History Main / ColdEquation

* In a mass casualty incident where there are insufficient resources available for rescue, this becomes an aspect of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage triage]]. Standard triage tags for injured people have four colours: green for minor injuries that can be safely ignored by first responders, yellow for a non life-threatening injury (such as a broken arm) that can have treatment delayed until resources are available, red for someone who needs immediate attention (such as someone going into shock or having trouble breathing), and black. A black tag on someone who isn't dead yet means they're not to be given any medical treatment except pain medication until everyone else is dealt with because their injuries are almost certainly fatal with the resources available and efforts spent on them would end up unavailable to people who have a higher probability of living.

* A couple from ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs''. The first happens in the prologue where Joel decides against his brother Tommy’s wishes to leave a family even though they have the room because he doesn’t want to put his daughter Sarah at risk. [[spoiler:The second, ironically, results in Sarah's death when the military official who rescues them is ordered to kill all survivors.]] Later on it happens with Henry leaves Joel to die to save Sam and Ellie. [[spoiler:And finally, the ending has Joel turn on the Fireflies after they reveal they'll need to sacrifice Ellie to produce a vaccine.]]

* The equivalent of the human body is in cases of fasting and severe starvation, once the fat reserves and glycogen stores in the liver have been used up, to basically break down proteins (read: muscles and cells) to keep essential organs as the brain working for as long as possible.

* This is the dark side of Doctor Strange's [[ForWantOfANail history manipulating methodology]] in ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'', with the end goal of stopping Thanos' [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal rampage]]. Generally, he's good enough at manipulating the timeline that this isn't necessary. At times, though, it's explicitly compared to triage, and at points it is also explicitly noted that by refusing to step in, he lets a ''lot'' of people suffer and die for the sake of ensuring the Earth will be ready.

** The season four finale sees Archer, Lana, Cyril and Ray trapped in a room quickly filling with water and only three sets of scuba gear to swim out and to the surface. The dying station captain they're with tells them that one of them will have to drown and die, hopefully temporarily, while the other three took the scuba suits and tried to get themselves to safety and resuscitate the volunteer. Ray has robot legs, and Cyril is the next best swimmer, so the choice is down to Lana and Archer. [[HeroicSuicide Archer immediately volunteers after Lana reveals she's pregnant.]]