I Can't Feel My Legs!

That's not new either.

Dwight Hartman: I... I can't feel my legs!
Ray Wilkins: Dude... you never could.

— Scary Movie 2, after the paraplegic Hartman has fallen out a window

A big battle is going on, and one of the good guys gets injured. Usually, it's not a main character, but rather a secondary one who utters the phrase "I can't feel my legs...". When this comes out of their mouth, you know that they're going to end up paralyzed in some way (usually for life). This is a common backstory for the Inspirationally Disadvantaged, Wheelchair Woobie, or someone who's suffered a Dramatic Spine Injury or has a Disability Superpower.

This trope is usually a spoiler, as well as a Stock Phrase.

This trope is Played for Laughs a lot nowadays, sometimes with the character saying "I can't feel my legs" already being disabled, and somebody reminding them that they couldn't before. Alternatively they may say the words, then a few seconds later realise that they can, and it's agonising. Another variant is the person thinking they're touching their own legs with their hands, getting worried when it doesn't cause a feeling in their legs, then being told they're touching something else (usually someone else's legs). For a related comedic trope, where this situation is Played For Slapstick, see Bits of Me Keep Passing Out.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Ayakashi Triangle: When Sosuke eats a piece of someone's Life Energy, whatever body part it came from is numbed and paralyzed (which is visualized as the victim having a big chunk bitten out of them). Matsuri realizes Sosuke can do this without physical contact when he suddenly loses feeling in his leg and falls to his knees.
• Havoc from Fullmetal Alchemist utters this after being stabbed by Lust.
• Played with in Inuyasha.
  Jaken: WHO ARE YOU CALLING A SHRIMP?!
  Inuyasha: [picks up Jaken] Want me to stretch you out? [starts stretching Jaken in amusement]
  Shippo: Inuyasha, you are such a bully...
  Inuyasha: Hey! Getting pretty stretchy there Jaken!
  Kagome: Stop that Inuyasha! SIT BOY! [Inuyasha falls face flat on the ground with Jaken under him]
  Jaken: [dizzy] I can't feel my legs...
• In My Hero Academia, Tensei Iida says this to his younger brother Tenya while he's at the hospital. It's played with given that Tensei already knows he's been crippled and can't continue working as a hero, and is asking his brother to take his hero name as Ingenium.

Comic Books

• In Issue 22 of Archie Comics (2015), Betty Cooper, of all people utters this line after waking up in the hospital after an accident. While they are wheelchair-bound for some time, they get better after physical therapy.
• Batman: One of Poison Ivy's victims who she dumped inside a Man-Eating Plant says that he can't feel his legs. Ivy reminds that it's because he doesn't have legs anymore.
• When Daisy and Tom go up against the huge security mecha in the final chapter of Daisy Kutter, Tom is shot in the back and collapses before dragging himself out of the line of fire. When Daisy finds him bleeding out on the ground he tells Daisy he can't feel his legs. Daisy (who admits to having no idea how to administer first aid) responds that he's probably just in shock. At the end of the story, Tom is in a wheelchair with a doctor's prognosis that he'll never walk again. Daisy's narration corroborates the diagnosis, stating "so that was the summer Tom lost the ability to walk."
• Wolverine gets beaten up by The Incredible Hulk and wakes up saying he can't feel his legs, then realizes Hulk ripped them off.

Comic Strips

• Rudi tries to pick up a woman at the supermarket by "accidentally" hitting her with his shopping cart. But he is nervous and uses too much power...
• One Garfield strip had Jon screaming this and calling for a medic, but he was just mocking Garfield, who was sitting on his lap at the time.

Fan Works

• Exaggerated in Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Guldo has Gohan and Krillin trapped, and is ranting at them, camera zoomed in on his face, when he interrupts himself with "why can't I feel my everything"? The camera zooms out to reveal that Vegeta decapitated him mid-speech. "Oh."
• In Imaginary Seas, Chiron fires some arrows into the spine of his Lostbelt counterpart. Percy is unnerved by how Lostbelt Chiron's screams sound identical to the Chiron he knows, but the two quickly escape so Pan-Human Chiron can absorb him for power and information.
• Lost to Dust: Raven Branwen says she can't feel her legs after Quetzalcoatl breaks her back. She ends up paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.
• The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Shloonktapooxis cries this after the Resisty ship crashes in Season 2 Episode 11, until Ixane points out that he never had legs to begin with (as he's a floating cone). He immediately calms down after being reminded of this.

Films — Animation

• Donkey in Shrek:
  Donkey: Oh, man! I can't feel my toes! [looks down at hooves] I don't have any toes!
• A very depressing (or very dark-humored) example from a kid's movie, no less. In Antz , as Z is holding his dying friend's severed head, said friend mutters the exact phrase.
• Played for Laughs in Frozen (2013). After a crash, Olaf the Snowman (whose legs had fallen off) grabs Kristoff's feet and screams that he can't feel his legs. Kristoff says those are his legs.
• Inside Out pulls a similar gag; when Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong are abstracting in the Abstract Thought Chamber, Bing Bong falls to pieces.
  Bing Bong: I can't feel my legs! [his disembodied hand grabs a disembodied leg] Oh, there they are.

Films — Live-Action

• Tropic Thunder plays with it by having Tugg say the line after escaping an explosion and collapsing, only for Kirk to point out that it's because his legs are in a cold puddle.
• Played for Laughs in Silver Bullet, the film adaptation of Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, after the kids have killed the werewolf, Jane asks Marty if he's okay, and Marty (who is paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair), says "No... I think something's wrong with my legs! I can't feel them!" Cue the Dope Slap in response.
• The Usual Suspects: The following scene occurs at the beginning of the movie. Later, we hear that Keaton was shot beforehand.
  Keyser Soze: How you doing, Keaton?
  Keaton: I can't feel my legs... Keyser.
• Dwight the paraplegic in Scary Movie 2, after falling out a window.
  Buddy: Are you okay, Dwight?
  Dwight Hartman: I can't... I can't feel my legs. Aaahahaha, I can't feel my legs.
  Ray Wilkins: You never could.
  Dwight Hartman: Hey you stay out of this, all right?
• In X-Men: First Class, in a state of shock, Charles Xavier says this multiple times a few climactic scenes after being shot in the back. Given the character is usually best known for A. his psychic powers, B. being bald, and C. being confined to a wheelchair, this is more or less a Foregone Conclusion. However, that does not make the moment any less of a Tear Jerker.

• Played for laughs in The Social Network when Mark drags Eduardo outside in the freezing cold to talk about his early ideas for Facebook. Eduardo was attending the Harvard Jewish fraternity's Caribbean night and is dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. When Eduardo says the line, Mark obliviously replies "I know, I'm totally psyched about this too."
• Kiefer Sutherland's character in To End All Wars says "Guys, I can't feel my legs" after taking a brutal beating from the camp commander after taking the blame for a missing shovel that had actually been misplaced by a camp guard. He ends up in a wheelchair.
• The film Extreme Measures takes this even further. When the protagonist wakes up in the hospital, after being attacked, he mutters that he can't move at all, at which point the doctor tells him that his neck was broken in the attack and that he's completely paralyzed.
• Inverted in Alien³: Bishop, who's missing his body from the waist down, complains his legs hurt.
• Welcome to the Punch: Roy Edwards jokes about this to Jacob Sternwood after he is shot and injured by the goon Dean Warns.
  Jacob: How ya doing?
  Roy: [gritted teeth] I can't feel my legs, Jake.
  Jacob: [concerned] Really?
  Roy: [normally] Fuck off.
  Jacob: Oh, for fuck... no, you fuck off!
• In the 1942 film Kings Row, Drake McHugh (probably Ronald Reagan's most famous role) has both of his legs amputated needlessly by a sadistic doctor after an accident. When he wakes from anesthesia, he says the famous line: "Where's the rest of me?"
• Edge of Tomorrow: Cage is sparing with some combat training robots with No OSHA Compliance. One sends him flying into the wall.
  Cage: I think I broke something.
  Rita: What?
  Cage: My back. The only thing I can feel is my lips.
  • Each time this happens, Rita shoots Cage in the head to reset the "Groundhog Day" Loop. After one training accident Cage is crawling along claiming that he can at least feel his toes. He has time for a petulant "Aw come on!" before Rita shoots him regardless.
• Subverted in Kill Bill, as the Bride can't feel her legs, due to having been in a deep coma, but manages to will the return of sensation and function in her feet before long.
• In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the titular character claims this while he's in the hospital after his race-ending crash. His legs are fine; he's just being an idiot.
• At the start of Ghost in the Shell (2017), the protagonist informs the doctor that she can't feel her body. She's informed that her brain has been placed in an artificial body after a terrorist bombing. Unsurprisingly, she starts to Freak Out and has to be sedated.
• Deadpool 2: Played for Black Comedy by Deadpool after Juggernaut rips him in half.
  Deadpool: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS! I CAN'T FEEL — oh, they're right here. Got 'em.
• Inverted tragically in Reach for the Sky, when Douglas Bader comments to a friend at his bedside that the leg he's had amputated doesn't hurt anymore, but the remaining limb is giving him hell. His friend has to gently break it to Douglas that he's coming round from the anesthesia after his other leg was amputated because his wounds had turned gangrenous. His Stiff Upper Lip quickly starts to waver once the news sinks in.

Jokes

• An old joke has a guy waking up in the hospital after an accident:
  Patient: Doctor, I can't feel my legs!
  Doctor: Of course you can't — I had to cut off your arms.

Literature

• In The Dresden Files book Changes, Harry himself utters this after falling and breaking his back.
• In Dr. Franklin's Island the first noticeable change indicating that Semi's Slow Transformation is working is her hands becoming numb and clumsy. Since her companion Miranda is much further along and she's terrified for her, Semi doesn't think much of it herself. It advances over several days until Semi can't move her arms or legs at all. A manta ray doesn't need them.
• Subverted in the beginning of Seekers of the Sky: after a crash landing, Ilmar discovers that he cannot feel his legs and thinks his back is broken. However, it turns out, they were simply numb from sitting in a cramped position with Marcus on his lap for a couple of hours.
• In The Ship Who... Searched, seven-year-old Hypatia Cade get a big whiff of a piece of ancient alien garbage while on her parents' archaelogical dig. The first sign that anything might be wrong comes a few days later, as she wakes up with a pins-and-needles feeling in her toes that goes away after a few hours. As days pass it lingers longer until rather than going away it becomes numbness that spreads, and then her fingertips start tingling, and soon she's struggling to even move. Because of her parents' extreme Parental Neglect leading them to leave her alone for several weeks, she doesn't get medical attention until very late and winds up paralyzed from the chin down - at which point they transfer guardianship to one of her doctors so they can return to their work.
• Subverted in the first True Blood novel. Sookie gets beaten almost to death and says that she can't feel her legs. However, Bill then heals her with vampire blood.
• In the Warrior Cats series, a tree falls in the camp and lands on the young cat Briarpaw. She cannot feel her hind legs. It turns out that her spine is broken and her hind legs are paralyzed.
• In the children's novel "What Katy Did", Katy mentions how she can't feel her legs, or at least that they feel strange, when she is in the early stages of recovering from her fall.

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5's episode "The End". Fitz says this in shock and pain multiple times after being crushed under building rubble and having been impaled in his abdomen by a sheet of metal. Subverted in that he dies shortly after the injury. Fortunately, he's a future version of Fitz, so there's a chance for SHIELD to look for his real self in the past.
• Baywatch. Mitch says this verbatim after being slammed into rocks during a particularly dangerous rescue attempt.
• Charmed episode "All Hell Breaks Loose". Piper has been shot.
  Piper Halliwell: Prue, I'm cold. I can't - I can't - I can't feel my legs.
• Variation on the phrase in Criminal Minds: When Hotch and an assisting-agent-of-the-week are caught up in a car bomb, they recognize quickly that she's badly injured and unable to move. Emergency personnel are avoiding the area for fear of a second explosion, so Hotch is struggling to care for her himself. He has to move her to try to find where the bleeding is coming from, and...
  Hotch: "I'm sorry. I know it hurts."
  Kate: "It doesn't. It doesn't hurt."
• Danny on CSI: NY, word-for-word after the drive-by shooting at the bar where he was shot in the back.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Daleks", Ian says this word for word when he gets shot by a Dalek, who temporarily paralyzed him for trying to run away. Ian spends a good chunk of the serial recovering while in prison.
  • In "The Sontaran Stratagem", this is the reaction of two UNIT soldiers when General Staal temporarily paralyzes them from the waist down.
• In The Flash (2014) Season 2's "Enter Zoom", following a battle with the season's eponymous Big Bad, Barry Allen, the Flash himself, says this in The Stinger. He heals in the next episode.
• In A Friend to Die For (also known as Death of a Cheerleader), after "nice girl" Angela stabs Alpha Bitch Stacy repeatedly in the back, she stumbles away to a nearby home, crying for help to the homeowners and saying how she can't feel her legs. Unfortunately for Angela, she dies shortly afterwards.
• MADtv (1995), parodying Budweiser's "Bud-Bowl" advertising campaign, featured a skit where a beer bottle got injured and yelled out, "I can't feel my label!"
• Stevie's response in Malcolm in the Middle after Malcolm, having crashed his wheelchair with him in it, asks him if he's all right. "That's not funny, Stevie."
• Naturally, this happened from time to time on M*A*S*H, most notably in a case where they told a wounded soldier it was merely an effect of the medication, so they wouldn't have to tell him he was paralyzed and dying.
• Midnight Mass (2021) uses the phrase in a rare positive manner. Leeza, who started the series paralyzed from the waist down but regains the ability to walk thanks to vampiric healing, says this when the vampire dies, removing the effect of his healing.
• Mock the Week, Played for Laughs during the "Unlikely things to hear in a war film" scene we'd like to see.
  Frankie Boyle: "I can't feel my legs!" "That's because your arms have been blown off."
• Tragically inverted in OZ. When the wheelchair bound Augustus Hill is mortally injured, his last words are "I can feel my legs."
• Search: Mun-cheol says this after he suffers a spinal fracture.
• Star Trek: Voyager
  • Occurs in the season 5 finale. The crew begin searching the badly damaged Equinox for survivors. Kim and Seven of Nine find one crew member buried under debris. The man mentions that he can't feel his legs, and asks Seven to check and tell him if they're still there. In a subversion, his legs are fine and he is later seen walking under his own power, so they'd probably just gone numb.
  • In "Warhead," the crew are surprised when an crashed artificial intelligence says it can't feel its arms or legs (it's not even an android, but a missile). Turns out the memory bank was damaged and it forgot what it was.
  • Played straight with the Red Shirt who dies in the opening scene of "Innocence."

Pro Wrestling

• In an episode of WWE Raw, the stage collapses on top of Vince McMahon. As all the wrestlers work together to save him, Vince can be heard telling Triple H that he can't feel his legs, breaking Kayfabe by calling Triple H by his real name, Paul.

Roleplay

• An alternative took place in the Transformers Galaxy Roleplay. The insane, one-eyed Whirl is taking aim with a bazooka and he... squints. It's not clear whether he's being crazy or joking, but he suddenly shouts out...
  Whirl: [takes aim] Help! I'm blind! [starts panicking]
  Over Comm-link: Whirl, that's what happens when you close your only eye.
  Whirl: Heh, I knew that... [opens his optic again]

Theatre

• Defied in Journey's End when Stanhope keeps Raleigh, who's been hit by a shell talking so he doesn't realize that he's been paralyzed.
• In an episode of Mindfreak where they stage a decapitation illusion gone wrong, the man in the guillotine uses this line.

Video Games

• Laharl from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness utters these words in Disgaea 2. However this is subverted- he's not paralyzed, he is just really hungry because he hasn't eaten any nutritious food in a long time.
• In WET Simmons yells this after his car has crashed. It makes it impossible for him to flee when Rubi throws a lighter into the leaked gasoline.
• In Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Bentley tells this to Murray at the very end of the game after getting crushed beneath Clockwerk's jaws.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner:
  • After Homsar got squashed by a Heavy Lourde in his first appearance, his second appearance was leaving a message in episode 5 of "Marzipan's Answering Machine". Homsar calls to thank Marzipan for bringing flowers while he was in the hospital, and says "I'm feeling much better now, but I still can't feel my legs."
  • In the Strong Bad Email "the chair", Strong Bad moans "I can't feel my parts..." after the sweatpants button on his fancy new chair malfunctions. In an Easter Egg, Strong Sad says the same thing after throwing his back out trying to sit on a ridiculous-looking designer chair.

Webcomics

• After being paralyzed from being pushed off a cliff by Vriska, Tavros of Homestuck says the following:
  AT: aG JUST JUMPED ME OFF A CLIFF,
  AT: wITH MY BRAIN,
  AT: aND, uHH
  AT: mY LEGS, aLSO,
  AT: aND NOW, tHEY FEEL,
  AT: iNVISIBLE,
  AT: wOW, i'M SURE THERE WAS A BETTER WAY TO SAY THAT,
• Paranatural: Parodied.
  Ghost: Doc, I-I can't feel my legs...
  Zarei: You don't have legs.
  Ghost: [looks horrified]
  Zarei: ...this is not a new development. You lost them when you died.
  Ghost: [looks horrified]
  Zarei: That's not new either.
• Within a Mile of Home: After being knocked out by a nasty fall and Waking Up Elsewhere, Jinjo wonders why he can't feel his right arm◊ before noticing it was amputated.

Western Animation

• In Danny Phantom, Danny's clone and female counterpart Dani says this line as she begins to break down from genetic instability. At this point of her meltdown, she didn't even have legs anymore.
• The Dragon Prince: Soren tries to fight a dragon and gets smashed into a rock, hard, and begs his sister to help him. When she tries to get him to move, he says that he can't. After a healer tells her that there's nothing that can be done for him, she heals him with Black Magic.
• In Extreme Ghostbusters, the local Handicapped Badass Garrett invoked this—Played for Laughs, of course, as he is one of the best-adjusted paraplegics around. The best part of this scene is the moment right after he says it, when both his teammates in the car look genuinely worried that something bad has happened to him. Then what he said sinks in.
• Happens in The Fairly OddParents! to Cosmo (in the form of a squirrel):
  Cosmo: I'm not moving until I get my nuts! (gets Squashed Flat by Crocker) Or until I can feel my legs.
• Family Guy:
  • During one of Cleveland's bathtub gags, he hits the ground and claims he can't feel his legs, to which resident paraplegic Joe shouts "Welcome to the club!". He then realizes he can feel them after all, much to Joe's disappointment.
  • In an earlier episode, "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas", during a drunken night out, Joe is dared to climb a lamppost to collect a wreath at the top. Despite being paraplegic, he actually manages to climb his way up with upper body strength alone before falling off. Once he lands, he immediately feigns panic with "Oh no! Oh no! I've broken my legs!" before he and the boys share in a laugh.
• The episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law in which Harvey himself gets sued starts off with a Flash Back to his heroing days, where we see him blast the Villain of the Week (and future plaintiff) and fly off into the sunset. Then the camera returns to the villain still sprawled in a shallow crater, groaning from the effects of Harvey's solar rays.
  Villain: (checking his legs) My legs... I can't feel my legs...
  (his hand moves to his crotch and his eyes widen in alarm)
  Villain: I CAN'T FEEL MY D—
  (cut to the title sequence)
• In one episode of Minoriteam, the paraplegic Dr. Wang tried to invoke this trope by staging an accident that he could file a big lawsuit over.
• An episode of ¡Mucha Lucha! had this as a Running Gag involving the Flea.
  The Flea: The Flea cannot feel his legs! Oh wait, here they are, right next to the Flea.
  [...]
  The Flea: The Flea cannot feel his arms! Oh wait, here they are, right next to the Flea.
  Buena Girl: Flea, those are my arms.
  [...]
  The Flea: The Flea cannot feel his brain! Oh wait, here it is, right next to the Flea.
• The Simpsons: Falling asleep on a particularly long bus trip, Homer awakes and puts his hands on the blanket spread over his legs, then realizes he can't feel them. He starts punching them, screaming he can't feel his legs, when Marge groggily tells him they belong to the extremely tall guy behind him.
• Happens occasionally as a running gag in SpongeBob SquarePants.
• In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", Marco falls off a ladder and lands on Star. He grabs the nearest leg and screams that he can't feel it, then Star says that's her leg.
• In the first episode of Total Drama All-Stars, Alejandro says that being in the Drama Machine for a year has made his legs numb, his legs eventually recover, but he pretends that they haven't so that Heather would let her guard down.
• Xiaolin Showdown - Dojo, the team's dragon companion, says this while pinned under a boulder. Clay lifts the boulder and reminds him that he doesn't have legs.

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