Grey's Anatomy's 18 Most Heartbreaking Deaths, Ranked

Grey's Anatomy has probably done more for Kleenex stock than any other show on television. Over the course of 17 seasons -- and counting -- the medical drama has made us fall in love with dozens of characters and then unceremoniously killed them off. It's no wonder that Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) describes herself as dark and twisty after the unconscionable amount of loss that she has suffered. We are right there with her, having said goodbye to some of our favorite characters in incredibly heartbreaking ways. It would be nearly impossible to rank all of the characters we've lost along the way (it is a hospital show, so there's been a lot), but here we've ranked the 18 most heartbreaking deaths of all.

We honestly were never able to fully forgive Thatcher (Jeff Perry) for the way he blamed Meredith for his wife's death, or honestly how he neglected her because Ellis (Kate Burton) had an affair. Still, his final moments trying to make amends with his eldest daughter definitely tugged at the heartstrings and we let out a few tears as Meredith finally got some closure with her father. 

Surgical resident Percy (Robert Baker) was killed in the Season 6 finale, a.k.a. the Shooter episode, when he was targeted by vengeful gunman Gary Clark (Michael O'Neill). Despite Bailey's (Chandra Wilson) best efforts to save him, Percy died in her arms in an elevator after telling her she was his favorite doctor.

We didn't get a lot of time with Diane Pierce (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), but her battle with cancer was a really tough one to watch. Maggie (Kelly McCreary) did everything she possibly could to try and save her adoptive mother, but in the end, it wasn't enough. Watching Maggie have to say goodbye to her mother after spending every waking moment of the woman's final months trying new treatments instead of just being with her was a really dark moment for both Maggie and Grey's Anatomy. 

Wife of Thatcher, mother of Lexie (Chyler Leigh), and stepmother to Meredith, Susan Grey (Mare Winningham) will be remembered as possibly the only person ever to die from the hiccups. OK, that wasn't technically her cause of death, but Susan died in Season 3 during an unsuccessful surgery to repair a "toxic megacolon" -- which was discovered after she was brought to the hospital for a number of visits stemming from a persistent case of hiccupping.

She wasn't around long enough to ever become a fan favorite, but Brooks' (Tina Majorino) death in Season 10 after the "Superstorm" episode still packed a punch. After the storm, Brooks went looking for Dr. Webber (James Pickens Jr.), and was electrocuted after stepping in a puddle in the generator room. She died of a brain bleed after hitting her head when she fell.

Though we didn't see her death on screen, it was the circumstances leading up to Adele's (Lorette Deine) passing that were truly sad. After we lived through the ups and downs of her and Richard's marriage for six and a half seasons, Adele was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the latter half of Season 7. She eventually moved to an extended-care home, where she suffered an aneurysm that Bailey operated on (on her wedding day). But the surgery was too much for Adele, and she succumbed to a heart attack shortly afterwards.

Craig Thomas (William Daniels), a.k.a. Mr. Feeny, was Cristina's (Sandra Oh) mentor after she left Seattle to work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. They bonded over shared survivor's remorse and were able to teach each other various surgical techniques. Thomas died after suffering a massive heart attack while performing a surgery (despite being on probation at the time), and his death spurred Cristina to return to Seattle.

Finally, a love interest for Stephanie (Jerrika Hinton)! Well, not so fast. Kyle (Wilmer Valderrama), her guitar-playing suitor was brought to the hospital with a hand tremor caused by multiple sclerosis. He and Stephanie struck up a romance in Season 12, but it was short-lived after a bout with meningitis brought him back to Grey Sloan, where he died on an operating table.

Granted, Ellis Grey didn't get a deathbed moment per se, but watching Meredith's mother fight a losing battle with Alzheimer's was traumatic in itself. Sure, Afterlife Ellis provided a comfort to Meredith while she was going through her own near-death experience, but the fact that Ellis had spent almost an entire episode completely lucid shortly before her death made it that much more heart-wrenching.

You might have forgotten the character's name, but who could ever forget the "Bomb Episode" of Grey's Anatomy's second season? Dylan (Kyle Chandler) was the ill-fated member of the bomb squad who talked Meredith through one of her most difficult cases: removing a live shell from a patient's body. Unfortunately, while Meredith was successful in handling the bomb, Dylan was less so: it exploded as he was carrying it out of the room, killing him. 

DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) started as a hot intern and then evolved into the first man Meredith loved after Derek's (Patrick Dempsey) death. He gave us steamy X-ray room chats and even hotter elevator propositions that will go down as some of Grey's Anatomy's most romantic moments. Ultimately, he died a hero after he was fatally stabbed while chasing a sex trafficker and ensuring the mysterious redhead wouldn't be able to harm any other teenage girls in the Seattle area. We're just so upset that Meredith wasn't conscious to say a proper goodbye to him before he went. 

As if Henry's (Scott Foley) death in Season 8 wasn't tragic enough, the circumstances surrounding it were even worse. (Let's set aside the ethical implications of a doctor marrying one of her patients so that he can use her health insurance.) When Teddy (Kim Raver) discovered a large tumor near Henry's heart, she handed the case over to Cristina... without telling her that Henry was the patient she'd be operating on. He died during the surgery.

Though Mark (Eric Dane) initially seemed to survive the plane crash with only superficial injuries, even comforting Lexie as she succumbed to hers, it quickly became apparent that he had suffered massive internal wounds. Fans had to wait an entire summer and then some to see Mark's fate, however; he died when Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Derek finally decided to remove him from life support, after he had spent two months steadily declining and one month in a coma.

Lexie met her demise in the Season 8 finale, in the same plane crash that would eventually claim the life of her love interest, Mark Sloan. Meredith's half-sister was a surgical resident traveling with other members of the team to another hospital, where they were tasked with separating conjoined twins, when their plane crashed in the woods. She died with Mark holding her hand, moments after planning their future together. Her legacy lives on in the name of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Let's just go ahead and call Season 11 the Season of Death on Grey's Anatomy. (Although, technically, that could be all the seasons.) If you didn't cry about April (Sarah Drew) and Jackson (Jesse Williams) losing their first baby, you don't have a soul. After discovering that their son had a rare bone disorder, April and Jackson made the decision to induce labor just 24 weeks into April's pregnancy. Samuel only survived for a few minutes outside the womb, but long enough to be baptized and for his parents to hold him until he died.

Let's set aside the ridiculous "ghost sex" subplot that came later, and pause a minute to remember the soul that was Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The longtime cardiac patient and ill-fated fiancé of Izzie Stevens, Denny died in the Season 2 finale after Izzie's (Katherine Heigl) infamous cutting of his LVAD wire, which she did in order to bump him up a few spots on a heart transplant list. The transplant was successful, but he died of a stroke during recovery. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last we'd see of Denny -- Izzie's subsequent hallucinations of him prompted the discovery that she had a brain tumor.

Derek died when he was hit by an 18-wheeler moments after doing what he did best -- saving lives -- by being a Good Samaritan to a mother and child on the side of the road after an accident. His sudden death in the back half of Season 11 upended the entire bedrock of the show. What's Grey's Anatomy without Dr. McDreamy/MerDer/Patrick Dempsey's hair? But in the biggest twist of all, Dempsey leaving the show ended up breathing new life into it, forcing Meredith to stand on her own and face a new set of challenges stemming from living and working as a single mother.

The most heartbreaking of them all -- yep, even more so than Derek Shepherd's demise. Why? Because George's (T.R. Knight) death, way back at the end of Season 5, came before Grey's fans were accustomed to Shonda Rhimes routinely shattering our hearts by killing off series regulars. O'Malley died after jumping in front of a bus to save a woman's life, on his way to enlist in the Army. In his final moments, George became a patient at Seattle Grace -- though his former colleagues didn't realize it, since he was burned beyond recognition. It was only when "John Doe" traced his nickname, 007, into Meredith's hand, that the doctors realized they were trying, futilely, to save the life of their friend.