History Main / GameBreakingInjury

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop: TheMovie'' has Spike taking a gunshot wound to the stomach right before his fight with Vincent in the climax fight. For the most part he doesn't feel it until his opponent grabs at it.

* ''Anime/MyHeroAcademia:'' All Might suffered from an absolutely brutal one of these five years before the start of the series, that ruined most of his internal organs and scrambled his power usage. Multiple surgeries later, he can only use his powers for a few hours a day and needs to stay off the public eye the rest of the time, as his depowered aspect is... [[NothingButSkinAndBones disheartening]], to say the least.

* One of the trailers for ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}: Age of Reckoning'' features a rather one-sided battle between a Chaos warrior and a Sigmarite Warrior-Priest. lhe Latter is on his knees, having taken a nasty blow to the side, when suddenly his eyes and weapon come alive with a holy fire. The Chaos warrior just cocks his head and knees him in the injured side. You can watch the whole thing on www.blur.com

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'': During the climax of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', Batman/Bruce Wayne injures his leg in the same fall that kills Harvey Dent. By the time of ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' eight years later, the cartilage in his knee has deteriorated to the extent that he requires either a cane or bionic leg brace to walk. He [[ThrowingOffTheDisability gets the ability to walk unassisted back]] after reconditioning himself in [[HellholePrison the Pit]].

* The 2017 Gymnastics World Championships was plagued with such injuries:

* The popular FightingGame ''[[VideoGame/DefJamSeries Def Jam: Fight for New York]]'' managed to integrate this strategy into their gameplay mechanics. Characters who specialized in the ''submission'' fighting style were able to target their opponents' limbs, and their overall durability was represented by a separate life meter. If the opposing player used a weakened limb to punch or kick, then the damage would '''greatly''' be reduced.

* ''Franchise/DeadOrAlive'': Hayate suffered one prior to the first game after losing a BeamOWar to [[EvilUncle Raidou]]; the resulting energy shockwave flung him into a tree and broke his spine, paralyzing him and rendering him unable to take over as leader of the Mugen Tenshin Clan. However, after he is captured by [[EvilutionaryBiologist Victor Donovan]] and subjected to [[SuperSoldier Project Epsilon]], his mobility is restored.

* Perhaps one of the most infamous of these in the NFL is the injury that Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann had during a game in 1985, when New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor accidentally broke Theismann's leg during a tackle. After realizing what happened, Taylor immediately called for help. Afterwards, Theisman was forced to retire. Since then, both offensive tackle positions[[note]]The left tackle for a right-handed quarterback, and the right tackle for a left-handed quarterback.[[/note]] were redefined to cover the quarterback's [[Film/TheBlindSide blind side]][[note]]Taylor had "blindsided" Theismann when it happened.[[/note]] (as the movie's OpeningNarration explains) Additionally, while Theismann never blamed Taylor for the injury, Taylor stills bad about it to this day.

* In ''Manga/PokemonSpecial'', Red decides to turn down the position of Viridian Gym Leader because of the painful frostbite he sustained from the previous year's battle against the Elite Four. He does get better, but not before giving the position to Green.

* In ''Literature/{{Changes}}'', there seems to be one when [[spoiler:Harry breaks his back]], but the person gets PowerAtAPrice from [[spoiler:Queen Mab]] to be healed, among other things. We see later in ''Literature/GhostStory'' that the choice wasn't exactly fair since [[spoiler:Lucifer]] interfered.

* UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} Hall of Famer Richard Petty once drove a then-Winston Cup race with a broken back.

* Toward the end of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' [[spoiler:[[BigBad Kylo Ren]] takes a near-direct blast from Chewie's boltcaster. He still puts up an incredible fight (considering that most people hit by that thing are blown across the room ''in pieces''), but it puts him off his game enough that Finn is able to hold his own with a lightsaber against him for a brief period and Rey was actually able to [[Awesome/TheForceAwakens take him down]]]].

* In "The Walking Dead", this happened to young teenager Carl Grimes after he is shot in the eye unintentionally but Douglas Monroe, the leader of the Alexandria Safe-Zone. In a desperate attempt to save Rick Grimes and his son, Carl, he begins wildly shooting into the crowd of zombies surrounding them, shooting Carl in the eye before being devoured by zombies. After a long while in a deep coma, Carl awakens to find that he has lost all of his recent memories and that he is incredibly crippled: blinded on his right side due to the loss of his eye. For a long time, he is ordered to stay in his house and keep the weight off of his feet, but, being Carl, that never happened. The injury begins to show permanent effects on his mental state as well, as he becomes much more hostile and bitter towards others, especially Rick, and prefers to keep it covered up. Fast forward to multiple years later, and it has been shown to still deeply affect him. He tells Rick that the faces that others give him when they see his eye hurts him emotionally, and he lectured Rick on the fact that he knew that Rick was ashamed of him for it, justifying his wanting to rescue his girlfriend, Lydia, because she is the only one that Carl has come across that did not wince each time she looked at his wound. In fact, she told Carl that it was "sexy".

* In ''Literature/MemoriesOfIce'', the third book in the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', the only reason [[spoiler:Whiskeyjack]] dies is because he had not had his hurt leg healed after the vents of ''Literature/GardensOfTheMoon''. In ''Literature/TollTheHounds'', book eight, it is revealed that Hood, the god of death himself, personally manipulated events as revenge for a particular slight.