Ensign Ahni Jetal was a junior officer on the USS Voyager during its time in the Delta Quadrant. She was popular and well-liked among the crew; she was even friends with the senior staff. On her birthday, many of the senior officers organized a surprise party for her in the mess hall.
She was a shuttle pilot and was involved in modifying the shuttles on Voyager to increase their maneuverability, making them more "cool," a 20th century slang term which she picked up from Tom Paris.
In 2373, she was piloting Class 2 shuttle on an away mission with Harry Kim when they were attacked. The alien attack injured both her and Kim with a residual energy charge, which had implanted an energy pulse that resided in her neural membranes. The ship then came and attacked Voyager as the pulse moved up her spinal cord and into her brain, resulting in death by massive synaptic failure. With no time to treat both patients, The Doctor was forced to choose to treat one of them over the other, and he picked Kim simply because he knew Kim better. This choice, however, resulted in Jetal's death.
Her remains were launched into space shortly after a brief eulogy by Captain Janeway on the bridge.
Her death later caused a contradiction in the EMH's programming due to the ethical issues involved in him 'choosing' to kill one person over another simply because of a personal connection rather than making the decision based on which patient had the better chance of survival. This resulted in Janeway ordering that The Doctor's memory of the event and his knowledge of Jetal should be erased. However, when the memories resurfaced again in 2375 after The Doctor discovered evidence of the surgery he had performed on Kim, a conversation with Seven of Nine prompted Janeway to decide to let The Doctor deal with the memories and try to work them out for himself, acknowledging that they couldn't help The Doctor become a person only to treat him as a machine when it was easier. (VOY: "Latent Image")
Background[]
Jetal was played by Nancy Bell. Bell's uniform was sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay. [1](X)
The Doctor's memories of stardate 50979 were altered; if indeed this represented the approximate date of Ensign Jetal's death, she would have died somewhere between "Worst Case Scenario" and "Scorpion".
According to the script's pronunciation guide, her name was pronounced "AH-nee juh-TAHL". According to the final draft of Voyager's previous episode, "Counterpoint", Jurot was originally named "Jetal".
The character's name is mentioned on a bridge panel of the USS Dauntless as being an active member of the crew. She was listed as being on mission and off the ship. She is a pilot of a shuttle which was transporting Megan Delaney to a planet.
A clear view of the information panel was provided by Dominique Rossier of Wardenlight Studio. [2]