Only Mostly Dead

"Miracle Max: It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Inigo Montoya: What's that? Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change."

- The Princess Bride

The step in between Non-Lethal KO and Final Death. It took Jesus three days and the culmination of an entire religion to come back from the dead, but for your party members all it takes is for you to fork over the cash.

Game mechanics-wise, there's little difference between Only Mostly Dead and Non-Lethal KO. It's the general feel of the plot that is affected. Some writers feel that this cheapens death too much, or complicates Plotline Death, so they don't use this trope. On the other hand, it avoids that problem with Non-Lethal KO where characters get blasted with the Giant Demonic Hellfire Explosion of Death...only to fall unconcious.

Occasionally, a writer may put in guidelines to explain what the difference between Only Mostly Dead and All Dead. This could be the amount of time that passed since death, or amount of damage to the body. Compare with Universes where the Necromantic can only ensure the dead Came Back Wrong.

Contrast with Almost-Dead Guy, who is presumed to be a lost cause. Traditionally, if the characters believe the Almost-Dead Guy can be saved, it is only due to Genre Blindness, and angsting will soon ensue.

Not to be confused with Not Quite Dead. This may lead it to be a Disney Death.

If the villains can do this, then usually the trick is finding a way in making them Deader Than Dead.

If this triggers something that was supposed to occur upon the character's death, it's the Revival Loophole.

As noted in the quote above, the Trope Namer is from The Princess Bride, wherein Westley turns out to be revivable—as long as the pill has time to work and he doesn't go swimming for at least... yes, at least an hour. (I'm not going to argue with Max's wife Valerie, are you?)

Anime and Manga

 * In Gash Bell,
 * God Eneru in One Piece is "killed" by a Reject Dial at one point in the Skypeia Arc. However, they forgot to keep the Seastone on, so his electricity-based Devil Fruit eventually shocks him and restarts his heart, resurrecting him. It would presumably take something more then blunt trauma to kill him for real.
 * Used as a plot device in Nano-Nano's path in Galaxy Angel II.
 * Ash in the 35th episode of Pokémon (the real Safari Zone episode that was banned in America). This is the first episode that shows he is Made of Iron.
 * Ash uses Pikachu as a Magical Defibrillator a lot.
 * It happens again in the Lavender Tower episode, where he actually becomes a ghost for a short period of time.
 * Celebi in the fourth movie. It takes the combined effort of every other version of it in every time period to bring it back.
 * Horrifically averted with Zoroark in the 14th movie. It is blatantly clear that she really was fully dead and that Celebi's actions were a full resurrection instead of a simple healing.
 * In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, is at one point 'killed' by an opponent using Muay Thai. Although Ryozanpaku's ridiculously good medicine manages a revival, there are some other serious consequences that continue for quite some time.
 * The 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! treats the "Shadow Realm" this way. If characters are sent there, it's a Fate Worse Than Death—but if the villain who sent them is defeated within a cetain, non-specified period of time, then they are restored (although PTSD is a known side effect). If they spend too long in the Shadow Realm, however, their minds will be completely lost. This is implied to be what happened to Marik's father (in the original, he was murdered with a knife).
 * Happens to Tenma in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas after Hades effectively kills him. Turns out Tenma's soul is still barely connected to his body due to the flower bracelet his childhood friend gave him.
 * Recent chapters of Naruto brings us the Edo Tensei (Impure World Resurrection Technique), which allows the current villains  to bring back a lot of people who were previously dead as controllable zombies. They are actually killed off once they've been sealed away.

Fan Works
"“Do not worry,” Rei said, face emotionless. “He is only clinically dead.” There was a pause, just enough for the black-haired woman to take a breath to respond, before Rei added, “He will get better.“"
 * Many Redwall Fix Fics claim that Rose, Martin the Warrior's love interest, was Only Mostly Dead when she was taken back to her home.
 * In Aeon Entelechy Evangelion Shinji got into this state after Mot's counterattack.


 * In Case of the Missing Technology, the narrator explains to Jay about how members of were found near death, with some of them even been dismembered yet still alive. Later,  is found in a similar condition. When she "woke up",  learns that her head was placed in a device to stay alive until a replacement body is found... reminds anyone of a show where a celebrity head is alive and  without much noticed, except for the narrator, of course.

Film

 * The Princess Bride is the Trope Namer.
 * In The Golden Child, Love Interest Kee Nang is struck by a crossbow bolt after Taking the Bullet for The Chosen One, Chandler Jarrell, forcing him to race against time to rescue the titular Golden Child so his powers can be used to save her.
 * A Truth in Television example occurs in The Abyss, where the heroine drowns but is revivable due to the frigid water temperature.
 * The Invisible:  Cue the race to.
 * According to Congo, the ghost tribe has different levels of dead (presumably including catatonia as a condition where the spirit has left the body [death] yet the body still breathes). Only the last level is dead-dead.
 * The British Hammer Horror film Wake Wood has the post-death caveat type - there is a ritual to bring a loved one back to life for a short amount of time, as long as the death didn't happen too long ago. A grieving couple bring back their dead daughter, after lying about the length of time since the death. Hilarity ensues.
 * In Like Flint. A guard appears to be dead but Flint shocks his heart back into beating and performs CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable (brief, mild chest compression) on him and brings him back.
 * In the movie Source Code, is not quite dead yet.

Literature

 * Wheel of Time has several levels of being dead. Most people die and their souls are eventually reincarnated sans memories. The Dark One can also resurrect followers of his who die normally. Big heroes are bound to the Pattern and between incarnations they inhabit the World of Dreams where they retain memories of their past lives. When they're reincarnated their new lives tend to be just as heroic as their past ones. Finally there's people who die via balefire, which kills you retroactively. Their souls can still be reincarnated according to Word of God but they can't be resurrected by the Dark One.
 * The entire premise of Altered Carbon, in which death and Real Death (or RD) are two separate concepts. Everyone is fitted with a brain backup implant called a cortical stack at birth. As long as it's intact, a person who dies can be resurrected into another body (provided they can fork up the cash for it).
 * The eponymous Skulduggery Pleasant is this trope entirely. He was human but was killed in agony by Serpine during the war, then was burned and put in a bag - but it turned out  that he was only Mostly Dead, and as such was able to pull himself together and continue fighting.
 * Mortal Coil has Valkyrie become mostly dead in order to, in one of the single creepiest bits of the series. And that's saying something.
 * Also applies to the partygoers in Death Bringer who were dead until their energy was returned to them.
 * Harry Potter
 * Voldemort himself could count. He is hit by an unstoppable killing spell, but survives as a spirit 'less than the meanest ghost' . He eventually returns to his whole body.
 * In Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the titular cat, Maurice, uses one of his nine lives to avoid becoming "all dead".
 * In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy famed Disaster Area frontman Hotblack Desiato is "spending a year dead for tax purposes". He still manages to eat at fine restaurants, travels the universe hooked up to his Death Support System, and employs a medium to translate his psychic impulses from beyond the grave into music.
 * In Lonely Werewolf Girl the souls of dead werewolves go to the Forest Of The Werewolf Dead, fortunately Fire-Demon Malvera is able to intercept heroine Kalix's soul while it's just in the outskirts and bring her back. All for the bargain price of one human girl's ability to love.
 * In book 2 it is revealed that.
 * In the book The Princess Bride, Miracle Max actually first proclaims Westley "Sort of Dead." After a while, he notices something wrong, and the other characters ask him what it is. He then informs them that Westley has just slipped from Sort of Dead to Mostly Dead.
 * The first Halo book, The Fall of Reach, has Linda-058 get shot by plasma to within an inch of her life but barely recovered at and put in cryosleep minutes later, still listed as clinically-dead. She survives and recovers well enough to fight by the next book. Spartan-IIs as a whole though are massive Determinators, one example being Kelly-08, who manages to continue fighting despite several cracked ribs and a completely deflated lung!
 * George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series has a few examples of this. Lord Berric Dondarrion  Catelyn Stark
 * In the Warrior Cats series, Clan leaders are granted nine lives by their ancestors. When they recieve a fatal injury or sickness, they'll stay dead for several minutes before waking up, assuming they have more lives left.

Live Action TV

 * In Torchwood,
 * Played completely straight, and even quoted, in Doctor Who episode "The Big Bang". Amy, who'd been shot and presumably killed, was placed in the most secure prison in the universe- designed so that the person inside it could never escape, not even through death, and stored there until given a way to be revived.
 * on Farscape qualifies for this - she drowns and is given a tearful burial scene. Then Zhaan, grieving, decides to  and revive her deceased friend. Zhaan's able to do this because - yes! -
 * In the Stargate Verse, there seem to be two levels of dead: "revivable by the Sarcophagus"-dead (which, as the sarc is purely non-magical advanced technology, should probably be considered "dead as best as Earth medicine can tell but not truly dead," but they call it dead) and dead-dead. Daniel Jackson winds up Only Mostly Dead on several occasions, though all of the original four got their turn at least once. (Kawalsky, on the other hand, winds up dead-dead.)
 * And in the Stargate SG-1 Tabletop Games, there are two degrees of death: merely dead, between -10 and -25 HP (revivable by a sarcophagus), and destroyed, below -25 HP (the body is messed up beyond repair). And certain species, such as the Unas, have the "Sarcophagus Incompatible" feat; for them, dead is dead.
 * In Heroes, anyone with a Healing Factor is rendered "dead" if an object is stabbed into a certain part of the brain, but if it's removed, recovery is as quick as with any other injury. The characters believe that being shot in that part of the brain would kill such a person permanently, but it's never been done yet.
 * Except since neither Ted nor Peter have hurt themselves while using that power at the lower levels, it shouldn't immediately follow that they'll blow themselves apart when going fully nuclear.
 * In the alternate future of season 3,
 * Charlie does this in Lost. At least, that seems to have been the case, since Jack finds him hanged yet manages to resuscitate him. Mikhail has been Only Mostly Dead a few times.
 * In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy is killed twice, but it doesn't "take". The first, Xander resuscitates her; in the second, she is brought back by a magical ritual.
 * Buffyverse has a good few levels of dead including but probably not limited to: vampire/demon possessed corpse, mummy/zombie/reanimated corpse sans demon, ghost, resuscitated, dead but brought back by magic, dead and beyond being brought back by magic (e.g. Darla), whatever the heck happened to Cordelia
 * Mulder makes a regular habit of this in The X-Files. The most noteworthy occurrence is in season 8. It went so far that his body started decomposing and he was buried with a funeral and everything, only to be dug up three months later and found to be only mostly dead.

Tabletop RPG

 * Old-school RPGs based on AD&D rules often had relatively easy resurrection at shrines/churches for those willing to "donate."
 * For example, the classic game Wizardry had 3 levels of dead. They are:
 * "Dead", which could possibly be cured with a simple "Raise Dead" spell.
 * "Ashes", which was the result of a botched resurrection. This person could still be brought back for more gold, but if that failed...
 * "Gone", where nothing other than hacking the game will bring them back.
 * The SSI Gold Box games, which use AD&D rules, also have multiple levels:
 * "Unconscious", at exactly zero hit points and can be restored with any sort of healing.
 * "Bleeding", when between -1 and -9 hit points (inclusive). Works like "unconscious", but the character loses 1 hit point each round, which leads to...
 * "Dead", requires a "Raise Dead" or "Resurrection" spell to restore; caused by having -10 or less hit points. Which one you need depends on whether the corpse is in one piece or not.
 * "Gone", results from a failed raise, death from disintegration or dragon breath, or having the party flee from battle when the character is laying unconscious, bleeding, or dead on the field. Works like Wizardry's Gone.
 * Hackmaster builds upon the AD&D second edition rules, and imposes the limit that a character's starting Constitution score represents the number of times they can be resurrected; this total can never be raised short of the personal intervention of an actual Gawd.
 * In Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem, being critically injured will knock a vampire into torpor, a deathlike sleep that lasts a certain amount of time based on their Karma Meter. Sending one to Final Death requires special measures - throwing them into a fire or into direct sunlight is most dependable. (A stake through the heart also triggers torpor.)
 * The tabletop games have multiple levels of 'Mostly Dead', depending on edition, the power of the spellcaster, and what spells the spellcaster knows. This means that in 3.5 the smallest possible 'Mostly Dead' is less than nine days dead, cannot be missing vital parts of the body, can not have been turned into an undead or have been killed by a death effect, and must not have died of old age, while the greatest (assuming that one does not get into supplements or epic-level stuff) requires that the death was not of old age, that it was less than 200 years ago, and that the deceased can be unambigiously identified in some way.
 * If a character is "zeroed out" in Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, he is literally "mostly dead", as a nod to the Trope Namer, and to swashbuckling fiction in general. Killing an unconscious or helpless foe is Bad Form, even among villains.
 * In the FASA Doctor Who roleplaying game, there is no point of death, only a slowly increasing modifier to the difficulty of bringing someone back. Eventually you just have to give up.

Video Games

 * Pikmin has multiple endings. The Bad End happens if you don't manage to collect at least the 25 necessary ship parts within 30 days:
 * Though it should be noted that Pikmin can't uproot each other without Olimar's help...
 * In Final Fantasy Tactics, any defeated characters would fall over with a turn-counter above their heads. If a Raise-spell or a Phoenix Down is adminstered to them before the timer runs out, they return to life - they are Only Mostly Dead - but if the timer runs all the way out, they are Killed Off for Real. If this happens to any plot-important characters, it's Game Over. Interestingly enough, the same rules apply to all enemies... while Undead types may actually come back to life on their own after the timer runs out, unless a special spell is used to permanently destroy them.
 * In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance this was altered: If a character (other than the protagonist) is defeated, he is merely knocked unconscious, and can either be revived during the battle or automatically after it's over. However there are certain areas in the game called "Jagds" where if a defeated character isn't revived before the battle is over, then they are Killed Off for Real. The plot explains this by saying that conflicts in these areas are not overseen by the Judges, and can therefore turn lethal.
 * And we all wondered why they didn't just use a Phoenix Down when Aeris dies in Final Fantasy VII...
 * The heroes tried the full range of Phoenix Downs, Life spells and such during the Plotline Death in Final Fantasy V. It didn't work.
 * Rainbow Six 1-3:
 * Wounded: Potential Game-Breaking Injury, eg your aim becomes less accurate
 * Incapacitated: Only Mostly Dead, may or may not come back
 * KIA: Exactly What It Says on the Tin; they ain't ever comin' back, and you have to make do with subpar replacements.
 * In later games, lesser teammates are never killed, only Non-Lethal KO, but if Ding Chavez gets KO'ed, he is Killed Off for Real, and it's Game Over.
 * In games with Magical Defibrillators, this happens when you're brought down by gunfire or other non-Final Death means, but only lasts until you respawn. Occasionally results in cases of people "dying" repeatedly by headshots and massive explosions, to be zapped back to full health moments later.
 * Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8 have three stages of Death: Unconscious, when HP is below 0; Dead, when negative HP exceeds the inverse of the character's constitution; and Eradicated, a condition caused only by certain late-game attacks, and being so powerful that it "destroys the body", but not their weapons, armor, or inventory. Each condition only differs in the cure. Unconsciousness can be remedied by any source of healing, but Eradication can only be fixed by end-game magic or a temple.
 * In Persona 4, the silent protagonist may revive himself with a number of moon tsukubames in his pocket, depending on the difficulty selected. At a certain event in the game,
 * In Treasure of the Rudras during the battle with Nagiya, one of the Four Horsemen, Foxy is hit with an attack called "Foxy Killer" and cannot be resurrected until you get a certain plot related item.
 * After a certain (Early) point in FPS Prey, it's simply impossible to die. Upon losing your last drop of health you're simply sent to the spirit world where, rather than move on to the other side you're granted a brief moment to restock on health and spiritual energy by shooting the conveniently color-coordinated spirits before being reunited with your mostly dead body. However, this simply negates Check Point or Save Point attrition with death attrition. With enough deaths, you can grind your way past any situation. This is arguably still an improvement, however, as playing a shooting gallery Mini Game with weird undead creatures, then jumping back in where you left off is probably more fun than being sent back to your last save/checkpoint and having to work your way back to your original location.
 * Assuming you remembered to activate them beforehand, the "Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Devices" in System Shock 2 would resurrect the player if he died anywhere within the level they were located on. Not found in the climactic final level, of course.
 * The original System Shock had something similar in the form of automatic healing devices that are converted to cyborg conversion chambers. By deactivating the cyborg process, the healing process is reactivated without the enemies knowing. So when you die, you just wake up in the healing chamber with no one the wiser. Of course, some of them were easy to find but extremely difficult to activate, and at least six of the games thirteen levels don't have healing devices at all.
 * In BioShock (series): every time you die, you are revived at the nearest "Vita Chamber" with some of your health restored, though your enemies' health stays the same. As a Self-Imposed Challenge, you can turn the Vita Chambers off.
 * And you are returned to the opening screen when you die, Loads and Loads of Loading away from resuming at your last save point. A fate worse than this particular death.
 * The Sims 2 University expansion pack introduced the Resurrect-O-Nomitron, which is unlocked when a Sim completes a certain career path and allows them to summon The Grim Reaper and attempt to buy back any Sim (or pet!) whose tombstone is still in the neighborhood. If the tombstone's been sold or destroyed, though, they're gone for good - and if Grimmie doesn't like what you're offering in return, you may not like what you get back.
 * Throughout the Dragon Quest series, monsters overcome in battle are described as "defeated". This rule does not apply to your own party, however—when a character is reduced to zero HP, the game announces, "(Character) dies". In addition, monsters dispatched by the instant-death Whack and Thwack spells are explicitly described as "killed". Dead party members followed the living ones in the form of a ghost. It's possible through "donation" to a shrine or possessing a "leaf of The World Tree" to bring the soul back to the body.
 * In the Dragon Quest V remake, wedding vows include "in sickness and in health, and for as long as you continue to be raised by a church."
 * In Ultima III, if someone was so gone that they have since then reincarnated, there is still a spell that brings them back anyways. Presumably, the baby they had become drops dead. There is a cost of the wisdom stat to the caster, though.
 * Class of Heroes, which is largely inspired by Wizardry, has the same three stages of death (Dead, Ashes, and "Lost"). It is possible to pay the doctors at the infirmary to revive a character who has been turned to ashes, but the cost is three times as much as it is to revive a character who is simply "dead". And if that fails, well...you'll just have to enroll a new level 1 character, won't you?
 * Final Fantasy IX: There are two ways to "die" in this game: KO from HP loss, and being Stopped. KO can be remedied vie the usual tactics, but Stop cannot be reversed until the spell wears off on its own. If all characters are stopped, it's Game Over.
 * Mass Effect 2 Shepard is brought back to life and later asked about it, their response is, "I was Only Mostly Dead. Try finding that option on government paperwork."
 * http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=0d5Oxgc0BCc&feature=related
 * in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was dead enough for a Combine Hunter to credit it as a kill (although why it ignores  is uncertain). However,   isn't too dead for.
 * Similar to the RPG examples above, the Exile system has "dead", "dust", and "stone" statuses. "Stone" was relatively rare, being applied only by certain special monsters, and reversed by a spell. "Dead" was the common form of death, reached by being hit to 0 HP and then hit again while on the brink of death (if you were at 1 HP and hit for 100, you still lived - until the next swing), and could be reversed by the Raise Dead spell - but if it failed you were dusted. "Dust" could also be caused by an excessively powerful kill-shot, and was much harder to reverse. Assuming you didn't cheat, anyway.
 * In Left 4 Dead 2, if one of your teammates dies they can be revived with a defibrillator regardless of how much time has passed since their "death." While many fans attribute this to a Magical Defibrillator, others believe that the character is instead Only Mostly Dead.
 * The latter is more likely, considering it can't be used on the one character who actually does suffer a Plotline Death.
 * In World of Warcraft, players can be resurrected for the cost of a bit of mana, or by running their spirit back to their corpse. NPCs are slaughtered by the thousands, but respawn minutes later (or every week in the case of raid bosses). The only final deaths are dictated by the plot, and you can be sure that if the plot requires someone to die for real while you watch, you can do nothing to save them.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots,
 * Dungeon Siege has resurrection shrines scattered about multiplayer mode, as well as resurrection spells that Nature Mages can use to revive a dead character. Carries over into Dungeon Siege II with the addition of Resurrection Scrolls that any character can use, as well as NPC's at the various major towns to summon your corpses (and the gear you were using at the time) for a fee. Alternately, you can go back to where your party died at and recover the equipment manually.
 * Dungeon Siege II: Broken World introduces enemies called Familiars that, once they hit 0 HP the first time, fall down as if dead for a few seconds, then spontaneously revive in a blast of energy, badly damaging any characters unlucky enough to be caught in the blast. Quite the nasty surprise for newcomers to the expansion.
 * There is also a fourth level in multiplayer games: "Ghost". Ghosts revive if they find a resurrection shrine or after a set period of time automatically.
 * Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal addressed this point by having the character Imoen ask what it was like to be dead. He pretty much responds with a "Pfft, like you've never been dead before", suggesting that in the game (rather than as in the Forgotten Realms) there's a distinction between Raise Dead dead and dead dead. Dead.
 * In fact, Imoen confirms this, as she recounts what it's like being "dead until the priest gets there".
 * Shortly after the beginning of Shadows of Amn (the game T.o.B. is an expansion pack for) the party discovers lying on a table horribly tortured to death, sending  into a traumatized fit of grief. When Imoen suggests using a resurrection spell, the  replies that "some things can not be fixed by magic". The implication is that the body is seriously damaged due to Irenicus' 'experiments', which is actually a nice aversion of Gameplay and Story Segregation—in D&D, a corpse must be whole for revival magic to function, and a character that is reduced to less than -10 HP in the Baldur's Gate series is 'chunked' and Killed Off for Real.
 * Not everyone takes it so seriously. "Greetings, everyone. Sorry, no gifts or souvenirs this time but I'll keep you all in mind the next time I'm gone. Oh, Keldorn, the gods say 'hi' and that you should wash your underwear more thoroughly. Everyone ready? Let's go adventuring." Yes, this is said by someone brought back from the dead.
 * Due to your character's...unusual heredity, your character is the exception; dead is dead is very, very dead. Sadly this leads too some retcon-induced Fridge Logic with regard to.
 * A lot of entities also seem to be Not Quite Dead in the series. The most notable of course being your daddy who keeps talking to you despite being long dead and gone. This seems to be par for the course for his class of beings though as does similar things.

Web Original

 * In the MMORPG for Gaia Online, if a player loses all health they they are "dazed", which leaves them unable to attack, open chests or crates, move to another screen, or really do anything besides use the chatbox or wander around drunkenly. The player can be saved from this state by clicking the "awaken" button which whisks you to a place called the Null Chamber (thanks to the mysterious attack rings), using a potion, or having another player use a reviving ring on them.

Web Comics

 * In Girl Genius, Of course, they are
 * However, dialog elsewhere in the series makes the rules for being Only Mostly Dead more clear; having your brain incinerated, for instance, is described as being a Final Death, while one character notes that even aside from that resurrection techniques usually don't work so well.
 * is believed killed after being speared through the gut by poisonous, acidic stinger the size of a shortsword. Fortunately for him, his species is designed to go into a protective coma when they can't sustain themselves. Of course the fact that he could survive a week with an untreated gut wound in a cell with no food or water is pretty amazing already...

Western Animation

 * Superman turns out to be this in Superman: Doomsday. Oh, come on, like it's really a spoiler that Superman doesn't really die.
 * In the second Aladdin film The Return of Jafar it practically becomes a running gag that genies can't kill, but "you'd be surprised what you can live through," i.e. there's nothing stopping a genie from beating you to within an inch of your life. This happens to Iago when he makes his Heroic Sacrifice.
 * This occurs in Justice League Unlimited when Flash taps into the Speed Force to defeat Nigh Invulnerable foe, "Brainthor", and appears to fade from existence, for good. After a few brief moments of hopelessness, it is revealed that Flash is still alive, but continually regressing and his dreaded demise appears inevitable, so the remaining core seven decide to pull him out of the Speed Force.

Real Life

 * Of course, just because you don't feel a pulse, doesn't mean a person is dead. They may be in ventricular fibrillation, the real life version of Only Mostly Dead. Depending on other things (such as medical cause, how long they've been out, etc.), you may only need a defibrillator to revive them. But the window between the onset of cardiac arrest and Final Death is very short, only five minutes under normal conditions, so you have to act fast.
 * Cryonics patients, they hope. They arrange to be frozen after death, in the hopes that someone will eventually discover how to thaw them out and make them live again.
 * The latest artificial heart transplants use motors rather than a pump in order to move blood around the body, enabling users to live without a pulse.