This episode fucked me up as a kid. I was so scared I'd get bitten by a worm man whenever I transported. Still get nervous sometimes....
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
“Of course I’m paranoid, everyone is trying to kill me.” - Weyoun 6
I mean yes, but the odds of this incident actually happening were like a billion to one -- Barclay just got lucky. Um, in a manner of speaking.
But when it happened to Hoshi, she was just hallucinating
The lesson I take from Cyrus Ramsey is: don't smoke Risian salvia right before transporter lock. That shit will fuck you up.
Remember how we found out that not only are people fully conscious the entire time when they are converted from matter to energy and back (which makes that scene in TMP even worse), but there are CREATURES that can ATTACK them while it happens?
But those creatures are partially transported people.
So I like to imagine all the people O'Brien has stashed in the transport buffer are floating around and watching all the ship's transporter activity. They see away teams constantly coming back with fewer red-shirts, the shore leave walks of shame, and that one Lt. from Stellar Cartography who transports to their quarters every night so they don't have to make turbolift small-talk.
You'd think at a certain point O'Brien would just start saving "copies" of the red-shirts and bring them back with the rest of the away team. Which would be doubly disconcerting if you think about it because their last memory would be beaming away with the away team since they wouldn't have memories of dying.
