History Main / WorstAid

* ''VideoGame/AmateurSurgeon'' puts you in the role of a BackAlleyDoctor charged with curing people who are literally TooDumbToLive. Since you're not an actual surgeon, your tools are more make-shift, such as using a chainsaw to cut through ribcages.

* In an episode of ''Series/BandOfBrothers'', Lt. Moose Heyliger [[UnfriendlyFire gets shot by one of their own soldiers]] and Captain Winters and Lt. Welsh give him multiple syringes of morphine before the medics arrive. Once Doc Roe arrives on the scene, he angrily informs the duo that they just gave Moose a morphine overdose and that it's more likely to kill him than the bullet wounds are.

* United States President UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield was shot InTheBack by a crazed office seeker in 1881. If the doctors had confined themselves to sewing him up and giving him chicken soup, Garfield probably would have lived. But since it was 1881 and the work of Louis Pasteur (the germ theory of disease) and Joseph Lister (antiseptic surgery) was not universally accepted, especially in America, the doctors spent much of the summer sticking unsterilized instruments and ''their bare unwashed fingers'' into Garfield's back as they tried to find the bullet. Because WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut. Garfield fell victim to out-of-control infection and died eleven weeks after he was shot. In fact, Garfield's assassin defended himself at his trial with the argument "The doctors killed Garfield, I merely shot him" (which is [[HalfTruth technically true]] if you ignore the fact that the doctors wouldn't have been giving Garfield the treatment that led to the infection had he not been shot in the first place). The jury still found him guilty.

* In ''Literature/{{Halo}}'' by Alexandra Adornetto, Bethany pulls a badly injured girl from a car wreck despite the fact that the car was neither [[EveryCarIsAPinto on fire nor about to explode]]. She doesn't do it very well, either. The girl is near-death and bleeding from a head wound, yet Bethany throws the girl's arm over her shoulder and hauls her out of the vehicle.

* Treating epileptic seizures by putting things in the victims' mouths to prevent them biting or choking on their tongues. Some objects can cause the victim to break their jaw from biting on it. You can also get your fingers bitten from trying to reach into a epileptic's mouth during a seizure. It also goes without saying that it's physically impossible for someone to swallow their own tongue if it's still connected to the inside of their mouth.

* In the days before anesthesia, British surgeon Robert Liston was famed not only for his skill in amputations, but his ''speed'' as well. Anecdotes from the era describe him as a doctor who took such great pride in the speed of his operations that he would declare "Time me, gentlemen!" before performing an amputation. One anecdote, in particular, speaks of one surgery with a ''[[EpicFail 300% mortality rate]]'', killing not only the patient and a nurse holding down the (fully conscious) patient with gangrene when he cut off the patient's leg and the nurse's fingers, but a spectator who thought he got cut when Liston's bloody saw cut his coat, causing him to have a panic-induced heart attack.

* ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'': When April is pulled out from a freezing river, the only medical care John and Elly give her is wrapping her in a coat. They’re never shown taking her to a hospital or checking her for symptoms of hypothermia or if she has any water in her lungs. In RealLife, effects from drowning can sometimes appear hours after rescue and April would have to kept under observation in an emergency room.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has Hell's Pass Hospital, surely the worst hospital in any work of fiction ever, whether the desired effect is comedic OR dramatic. If Kenny is taken there, he will die, but it's a miracle that ''any'' of the kids taken there survive due to regular incompetance ranging from the head doctor just not having the faintest idea what's wrong, looking ridiculous by confirming that an exploded body is indeed dead, and diagnosing acts of physical bullying as serious medical emergencies, all the way down to such medical mishaps as replacing Kenny's heart with a baked potato in the movie; ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'', sending Butters to a vet because he was made up as a dog in the episode "Good Times with Weapons", and the incident from the episode "Tonsil Trouble" where Cartman went there to have his tonsils removed and ended up with AIDS.

* There's a rather interesting aversion in the ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' comic "Disaster 1990", back in '79. The protagonist gets shot in the belly with a harpoon, and explicitly remarks that he'll have to leave it in despite the pain, since removing it would just cause bleeding. The fact that he pointed it out shows that the writer was aware of this trope.

** Notably {{averted}} when a human character is being treated for a heart attack: it's made very clear by a professional medic that [[MagicalDefibrillator defibrillation]] and CPR on their own won't be ''nearly'' enough to get the patient's heart back into a stable rhythm, and medication tablets are also emphasized as a critical component.

* Averted in ''Fanfic/TheLastPrayer'': Naruto picking up the badly injured Iruka, who'd just been stabbed in his back, and running to the hospital aggravates his injuries to the point that the man is left paralyzed from the waist down.

* ''Film/BlackPanther2018'': {{Averted|Trope}}. After [[spoiler:T'Challa]] stabs [[spoiler:Killmonger]] in the chest, they leave the blade in during their DyingTruce scene, and the latter finally pulls it out when he's ready to FaceDeathWithDignity.

* Narrowly averted in ''Film/HardcoreHenry'' when Henry goes to remove a piece of glass from Wheelchair Jimmy's neck, only for [=WW2=] Jimmy to tell him it'd only make the bleeding worse.

* Averted in the TV movie ''Film/TheLostBattalion''. A soldier with a giant piece of shrapnel in his shoulder is asked if he wants it removed, to which he shrugs and decides to leave it in. In this case, leaving it in place is the proper course of action. However, it is unclear whether he really understood the consequences of removing it, or whether he just wanted to be a manly man.
** They were also dangerously low on medical supplies, so much so that they had begun taking used bandages off the dead to use on the still-living wounded.

* Averted in Matthew Arnold's epic poem ''Sohrab and Rustum''. When Sohrab is fatally wounded by [[spoiler: his father]] Rustum, he deliberately leaves the impaling spear where it is while he and Rustum have a last heart-to-heart, and only after the conversation is over does Sohrab pull out the spear in order to die as quickly and painlessly as possible.

* Invoked and averted in The Moon By Night by ''Creator/MadeleineLEngle''. 11-year-old Suzy, whose father is a doctor and who aspires to be a doctor herself, witnesses a kid fall and cut her arm at the playground. She applies direct pressure while waiting for someone to fetch her father with the first-aid kid. The kid's mom starts screaming at her to use a tourniquet, but Suzy refuses because she knows better.
* Justified use and aversion in ''Literature/ThievesLikeUs''. [[spoiler:The villain accidentally shoots the decrepit leader of a ''very'' devoted cult in the chest, and tries to revive him with CPR. This does nothing to help him (partially because he's ancient and mostly because he was, you know, ''shot''), but the cult members start closing in immediately and it's clear she's screwed if she doesn't save their leader somehow. With it clear he was beyond help, the cult members immediately kill her.]]

* Averted in ''Series/{{Angel}}'', a woman falls into a glass window and has a massive piece sticking out of her neck. Barely conscious she pulls it out herself and starts bleeding out. Cordelia immediately sees the danger in that action, tries to stop the bleeding, and gets her to a hospital. Cordelia explains to the ER doctor about the glass removal and the doctor tells her she saved her life.

* Averted in ''Series/{{Rescue 911}}''. Many episodes show people who realize someone has a neck injury and say, "Uh oh--better not move them". In one episode, a small child of about three falls and shoves the toothbrush he was using through the back of his throat. His mother goes to yank it out, but realizes that could be bad; she tells him to sit and keep his arms spread out (so not touching the toothbrush), and calls 911. The X-ray at the hospital showed the head of the toothbrush right by a major blood vessel that probably would have been ruptured if the brush had been yanked out. ''Not'' applying immediate aid prevented a Wrong Aid moment.

* Averted in later versions of ''VideoGame/AmericasArmy''. You are given an "Individual First Aid Kit" but are made to sit through a lesson which teaches you what treatment to use for each symptom before you're allowed to use it. All are correct battlefield first aid techniques taught by the Army to average soldiers, although the lesson is condensed. However, during a firefight, when a team member goes down, it's often fairly hard to pay attention too long to the symptoms with bullets whizzing by -- though one could say that that's the point. Gameplay wise, this just amounts to running up to an injured ally and holding the 'Use' button to patch them up, and ironically, there have been reports of people using what they learned in the game to save lives in the real world.

* Averting this is actually a plot point in the first case of ''[[VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve]]''. Susato (disguised as the lawyer "Ryutaro" in order to defend her friend) suggests that the defendant, who has been accused of stabbing the victim, might have been removing the knife from the victim in a photo. As the defendant is a medical student, it is pointed out that she would never be stupid enough to do that as it would simply cause more danger to the victim. However, it turns out she actually ''was'' trying to remove the knife because she thought there was an extremely deadly poison (it wasn't and she had ingested the poison beforehand) on it and was willing to risk the victim bleeding out, potentially leaving enough time for professionals to arrive, rather than letting her immediately die from poison.

* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' recovers health through the use of painkiller pills. Apparently whatever is ''in'' those pills can heal bullet wounds.
** The sequel somewhat averts this, as he looks more and more roughed up, bandaged and wounded through the course of the game. The Painkillers could mainly be a way to 'continue' fighting, despite the wounds. A little far-fetched, but a HandWave is supposed to be.
** The third game shows that this behavior isn't entirely without consequence -- nine years later, Max is a barely-functional addict for those painkillers after downing them like candy for the entirety of the first two games.

** Film/JamesBond does the same in ''Film/{{Octopussy}}''.
** The leech example is a pretty offensive one, but in general the game's often erroneously simple medicine mechanic is an AcceptableBreakFromReality to cut down on the number of in-game medical supplies you need to gather and to reduce the complexity of the mechanic so as to not make it annoying. Some other examples: your combat knife can be used to dig out crossbow bolts, bullets, and [[BeeAfraid bees]], while rubbing ointment is sufficient to treatment shrapnel wounds.
** This is all to say nothing of the fact that [=MGS3=] ignores the most basic rule of first aid: make sure the area is safe before doing anything else. Because [[TalkingIsAFreeAction doing medicine is a free action]] here, Snake can calmly sit down in the middle of a battlefield, while his attacker is still aiming a gun at him, and get to work splinting a broken bone.

* ''VideoGame/RobinsonsRequiem''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuIgzFW7B2I To wit.]]

* In ''Literature/TheDragonKnight'', James, with his basic late 20th Century medical knowlegde, regards the native 14th century doctors, with their tendency of bleeding patients, as this sort of people. In one book, ''The Dragon at War'', he ends up saving the elderly Magikian, Carolinus, from two "so-called" healers, whose idea of healing was to just cram things down the old man's throat, and would have killed him, if James and his friends hadn't showed up just in time.

* Giving ''anything'' by mouth to someone who is unconscious or barely conscious. An unconscious person does not swallow, so if you give them something, they're going to choke on it. [=IVs=] exist for a ''reason''.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* Part 13 in Wattpad [[AlternateUniverseFic AU]] Music/SpiceGirls Fic, ''[[https://my.w.tt/B5UrbOmfVU Astral Journey: It's Complicated]]'', this ends up being subverted as Emma is the only one who does CPR on Melanie, who was choking, while the rest run for help... not even trying to help. After trying to loosen the objects to get some kind of airway, Emma starts to give Melanie CPR, who had lost consciousness. Emma was trying to give Melanie ''air long enough'' until medical help to arrives, which is most often recommended.

* ''Fanfic/MyHeroPlaythrough'': DiscussedTrope. At the start of the USJ arc, Thirteen tells class 1-A that while they will be finding and rescuing the victims for the day's lesson, that normally that is not what you do, and they will be learning later how to tell when, if, and how a victim should be moved.

* ''Fanfic/ARabbitAmongWolves'': While raiding a corrupt sweatshop, Jaune ends up shot. His minions remove the bullet from him with a pair of tweezers. The [[OpenHeartDentistry veterinarian]] they are forced to take him to is extremely unamused at their recklessness.

* ''Fanfic/VoyagesOfTheWildSeaHorse:'' Shiki the Golden Lion claims that part of the reason he's been hiding on his FloatingIsland of Merville for 20 years was to convalesce from the physical shock of first chopping off both his legs, then wedging his swords hilts-first into the stumps to staunch the bleeding and eventually become his peg-legs. Whilst he's obfuscating his ''real'' reason for hiding in Merville, he's not entirely lying, either: his personal physician, Dr. Indigo, notes to Shampoo that part of his job whilst they settled in was nursing Shiki through the raging infections that resulted from this "treatment", and that Shiki survived largely because [[MadeOfIron he's just that tough]].

* {{Subverted|Trope}} by ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'': The priest who healed Clare put bandages on her clothes. 15 volumes later, he mentioned that it was out of fear/disgust and he is deeply ashamed of his behavior.

** Bloodletting was an ancient procedure, invented by the ancient Greeks. The original idea was that there were four "humors" of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) that needed to be kept in balance. It was thought that most diseases and even mental disorders were caused by excess of one or more of these humors. How the practice lasted so long when it at best did nothing and at worst killed the patient is anyone's guess.

* In ''The Dawns Are Quiet Here'', the hero is shot in his arm, and the bullet hits a major blood vessel. He then runs for his life and crosses the "impassable" swamp to lose his enemies. After stopping to check his wound, he discovers it was clogged by ''swamp mud'' -- and decides to just leave it as is, fearing he'll bleed to death if he removes the mud. So he just bandages it ''over the sleeve''. [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope However]], a few hours later it becomes clear that the wound got infected, and since that his arm is becoming gradually more useless, and he himself -- gradually more sick and feverish. By the end, he keeps himself going purely by mix of sheer will and desperation, and [[PostVictoryCollapse collapses after finishing the job]]. DistantEpilogue reveals he survived, but lost that arm.]]

* Discussed in the Mongolian novel ''Oyuun'', where the title character's friend is impaled with a knife that has been coated in a poison that will, if it gets through her bloodstream in sufficient doses, stop her breathing. They don't know if the half-coated knife has sufficient dosage to pose a threat or not or if it's such a danger the knife should be pulled, but Oyuun ''does'' know better than to remove something impaling someone. Ultimately, [[spoiler: she seems to pass out from the poison's side effects when they leave the knife in, but she pulls it out during the climax and saves her friend's lives by stabbing the villain in the back repeatedly. It's the villain's own knife, to boot.]]

* Creator/BernardCornwell's ''Starbuck Chronicles'' set in the American Civil War features a doctor reviving a man by pouring ''caustic iodine on his balls''. TruthInTelevision, unfortunately -- Civil War doctors really did use this to try and bring people out of unconsciousness and comas. In some cases it was felt that a declining heartbeat could be increased by doing this too.

* In ''VideoGame/FearAndHunger'' and its [[VideoGame/FearAndHunger:Termina sequel]], you can suffer from infection on wounded limbs from enemies or rusty nails, killing the victim if left untreated. The solution? If you don’t have any [[HealingHerb green herbs]], the next best thing is [[AmputationStops Spread hacking off the limb with a rusty bonesaw]], [[spoiler: and since you can obtain an Infinity+1Sword via four severed humanoid arms and a decent accessory from hacking off [[CanineCompanion Moonless’s]] paw, you might even do so anyways]]. How it doesn’t give you an infection, especially on repeat usage, is a mystery.