History HeroicSacrifice / RealLife

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh [[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh [[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.htmldrowned rescuing three people from a riptide]].
* Singer Music/EddieCochran shielded his then-fiancée Sharon sheeley from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process. This happened not long after the infamous, "The day the music died", which he sang a TearJerker song, "Three stars", about, as a tribute to the three musicians Music/BuddyHolly, Music/RitchieValens and Music/TheBigBopper, who died in the incident. He had been ProperlyParanoid about dying ever since the aforementioned disaster, but he chose to shield his fiancée instead.

* Singer Music/EddieCochran shielded his then-fiancée Sharon sheeley from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process. This happened not long after the infamous, "The day the music died", which he sang a TearJerker song, "Three stars", about, as a tribute to the three musicians. He had been ProperlyParanoid about dying ever since the aforementioned disaster, but he chose to shield his fiancée instead.

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh [[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html
drowned rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh
[[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh [[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html
rescuing three people from a riptide]].

drowned rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh[[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html
drowned rescuing three people from a riptide]].
* Singer Eddie Cochran shielded his then-fiancée Sharon sheeley from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process. This happened not long after the infamous, "The day the music died", which he sang a TearJerker song, "Three stars", about, as a tribute to the three musicians. He had been ProperlyParanoid about dying ever since the aforementioned disaster, but he chose to shield his fiancée instead.

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh,[[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh,[[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html drowned rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi, known as the creator of the successful franchise Anime/YuGiOh[[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Mangaka Creator/KazukiTakahashi died [[https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html rescuing three people from a riptide]].

* Singer Eddie Cochran shielded his then-fiancée Sharon sheeley from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process. This happened not long after the infamous, "The day the music died", which he sang a TearJerker song, "Three stars", about, as a tribute to the three musicians. He had been ProperlyParanoid about dying ever since,but he chose to shield his fiancée instead.

* Singer Eddie Cochran shielded his wife from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process. This happened not long after the infamous, "The day the music died", which he sang a TearJerker song, "Three stars", about, as a tribute to the three musicians.

* Singer Eddie Cochran shielded his wife from the impact of a fatal car crash, dying in the process.

* The destroyers and planes of US task force "Taffy 3" in the Battle off Samar definitely count. With the main bulk of Admiral Halsey's fleet off chasing a Japanese decoy fleet, the only things left to protect the six escort carriers of Taffy 3 were three destroyers and four destroyer escorts. As luck would have it, a Japanese center force consisting of ''4 battleships (including the IJN Yamato, the largest battleship ever built which outweighed the ENTIRE complement of Taffy 3 combined), eight cruisers, and '''eleven''' destroyers'' stumbled across the small group. To protect the vital escort carriers from the Japanese guns, the destroyers and destroyer escorts literally positioned themselves between the carriers and the Japanese, and closed in to point blank range of the massive ships to release torpedoes and rake their sides with cannon fire, since their smaller guns were ineffective for firing at range due to the Japanese armor thickness. In the air, the carriers' planes took off to attack the ships with everything they had, which included, according to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, strafing, bombing, rocketing, depth-charging, and at least one pilot ''drawing his revolver firing at the ship'' when he ran out of ammunition. Despite being severely outnumbered and outgunned, and losing two of their three destroyers along with two escort carriers, Taffy 3 fought with such ferocity that the Japanese fleet was forced to disengage, but not before one of the Japanese captains [[WorthyOpponent saluted]] the American sailors for their bravery. The Americans attacked the Japanese so aggressively that until they had finally looked up their opponents in their silhouette recognition books, they believed they had run into the entire Fast Carrier Task Force and were fighting fleet carriers, battleships and heavy cruisers rather than escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer-escorts (frigates by modern naval definitions). Two ships - U.S.S. ''Samuel B. Roberts'' and U.S.S. ''Johnston,'' both sunk by Japanese fire during the attack, were given the sobriquet, "The Destroyer that fought like a Battleship" for their selfless and somewhat crazed charges.

* While driving home with his pregnant wife, [[https://www.theprovince.com/news/North+final+saves+family/3487150/story.html Brian Wood]] noticed that a car was crossing the center line and heading straight for them. With no time to avoid a crash, Brian swerved to the right [[TakingTheBullet so that he would take the full force of the collision]], [[BabiesEverAfter saving his wife and unborn child]].

* During the 1995 Tokyo Subway Attack, when members of Aum Shinrikyo unleashed sarin gas on several train lines, the ones on the Chiyoda Line were quickly discovered. After stopping at Kasumigaseki Station, three attendants worked to dispose of them by hand. Two of them were fatally poisoned and died within minutes.

* Termite soldiers will go out of their mound in the event of a breach to hold off the enemy (usually ants) while the workers rebuild. Sealing the soldiers out.
* The Port Arthur Massacre had more than one sadly failed attempts.

* [[BadassBookworm Prof. Liviu Librescu.]] During the Virginia Tech massacre, [[YouShallNotPass he held the door of his classroom shut]], allowing most of his students to escape. [[MadeOfIron He was shot through the door five times]] before finally succumbing to a shot to the head.
** This man survived [[FinalSolution the Holocaust]]. He wasn't about to go down easily.

* The Port Arthur Massacre had more than one sadly failed attempts. Nanette Patricia Mikac knelt down before Martin Bryant, the shooter, to die whilst asking him, simply, to spare her two daughters [[DeathOfAChild (unsuccessfully)]]. Carolyn Loughton threw herself on top of her daughter, but while she survived, her daughter did not. Brigid Cook began an impromptu evacuation of the site and whilst shot, survived. Neville Quin was shot in the neck and survived trying to reach his wife.

* Colonel UsefulNotes/YuriGagarin died on March 27, 1968, when the [=MiG=]-15 he was piloting crashed near Moscow. He could have ejected safely from his failing craft, but chose to fly on past that point, because if he had ejected, the plane would have landed on a village killing everyone there.
** Previously, Gagarin had tried to save his friend Vladimir Komarov's life by pulling one of these. The Soyuz 1 spacecraft was a poorly designed and completely doomed piece of junk that was only going to be launched due to pressure from the Politburo, and Gagarin knew it. Komarov was going to be the pilot, and Gagarin was his backup. Gagarin tried to use his clout to cancel the launch, and when that was unsuccessful, he tried to take Komarov's place. But the Politburo refused to allow a national hero on a flight they knew would not be two-way, and Komarov himself also fought the switch, not wanting Gagarin to die in his place, and he went up as planned. Almost every system on the craft began to fail almost immediately, and the mission was aborted. Unfortunately, the ship caught fire during re-entry and both the main parachute and reserve parachute failed to deploy properly, so Komarov hit the Earth without slowing down and was killed on impact.

* Practically every posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor or similar awards.
** The living recipients generally qualify too. A lot them say that they fully expected to die.
* Subverted, if the story of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais "Burghers of Calais"]] (as depicted in the sculpture by Creator/AugusteRodin) is to be believed: the six men of the town who offered themselves in exchange for the town's safety ended up alive after all, and the statue depicts them as not so much "heroic" as defeated and weary, but conscious of their duty.

** Echoing this action in March 2016, Russian Special Forces officer [[https://sputniknews.com/russia/20160329/1037166120/russian-hero-palmyra-named-father.html Alexander Prokhorenko]], who was embedded in Syria providing artillery intelligence on strategic Daesh locations, was discovered and surrounded. He [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200808173627/https://www.funker530.com/airstrike-transcript-russian-operatives-last-words/ repeatedly ordered]] his superiors to target his position so that he would "die with dignity" and take them with him.

* Subverted, if the story behind the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais "Burghers of Calais" sculpture]] is to be believed: the six noblemen of the town who offered themselves in exchange for the town's safety ended up alive after it all, and the statue depicts them as not so much "heroic" as defeated and weary, but conscious of duty.
* Flower, veteran matriarch of ''Series/MeerkatManor'''s Whiskers clan, embraced this trope when she went MamaBear on a den-invading cobra, and got bitten on the face defending her pups.

* A group Heroic Sacrifice -- United Flight 93 on September 11th. After learning that three other planes had been used as weapons against thousands, [[BadAssBystander passengers]] [[YouShallNotPass assaulted their hijackers]], [[TakingYouWithMe knowing it would probably lead to their deaths]]. [[EverybodyDies It did]], but [[BittersweetEnding countless lives were saved]] at wherever the intended target site was (according to captured al-Qaeda members, it was most likely the U.S. Capitol). Various cell phone calls to loved ones indicate that [[DeathIsTheOnlyOption the passengers knew exactly what they were doing and there was little to no chance of surviving]]. It is believed that the group, led by passenger Todd Beamer, managed to kill or incapacitate at least one of the hijackers after breaching the cockpit using an airline trolley as a battering ram, and then proceeded to fight the remaining hijackers for control over the aircraft's yoke. The last words recorded on the plane's CVR - "pull it up", said calmly and in English - also suggests that the passengers were successful in gaining control of the cockpit, but by then the crash was inevitable.

* First Lieutenant [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Fox John Robert Fox]] called fire on his own position on December 26 1944 in a successful attempt to stall a German advance. His body was located in a counter-attack the next day, along with those of around 100 German soldiers.

* [[https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-hiker-family-killed-a-colorado-family-20131001,0,64030.story This Colorado dad]] gave his life so that his teenage daughter would have a chance to survive.

* A group Heroic Sacrifice -- United Flight 93 on September 11th. After learning that three other planes had been used as weapons against thousands, [[BadAssBystander passengers]] [[YouShallNotPass assaulted their hijackers]], [[TakingYouWithMe knowing it would probably lead to their deaths]]. [[EverybodyDies It did]], but [[BittersweetEnding countless lives were saved]] at wherever the intended target site was (according to captured al-Qaeda members, it was most likely the U.S. Capitol). Various cell phone calls to loved ones indicate that [[DeathIsTheOnlyOption the passengers knew exactly what they were doing and there was no chance of surviving]].

** Fujio Koshita, at 57 the senior Otsuchi firefighter, died standing on top of the firehouse ringing the old warning bell, because the March 11th earthquake killed all electrical power in the town. His bell was heard ringing through the town until the tsunami swept him, and the firehouse, away. According to other firefighters, he violated his own rule about rescue workers; "Don't die. Rescuers must stay alive” because your job is to help other people."