History Main / InstantDramaJustAddTracheotomy

** In a ''Detective Comics'' story arc during UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, ComicBook/TheRiddler got his hands on a demon summoning ritual that had been performed by Gotham's founders, which called for the sacrifice of a "human bat," who was prepared for the sacrifice through a series of gruesome and bizarre ordeals, among them slitting the throat of a newborn baby. So he kidnapped a baby, shoved a ping pong ball in its mouth and left it for Batman to find as he made his escape.

* ''Series//{{Lewis}}'': In episode "[[Recap/LewisS1E2 Whom the Gods Would Destroy]]", Lewis and Anne walk into the dining room only to find Platt choking. Anne saves his life with an instant tracheotomy, without even really trying the Heimlich. It's shown realistically with Anne having to make a slice with a knife first before jamming in the pen.

* In the 2017 Korean thriller ''Film/SteelRain'', a fight between two North Korean intelligence operatives in a hospital apparently ends when one of them gets slammed into a bench and his neck broken. However he grabs a [[LodgedBladeRecycling scalpel lodged in the neck of another operative]], uses it to cut open an IV tube and give ''himself'' a tracheotomy, then [[TheDeterminator races after the other operative]].

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Music/TheScript ♪ I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing... ♪]]]]

* In the Season 6 episode "Agua Mala" of ''Series/TheXFiles'', Scully performs one on a police officer after he is attacked by the MonsterOfTheWeek.

* Defied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', where he tries to drunkenly perform one on Pam with a switchblade when she's going into anaphylactic shock. Even though she's dumb enough to gorge herself on soy-based fake seafood she knows she's violently allergic to, Pam ''is'' smart enough to know an unnecessary tracheotomy will just make things worse, so she fights off Archer's UnwantedAssistance long enough to grunt out the word "Epi-Pen," which is what she actually needed.

%% Image chosen via crowner in the Image Suggestions thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions137
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

* In an issue of ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' (or possibly ''Agent X''), DeathTrap creator Arcade does this, much to everyone's surprise -- not just that he knew how, but that he'd bother.

* In ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' Slyssk needs to have one after being force choked. Justified, both since Slyssk is a Trandoshan with [[HealingFactor regenerative abilities]] that allowed him to survive, and the Mandalorian who performed the procedure [[spoiler:is actually a doctor in disguise]]. Rohlan admits that he likely would have died if it wasn't for his Trandoshan toughness.
* Played for more drama than usual in one ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'' story, as doctor [[OneShotCharacter Flavio Todd]] had to practice one on his daughter when she started suffucating for an allergic reaction to a medicine given to her by another doctor to deal with the aftermath of an abortion... But they're on a car and he's so shaken by what's happening to her ''and'' discovering she just had an abortion that he crashes, with her dying and him forgetting everything except that he sliced his own daughter's throat, pushing the doctor to ''demand'' potentially dangerous cures so he could remember and properly pay for what he thinks is his daughter's murder. When he remembers (and the reader finds out why he had sliced his daughter's throat), however, he decides to [[PapaWolf track down the man who prescribed to his daughter a medicine without checking her for allergy so he can murder him]].

[[folder:Films]]
* Lane performs one in ''{{Film/Switchback}}'' to establish his character used to be in med school.
* David performed one in ''Film/JustLikeHeaven'' despite having no medical training. Elizabeth's quasi-ghost talks him through it.
* In ''Film/NurseBetty'', Betty successfully performs a tracheotomy, knowing how to do so from obsessively watching a medical soap opera.

* ''Film/SawV'' has Strahm get his head locked inside a box that starts filling up with water. He survives by giving himself a tracheotomy with a ''pen''.
* In ''Film/NancyDrew'', the titular character performs this on a classmate who had allergic reaction at a party (the classmate, according to a friend, was "insanely" allergic to peanuts and had made out with a boy who had eaten a peanut butter cookie), much to the horror of the other partygoers--[[DontTryThisAtHome Nancy also warns her guests beforehand to not try anything she was about to do on their own unless they've had advanced emergency medical training]]. The movie plays with the idea that Nancy is always CrazyPrepared for emergencies--and thankfully, she does manage to save her classmate.
* In the German film ''Film/ThePrincessAndTheWarrior'' (2000), this is how the protagonists meet-- Bodo, after inadvertently causing Sissi to be hit by a truck, performs an emergency tracheotomy [[note]]presumably having learned how to do so during his time in the military[[/note]] on her and disappears before Sissi can learn his name. As a result, [[RescueRomance she becomes obsessed with tracking him down]].
* In ''Film/TheSweetHereafter'', a character narrates in flashback how he was prepared to do this to his infant daughter as she went into anaphylactic shock after being bitten by a spider. [[spoiler: Averted because in the end, he got her to the hospital before this was necessary]], and subverted in the sense that it was clear this was to be a last resort and his chances of performing it successfully were minimal.

* In ''Film/ThreeKings'', Mark Wahlberg's character suffers from pneumothorax (a collapsed lung) so his comrades have to puncture his lung to give him tension release. Watch it [[https://youtu.be/38rHuxIhf6I?t=102 here]] (gore alert).

* An emergency tracheotomy performed by a non-professional is a key plot event in ''Literature/ThreeDaysToNever'' by Creator/TimPowers. It's not a neat Hollywood tracheotomy, though, and has serious repercussions.
* In ''Expendable'', of ''Literature/TheLeagueOfPeoplesVerse'', two explorers start asphyxiating in a strange atmosphere. One gets the idea of a tracheotomy in her spinning head and tries to perform it on her partner, untrained, with improvised tools, while blacking out herself. She wakes up next to the corpse and discovers that the effect is just a momentary symptom of acclimation.

* In ''Literature/{{Twig}}'', Sylvester gets an amateur one from Candida after he has his throat crushed by the Baron Richmond, and is, bizarrely, able to speak in a whisper afterwards-he explains that he's regularly on the receiving end of an ImpromptuTracheotomy from any number of sources (guard dogs, knives, burrower worms...) and therefore his doctors surgically altered his throat so he could continue to try to talk his way out of it with a slit throat.
* ''Literature/TheDarkHours'': After realizing that her punch crushed Bonner's windpipe, Renee Ballard calls her friend Garrett the EMT in a blind panic and has him guide her through an emergency tracheotomy, which is done realistically, with Renee having to use a knife to make the incision. Then, after Bonner regains consciousness and realizes that it's all over for him, he rips the plastic tube she used out of his throat, and dies.

* In episode 3 of ''Series/EmergencyCouple'', Chang-min and Jin Hee have to do this to a patient with esophageal cancer after they get stuck in an elevator.
* Seen about once every other episode on ''Series/{{House}}''.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' had Turk save someone's life this way. Dr. Cox tries to provoke him by taking the credit for it.

* This happens in an episode of ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess''. A [[RedShirt bounty hunter]] after Xena gets a dagger through his neck, courtesy of another bounty hunter. Xena cuts him a new breathing hole out of mercy. He still dies, though (though because of AppliedPhlebotinum, not anything Xena did)
* The first episode of ''Series/{{Wonderfalls}}'' involved this, after a character has an allergic reaction to peanuts. Since neither other person in the car actually knew how to do it properly, it led to the hilarious "We've got a stabbing victim!" line.
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'':
** Once Father Mulcahy had to do this, with Hawkeye talking him through it via radio. For extra drama, Mulcahy is a priest, not a surgeon, they had to use an eye-dropper with the bulb snipped off for the tube, and Mulcahy was being ''shelled'' while it happened.
** Hawkeye himself had to perform one on a North Korean soldier, after been captured to provide medical aid. In the field, without English-speaking assistants (enough yelling and gestures got the mobile soldier to hold his buddy down) or much equipment (first aid kit and a pen cap) and seemed to have been something of last resort/only thing he could try type situation. Realistically, it did not turn out well.
* Attempted in an episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', due to a biological weapon that sealed bodily orifices. The skin then grew ''over the trache tube''.
* In an episode of ''Series/CSIMiami'', the coroner had to do this to some random guy on the street.

* ''Series/AmericanIdol'' had some tracheotomy-related drama, though not on-stage. Season 4 contestant Anthony Fedorov had had a tracheotomy when he was a child and had been told there was a chance he wouldn't even be able to ''speak'' again. And he not only spoke, he sang. Well enough to get 4th place.
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' parodied this by having a grade-school student who "saw this on TV" attempt to perform a tracheotomy on someone who quite clearly did ''not'' need it. With a ''ball-point pen''.
* Jake had to do this to a little girl in the first episode of ''Series/Jericho2006''.
* Seen in at least one episode of ''Series/{{Casualty}}'' when one cast member found himself in the middle of nowhere with a wrecked car whose driver hadn't been wearing a seatbelt and broken her larynx on the steering wheel or something.
* Parodied in the ''Series/{{Lost}}'' pilot. Jack gives Rose CPR, and Boone suggests giving her a tracheotomy, and volunteers to ask passengers for pens. Jack agrees to get rid of him, then successfully revives Rose on her own. Later, Boone approaches him, hands full of pens, saying, "I wasn't sure which type works best."
* ''Series/JudgingAmy'': Kyle does this in episode 5x05 after witnessing a bar fight.

* Justified on ''Series/{{Emergency}}'', which, like the ''ER'' example, had a trained doctor doing one in the emergency room on a guy whose trachea had collapsed. He had to have one to keep him alive until surgery could fix it.

* ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'': Dr. Mike and her daughter Colleen would perform quite a few of them.
* ''Series/MondayMornings'': Young Dr. Michelle Robidaux performed one particularly difficult tracheotomy in the series finale. Her patient was practically dead and everybody gave up on him, but she managed to save him at the last moment. Her not asking for help earned her the spot of shame at the M&M meeting.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', a former Navy medical corpsman happens upon a recent car accident and attempts a tracheotomy on one of the victims. Despite being fully trained and capable, her patient dies and she is prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license. Much drama is wrung from the fact that she'd have a civilian EMT certification, providing legal protection in such a situation, had she been discharged from the Army or Air Force instead. In the end, Gibbs pulls some strings to cut a plea deal for community service.

* In ''Series/NightAndDay'', Ryan Harper has to perform one of these on Josh Alexander when a birthday cake triggers a nut allergy. As a result, Josh decides he owes Ryan his life and voluntarily becomes his slave.
* In the Season 6 episode "Agua Mala" of ''Series/TheXFiles'', Scully performs one on a police officer after he is attacked by the MonsterOfTheWeek.
* ''Series/CallTheMidwife'': Dr. Turner has to perform an emergency tracheotomy at home for a pregnant woman who's suffocating from severe diphtheria. {{Justified|Trope}} in that this is a real treatment for extreme cases, but PlayedForDrama in that she doesn't speak English and he's still recovering his confidence after [[spoiler:misdiagnosing a baby]].
* ''Series/NewAmsterdam2018'': Georgia has to do this to Max when he passes out on a dock beside a lake. Sharpe tells her what to do over the phone.