History Main / PullTheIV

Often followed by ThePatientHasLeftTheBuilding. See also: WorstAid, TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs, ArtisticLicenseMedicine.

* In ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse'', Alice wakes up alone in a hospital [[LateToTheTragedy Late To The]] ZombieApocalypse, and the first thing she does is yank out the IV. Albeit she ''does'' seem to feel pain.

[[/folder]]

--> carefully prying at his IV drip.
--> "And should you be removing that?"

* Faith in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', although in her case the [[BadAss Bad Assery]] (and ability to walk immediately after eight months in a coma) is justified by her being a Slayer.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Deconstructed in ''Click''. Adam Sandler, hospitalized, seeing his son is about to repeat his same mistakes, pulls his IV and races out to catch his son in the parking lot. [[RealityEnsues This leads directly to his death within five minutes]].

* Bob Lee Swagger does this to himself in ''Film/{{Shooter}}''; he's been shot and knows he's going into shock from blood loss, so he improvises an IV set using aquarium tubing, plastic soda bottles, and a ''basting needle.'' Once he's bolused himself with a liter or so of homemade sugar-salt solution, he yanks the line out and continues on his merry BadAss way.

* Deconstructed in ''Click''; Adam Sandler pulling his IV leads directly to his death within five minutes. This was partly intended, as he would rather die getting a chance to warn his son than live and see said son repeat his mistakes.

The hero - or villain - has been hospitalized. When they come to, they've got better things to do than sit in the recovery ward for hours and hours - the world's at peril! They dramatically yank off their IV as they're informed of another attack - ''especially'' if the bad guys are knocking down hospital doors, guns blazing. They've got no time to bleed. That this is against DoctorsOrders is always implied, and sometimes explicitly stated.

Often followed by ThePatientHasLeftTheBuilding. See also: WorstAid, TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs, YouFailYourMedicalBoardsForever.

!! '''Examples''':

* ''ComicBook/IronMan'': Tony Stark not only pulls out an IV, but also his own respirator tubes.

* A critically ill Ryuuko was noted to be doing this in ''[[Webcomic/KillLaKillAU Room 002108]]'' and her reasons for pulling out I Vs is that she feels she is going die and has little else to lose.

* PlayedForLaughs, naturally, in ''Film/{{Airplane}}''. There's a young girl being transported to a hospital, whose IV line keeps getting knocked out by the stewardess playing the (borrowed) nun's guitar.

* In ''Film/XMen1'', Wolverine wakes up at the medical room of the X-Men base and promptly rips out the needles. Doesn't bleed thanks to his hyper regeneration.

* Katniss Everdeen does this at least once per book in "''Literature/TheHungerGames''".
* Han Solo does this by accident in ''Literature/TatooineGhost'' when the Tatooinian clinic he's being treated in comes under attack by the villains. He doesn't even realize his arm is bleeding until after the fight is over.

* Naturally, any TV series featuring an emergency department will show this at least once; notable examples include ''GreysAnatomy'' and ''Series/{{ER}}''.

* In the 00's remake of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', Starbuck does this when breaking out of the Cylon farm.

* When Lady Une comes out of a coma in ''GundamWing'', she pulls out her IV and goes to rescue Treize.
* ''{{Sankarea}}''. Chihiro sustains injuries to his neck serious enough to need an IV and when he wakes up, he gets out of bed fast enough for the IV to come off, but feels nothing.

* An offscreen example happens in ''FruitsBasket''. Rin wakes up in a hospital after collapsing and, in a haze, wanders off. When the nurse sees that she's missing, there's a shot of her slightly-bloody IV needle lying on her bed. Presumably she didn't notice any pain because she was that delirious.

* ''HarryBrown'' of the eponymous film removes his monitors and goes home after waking in hospital following an emphysema attack.

* Bob Lee Swagger does this to himself in ''{{Shooter}}''; he's been shot and knows he's going into shock from blood loss, so he improvises an IV set using aquarium tubing, plastic soda bottles, and a ''basting needle.'' Once he's bolused himself with a liter or so of homemade sugar-salt solution, he yanks the line out and continues on his merry BadAss way.

* Averted in an episode of ''{{Moonlighting}}'', where a hospitalized gangster gets into a fight and drags his IV drip around with him. PlayedForLaughs, obviously.

* The breathing tube variant also appears in an episode of ''RoyalPains.'' Jill asks Divya to have them take her breathing tube out; Divya explains she can't, and so Jill gives her a distraction so she can remove it herself.

* In ''AngelsInAmerica'', when Roy Cohn is in the hospital for treatment regarding his suffering from HIV, he accidentally knocks out his IV while flailing in anger at a visitor. This does cause him pain as well as cause blood to come out, which the nurse hurries to clean up and warns the visitor to wash off of himself ASAP.

* AlphaProtocol had this early on, noted in this episode of [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable/1932-Alpha-Protocol Unskippable (occurs 2:44, called out at 6:18)]]
* Occurs at the very end of ''{{Sanitarium}}'', [[spoiler:when the protagonist wakes from his coma]]. Justified in that the villain had moments ago injected poison in his IV bag.

* Though he doesn't end up actually doing it, [[DannyPhantom Danny Fenton]] wasn't looking forward to the hole doing this with his intangibility would leave in his arm when he wakes up in a hospital in [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3049214/1/Running_Blind Running Blind]].

* During the climax of season 1 of ''Series/{{The Newsroom}}'', Will McAvoy tears out his IVs while quoting the end of Don Quixote. It sets off alarms at the nurse's station and unsurprisingly pisses off his nurse.

* During the climax of season 1 of ''Series/{{TheNewsroom}}'', Will McAvoy tears out his IVs while quoting the end of Don Quixote. It sets off alarms at the nurse's station and unsurprisingly pisses off his nurse.