, that afternoon, someone had turned on One Life to Live. Other people, some who watched the show and some who did not, started standing behind watching also. It was evident even as the scene was building that this was something special - not something seen everyday.

Then, even more people saw the crowd and thought that there was a new special bulletin airing, so they crowded around the group to see what had happened.

The librarians even (without seeing the exact nature of the programming) that this was something that was extraordinary and that there was no need to start complaining about what was being watched.

At the conclusion, there really was a collective "Wow!" that swept over the audience in the library.

I have never experienced anything else quite like that - before or since.