History Main / MagicalDefibrillator

This trope implies that defibrillators work by administering an electric shock to the patient which gets the heart back to doing what it needs to do. Unfortunately, this is not the case; in RealLife, a defibrillator ''stops'' a dysfunctional heart rhythm, and CPR is needed to get the heart doing what it's supposed to do if it doesn't restart on its own. Therefore, shocking an asystolic (flatline) patient will do absolutely nothing of value, which is why a flatlined patient will first be given a round of drugs such as Epinephrine (not with a ShotToTheHeart) to jumpstart the heart into ''any'' kind of activity, which can then be shocked.

* Framchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:

* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' uses a very literal version of this trope. [[spoiler:Tony and Scott are tasked to take the Tesseract from the 2012-versions of the Avengers. To create a distraction, Tony has Scott mess with his younger self's arc reactor, inducing a heart attack. Younger Tony immediately collapses and starts writhing and gasping for air, which younger Thor immediately rectifies by placing Mjolnir on Tony's chest and shocking him with lightning. Tony is immediately fine again. ''Somewhat'' justified by the fact that younger Tony ''was'' probably fibrillating, and that even Thor clarified he had no idea if it'd work, but that still doesn't explain why there are no other adverse effects from Scott fucking with the device acting as - among other things - Tony's pacemaker.]]

* ''Film/BlackPantherWakandaForever'': The [[SuperWristGadget Kimoyo beads]] worn by every Wakandan citizen can be used as a defibrilator by placing the bracelet on the chest of the person who needs to be revived. Nakia and Okoye use theirs when Ramonda and Riri Williams drown in a flood. [[spoiler:Riri wakes up after a few jolts [[SubvertedTrope but Ramonda doesn't]]]].

* When Max from ''Series/DarkAngel'' jabs herself with a [[NeuralImplanting Cybernetic implant to make herself able to defeat some rival supersoldiers.]] After kicking ass and taking names, she starts to seizure as it is [[MySkullRunnethOver starting to burn out her nervous system and brain]]. Thus, Original Cindy and Logan have to stab through her neck into the implant with a knife and use it as a conductor for a defibrillator.

* ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'' averts this all together in the season 5 episode "The Fifth Man". While in the hospital, [[spoiler: Don]]'s heart goes into fibrillation, and the defibrillator is used to restore a normal rhythm. You can actually see the monitor displaying an erratic heartbeat. When [[spoiler: he]] flatlines, they use a syringe filled with a drug to attempt to revive [[spoiler: him]], not the paddles.
* In the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Ariel", Zoe uses a defibrillator to knock someone out when they break into a hospital. And that's a contrast to the previous scene, where Simon uses a defibrillator to save a patient who is suffering a heart seizure due to an accidental dosage of two drugs that negatively interact. In the latter incident, it appears to be a case of a lack of heartbeat with no pumping, and the shock is used to restart the heartbeat before a drug is introduced via intravenous injection to return the heart to normal.

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode "Fever", doctors defibrillate a flatlined patient. She dies.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Power of Three", the mysterious cubes send an electrical pulse that stops the hearts of people near them, including [[BizarreAlienBiology one of the Doctor's]]. Amy restarts the Doctor's one stopped heart with a defibrillator, and later the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to reprogram the cubes so they will ''restart'' everyone's heart, essentially Magically Defibrillating a third of the population of the planet by remote control. The victims have all been out for far too long to be revived, too, but the Doctor's magic takes care of that as well.

* In ''Series/BlackLightning'', after Jefferson's heart is stopped by a punch to the chest, his youngest daughter Jennifer accidentally uses her recently-manifested electrical powers to shock it into beating again. Then again, metahuman physiology could be different, especially one whose power is absorbing and manipulating electricity.
* ''Series/Charmed1998'': [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in "Awakened". Piper succumbs to Oroya fever and flatlines so the doctors break out the defibrilator. It ''looks'' like it worked, but she was actually saved by Leo who used his HealingHands to heal her before her spirit could move on.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': Inverted; Scully uses a defibrillator to kill Leonard Betts.

* Taken to the furthest possible extreme in ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Conviction'''s co-op mode. When Archer or Kestrel is incapacitated, the other character has a limited amount of time to get there and revive him with a defibrillator jolt. While said character is still conscious enough to cry out for help or even keep shooting.

* In ''Videogame/GodOfWarRagnarok'', during the first fight with Thor he manages to seemingly kill Kratos to the point that the game cuts to the loading screen. Thor then declares that the fight's over when ''he'' says it's over and proceeds to resuscitate Kratos with lightning from Mjolnir.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Averted in the anime, when Nurse Joy resorts to defibrillators when Pikachu's heart rhythm lowers (it had been seriously injured in battle with a Raichu)... and it takes a few tries to get it back on the right pattern, implying that it might not make it after the third attempt. [[PlotArmor Pikachu is the mascot of the franchise]], so we know better.
** An interesting variant of this trope appears in another ''Pokémon'' episode where Ash's Pikachu is taken to a hospital and defibrillated. In this case, it seems to act more like smelling salts, although it may have to do with the fact that the paddles were placed on Pikachu's electric pouches.
** Played straight when Pikachu IS the defibrillator, however. Ash's heart has stopped multiple times throughout the series and each time Pikachu revives him by shocking him. It doesn't work on petrification, though.
** Pikachu has also used his electrical attacks to rouse others throughout the series. In an early Master Quest episode, [=EP211=] ''Fly Me to the Moon'', he uses it to revive a Pidgey that flew too high and was asphyxiated by the rarefied air.

* In Anime/TheUltraman, Mutsumi's jet caught on fire from a Kaiju attack and she was forced to eject out of it before it explodes. Her parachute got torned, and roughly landed on a tree, seriously injuring her. Choichiro went to her aid and placed a heart monitor on her to check her vitals, but he helplessly left her alone just to fight the Kaiju responsible for Mutsumi's condition as Ultraman Joneus. The rest of the Science Guard Party arrived to Mutsumi's location. By the time they got there, her heart monitor shows a [[FlatLine flatline]]. So they used one of their jet's electrical batteries as defibrillators to shock Mutsumi's heart and successfully saving her without any use of [[CleanPrettyReliable CPR]].

* In Manga/CoppeLion, Ibara was resuscitated with a AED after a tank was fired at her and Aoi. Though Aoi manage to avoid being hit, Ibara wasn't so lucky. But at least she's lucky enough to survive.
* This happen to Rinka in Manga/TokyoEsp after she and the other students in her school got attacked by a group of ESP users, and paramedics used it to restart her heart.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Remarkably '''averted''' in an episode of ''Series/Lucifer2016'' where a defibrillator is used to stop [[spoiler:Lucifer's]] heart.

* Played for laughs in one skit in the ''Machinima/Supermarioglitchy4sSuperMario64Bloopers'' episode "Ssenmodnar 11", where [=SMG3=] burns a toast and the Shy Guy fairy tries to unburn it using a defibrillator. It doesn't work as the toast ends up burning further after a few shocks.

* The medkit in ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'''s mod ''VideoGame/SvenCoop'' can revive teammates and other players for 50 Med points, and a quirk also allowed to revive players that were smashed/blown into pieces

* ''Series/{{Emergency}}'' had one of the earliest regular depictions of this device with the usual JackWebb emphasis on realism. However, the producer did manage to get a more dramatic style to it with a different version that created a rising tonal sound as it charged up for a shock.

* Subverted in the ''Literature/WheelOfTime'' series with a really magical defibrillator. Rand tries to resuscitate a girl who's been stabbed by a Trolloc, explicitly forcing her heart to beat, but it fails as magic cannot raise the dead. Later, Rand remembers and doesn't try it on Mat, using CPR instead. Ironically, it might realistically have worked better.

* In ''Film/PoliceStory'', thieves jump-start a woman's heart with a car battery.
** Referenced in ''Film/RobBHood'', another Creator/JackieChan film, where he tries to jump-start the heart of a ''baby'' using a car battery.
** And inversely, Jackie Chan uses an ''actual'' defibrillator as an improvised weapon in ''Film/TheAccidentalSpy''.

** And in the {{Novelization}}, it was really an intervention by the [=ETs=] that saved her. In the film, it's just Bud's [[WorstAid Miraculous Bitchslap of Life]].

* Subverted in the WheelOfTime series with a really magical defibrillator. Rand tries to resuscitate a girl who's been stabbed by a Trolloc, explicitly forcing her heart to beat, but it fails as magic cannot raise the dead. Later, Rand remembers and doesn't try it on Mat, using CPR instead. Ironically, it might realistically have worked better.

* First seen in the 1966 movie ''Film/FantasticVoyage''.

* In an episode of ''Series/TheFlash2014'', Barry's heart stops after he's stung by a [[ItMakesSenseInContext robotic bee]], but it turns out that Cisco had a defibrillator built into Barry's suit which he can control remotely. Later in the episode Cisco himself gets stung, only for Barry to revive him with the lightning that speedsters can generate.

* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}} 2'' takes this to the point of a non-contact defibrillator that fires a stream of [[strike:magic]] electricity at people.

* ''VideoGame/{{RAGE}}'' features a defibrillator that can not only revive your character from absolutely anything, but ''produces enough electricity to fatally electrocute nearby enemies.'' Even weirder, it's actually based on nanotech, so they ''could'' have used something that makes more sense, but chose to explicitly identify it as a defibrillator.

* ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': In "Change is Gonna Come", Gary volunteers to [[{{Synchronization}} have his pain receptors fused with Quinn's]] while HUE implants a cyborg chip into her brain, [[SkipTheAnesthetic something that requires her to be conscious]], even though he could die from it. During the procedure, Gary goes into cardiac arrest, forcing Avocato has to use defibrillators to keep him alive.

* ''Film/EscapeRoom'' notably averts this. Jason shocks Mike with a defibrillator to stop his heart, then performs CPR to restart his heart to a faster rate and fulfill a challenge's requirement. [[spoiler:It doesn't work, and Mike dies.]]

** ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman: In the issue after Superman's death, medics attempt to revive Superman using defibs, but his body just wouldn't take it. Professor Hamilton hauls out a massive device that requires a massive energy charge for one charge and needs a personal barrier to protect you from the super shock. Bibbo takes the first try and it blows him back several feet and ''still'' knocks him out. Does jack for Superman.

* Creator/DCComics:
** In one issue of ''Power of Shazam'', [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]] and Mary Marvel summon their magical lightning to act as a defibrillator. It's made clear that they have to both be involved, using the opposite {{Transformation Sequence}}s so the lightning is channeled correctly. Because otherwise, exposing a flatlining man to magic lightning could be dangerous.

* ''Comicbook/XMen'':

* Part of the ''ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy'' comics. Cade Skywalker, latest bearer of the Skywalker name, has an uncanny gift for bringing people back from the brink of death. It looks rather like Force Lightning; he has to tap the Dark Side to do it, but it has managed to save instead of harming.
** In one Clone Wars comic Anakin tries to revive a dead jedi by force-gripping his heart, implied to be one of his first experiments with the dark side. It doesn't work beyond creeping out everyone present, and gets him a lecture on how the Force can't be used to solve every problem.

** In the issue after [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Superman's death]], medics attempt to revive Superman using defibs, but his body just wouldn't take it. Professor Hamilton hauls out a massive device that requires a massive energy charge for one charge and needs a personal barrier to protect you from the super shock. Bibbo takes the first try and it blows him back several feet and ''still'' knocks him out. Does jack for Superman.

* ''Comics/TheSimpsons:'' Dr. Nick once tries to revive a goldfish belonging to Ralph Wiggum using these. The nurses refuse to let him try, but he still has them charged up. Then circumstances involving some poorly place wires and the water inside the goldfish bowl result in Drs Nick and Hibbert getting shocked, along with the goldfish, which is miraculously revived.