History Main / DivingSave

* Subverted by Harry Dresden of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' when he saves Michael Carpenter's newest son from a [[ArtifactOfDoom Denarian]] - [[spoiler:by grabbing the coin instead of the kid]]. Guilt ensues.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': Near the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E100ISingTheBodyElectric I Sing the Body Electric]]", the robot grandmother shoves a young girl out of the way of an oncoming van and is hit herself.

* [[LittleMissBadass Vita]] does the badass version of this trope in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' by [[DropTheHammer walloping]] one of [[TheGunslinger Teana's]] wayward energy bullets off course at the last second before it hits [[CuteBruiser Subaru's]] head. [[spoiler:[[BigCreepyCrawlies Garyu]]]] does something similar later, only he catches the EnergyBall headed for Erio and Caro [[spoiler:when they were bringing Lutecia to safety]] and crushes it in his hand instead.

* Bugs Bunny did this for Lola when she was about to get literally crushed by the Monstars in ''Film/SpaceJam''.

* Happens at the end of ''Film/StrangerThanFiction'', with the main character saving a little kid.
** This instance gets bonus points. [[spoiler: The main character was supposed to die in the attempt while still saving the kid, ''and he knew this ahead of time''. The author writing his story has a change of heart after meeting him, and makes an alteration. [[NotQuiteDead He gets better]].]]

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', Beckett and Castle do this for each other a fair number of times throughout the series. Most recently, [[spoiler: in "Knockout," Castle tackles Beckett out of the way when he realizes there's a shooter at Montgomery's funeral. Subverted in that he fails to keep Beckett from getting shot.]]

Can be resulted from LookBothWays.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' #90, Captain George Stacy saves a child from falling rubble while Spider-Man is battling Doctor Octopus. [[TakingTheBullet He doesn't]] [[HeroicSacrifice make it.]]

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'': In ''Amazing Spider-Man #90'', Captain George Stacy saves a child from falling rubble while Spider-Man is battling Doctor Octopus. [[TakingTheBullet He doesn't]] [[HeroicSacrifice make it.]]
* ''ComicBook/StrangersAtTheHeartsCore'': When a gang of alien criminals sneak into the Danvers' household and fire at Edna Danvers, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} dives in and pushes her adoptive mother out of the way. She gets hit by the energy blasts, but fortunately they cannot hurt her seriously.

* In a spoof of the ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' example above, in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' Fry pushes his future grandfather out of what appears to be the path of a very slowly oncoming Jeep, only for the Jeep to turn in a different direction some distance away. And Fry pushed him onto a pile of rusty bayonets.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture''. Marty [=McFly=] pushes his future father, George, out of the way of an oncoming car. It saves George from being hit, but alters history and nearly wipes Marty from existence.

* Many cases, but one prominent one involved a man who saved a child a few years ago and credited the save to "playing Quake and learning to act quickly without thinking."

** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' lets your fellow party members do this for you if you would have died to the attack and have a high enough ''[[RelationshipValues Social Link]]'' with them as long as they have more then 1 HP, haven't already done it this combat round, and it's a single target attack, and they will always survive whatever they blocked, even if the rules say it should kill them, [[spoiler:except during the TrueFinalBoss where no matter the Social Link value, they will all attempt to save the MC from the boss's insta-kill attack and then be absorbed by it themselves]]. This feature has since been included in all subsequent mainline ''Persona'' games (including the PSP version of ''VideoGame/Persona3'').

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'':

** Subverted ''twice'' in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED''. In the first instance, [[TheHero Kira]] tries to perform a Diving Save with his HumongousMecha's shield to prevent a shuttle full of civilian refugees from being blown up by an enemy mecha, but fails to block the shot and can only watch as the shuttle explodes, going into a HeroicBSOD as a result. Later, near the end of the series, a nearly-identical scene occurs in which Kira once again tries for a Diving Save to keep the BigBad from destroying an escape pod from another ship (where his FallenPrincess ex-girlfriend is, among others), and this time succeeds - and then the BigBad uses an AttackDrone to fire again from another angle and blows the escape pod up, killing said FallenPrincess and the others. Cue Kira's FreakOut and a savage final fight which ends up with Kira utterly defeating the BigBad.
** And of course, we have Lalah's legendary HeroicSacrifice doing this in the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''.