History Main / LeftForDead

* ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX''
** At the end of "Up is Down and Black is White" arc, Frank catches up with Nicky Cavella, a mafioso who [[BerserkButton desecrated his family's graves]] [[TooDumbToLive for the express purpose of pissing him off]]. Frank shoots him low in the stomach, leaving him in the woods to slowly bleed out or die of infection. In a subversion of the usual course of this trope, Cavella does indeed die.

* In ''ComicBook/SherwoodTexas'', Rob Hood is shot, dumped in an abandoned mine and has the mine collapsed on top of him. He comes back.
* In ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'', the titular queenpin's gang shoot ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} as her powers are fading and then they leave her lying on the ground instead of putting one bullet in her head just in case. However, Kara survive thanks to her healing factor returning.

* In ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'',

* Franchise/{{Disney|AnimatedCanon}}'s ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': Simba is Left For Dead in the middle of a burning desert, only to be later saved by Timon and Pumbaa. Simba was supposed to have been finished off by the hyenas, but they blundered this (as usual) -- and weren't going to tell Scar about their failure.

* In ''Fanfic/AFrozenFlower'', after Oz shells out and goes unconscious, Oprah tells Orchid to leave the Medical Bay. She refuses, stating that she believes she can save Oz, and Oprah concedes, leaving Oz for dead and branding him as a "lost cause". Unfortunately, while Orchid does try her hardest to save him, he ends up dying.

* In ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'', Hugh is left to bleed out after being [[EyeScream stabbed in the eye]] by an orc. Luckily, he survives thanks to Kyril's help.

* ''Literature/BridgeKingdomArchives'': In her BackStory, king Silas Veliant of Maridrina killed Zarrah's mother and left her tied under the woman's dead body in desert heat, presumably to die of dehydration.

* The Japanese novel ''Black Rain'' by Masuji Ibuse follows a Hiroshima family who were victims of the nuclear bomb. At one point they encounter another family who, panicking and unable to free their nine-year-old son from their burning house, flee and leave the boy for dead. Eventually the kid manages to free himself, and, in what must surely be the {{Understatement}} of the year, his reunion with his family is described as "rather awkward".

* In the novel ''Relentless'', Morgan's lover Payton pushed her out of the way of a cave in. Unable to find help or to free him on her own, she held his hand until [[HesDeadJim it went cold]], and then left. When he shows up years later [[spoiler:as The Thresher]], she is understandably astonished, and he, of course, resentful that she didn't try hard enough to save him.

* This happens quite a bit across the entire ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' series, though most notable when [[TheHero Paul]] and [[ActionMom Jessica]] are left for dead after flying right into a storm that was meant to [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill carve the flesh off their bones and then destroy the bones]]. [[BigBad The Baron]] assumes they're dead, and pays them no mind. [[CurbStompBattle It ends badly for him, his family, his allies,]] [[GodEmperor and eventually the entire universe.]]
** Or, actually, pretty ''well'' for the human portion of the Universe generally, though it takes a while (and several sequels) before this becomes apparent. Paul ''is'' TheHero, after all. Jessica remaining alive is harder to call.

* At the end of VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry's Watanagashi and [[AnotherSideAnotherStory Meakashi]] chapters, [[spoiler:Shion]] stabs [[spoiler:Keiichi]] and runs off laughing, only watching them collapse. [[UnexplainedRecovery They recover,]] [[MindScrew but then...]]

* ''Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX''

[[folder:FanWorks]]

* During a {{Flashback}} taking place before ''[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure Jojo's Bizarre Adventure:]]'' ''[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Vento Aureo]]'' begins, [[spoiler:Polnareff's investigation of the Stand Arrows' locations leads to an encounter with [[BigBad Diavolo]] in Italy during the 1990s. A CurbStompBattle ensues as Polnareff is seemingly killed, falling off a cliff with grave injuries. With Diavolo's [[TheParanoiac paranoia]], one would think he'd make sure Polnareff was actually dead, but he assumed that with how badly the latter was beaten, his "corpse" would be washed away by the sea. Ultimately, Polnareff survives and starts a revolution against Diavolo within the shadows, becoming one of several factors to Diavolo's eventual defeat in 2001.]]

[[folder: FanWorks]]

* What Gin and Vodka do to Shinichi Kudo in the first chapter/episode of ''Manga/DetectiveConan'. Not wanting to make noise due to police being close by, they opt to force feed Shinichi an untraceable poison to kill him. Because they left him to die, they never knew it instead shrank him to the size of a six year old.

* In ''Film/ManInTheWilderness'', trapper Zach Bass is mauled by a bear, and his wounds are deemed unsurvivable. Two other trappers are ordered to MercyKill and bury him, but they're afraid the gunshot will attract the attention of hostile Indians, so instead they just leave him in a shallow grave. He survives and follows his former companions through the mountains to confront them.

* The robbers of the pharmacy in the ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' season 8 finale do this to Mac after shooting him InTheBack. Naturally, he survives, although it's his team that hunts the shooter down since he's unable.

* In ''Film/''DickTracysDilemma'', Sam and Fred find the Claw passed out in the cab of truck: bleeding out from the gunshot woud Pat gave him. Deciding he is as good as dead, they [[NoHonorAmongThieves abandon him and plan to sell the loot and split the take only two ways]]. However, they underestimated the will to live of a man who survived being sliced up by the prop of a Coast Guard cutter.

* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'': ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia Shadow Dragon]]'', you are required to sacrifice one of your units in the prologue, who is then seemingly KilledOffForReal. Much later in the game, you receive a single-use resurrection staff, but the sacrifice is, for no apparent reason, not a valid option. In the sequel, ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', support conversations with Frey ([[CuttingOffTheBranches the canonical sacrifice]]) explain that this trope is why -- the enemy army beat him to within an inch of his life and abandoned him, but he managed to survive the experience, and you can't bring someone BackFromTheDead if they never actually ''died''.

* Frieza in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' survives an exploding planet after being left for dead by Goku. Though Frieza was sliced in half with his own energy disk and then utterly fragged after trying to blast Goku InTheBack, he survived the explosion of the planet and can breathe in space. He comes back to Earth (with a mechanized body) to exact revenge. In the end, however, he is easily killed by a super powerful KidFromTheFuture, who makes ''extra'' certain that he won't be returning by ''slicing him to pieces and disintegrating them''.