- "First to aid, last to die."
- ―Bill
A first aid station
Healing items are those used to restore lost health, be it a temporary health boost or a permanent restoration. They can be found in ambulances or randomly throughout the level, but are most often found inside of first aid stations. First aid stations may contain up to 4 bottles of pain pills, but there is also a chance that they contain first aid kits instead, depending on how well the Survivors are doing and the difficulty level. First aid stations found in safe rooms always contain first aid kits.
Primary healing slot
First aid kit
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| Hud icon |  
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| Healing Type | Permanent |
| Damage restored | 80% |
| Features | Permanently restores health to player or teammates. |
- "Can everyone stop a sec? I'm gonna heal!"
- ―Zoey
Early HUD icon.
The first-aid kit, colloquially known as a med kit or health pack, is used to heal any damage the Survivors might take during a campaign. When carried by Survivors, it is held on like a backpack with no visible straps holding it.
First aid kits can always be found inside of safe rooms, and also during the finale of a campaign. They can also be found in first aid stations and in random places anywhere else throughout the campaign, though this is very rare. On expert difficulty, most first aid kits found in the level itself will be replaced by pills. The only sure way to get health packs on expert is to grab one in the safe room or at the finale. Finding one in the level itself is extremely rare and should not be wasted.
In Left 4 Dead 2, the player has the choice to pick up a defibrillator or ammo upgrades instead, which can be used to revive dead team mates or ignite/explode Infected.
Usage
It takes 5 seconds to use the first aid kit to heal yourself or another Survivor, during which time you cannot defend yourself in any way. However in L4D2 if you use Adrenaline while healing yourself or another Survivor it will only take 3 seconds. Instead of restoring a set amount of health, first aid kits will only restore 80% of the damage the Survivor has taken. For example, if a Survivor has taken 70% damage, using a first aid kit will add 56% (80% of 70) to the Survivor's health, bringing the Survivor to 86% health. This healing is not based on any temporary health a Survivor might have after taking pain pills, and will remove any extra health gained by them. Survivors healing after incapacitation work on the same rules, and thus, always receive 80 health points. Note that first aid kits can never bring a Survivor back to 100% health, and using more to try to do so is a waste.
As a weapon
A Survivor can use their melee attack while they are holding the first aid kit, though the only time you might consider doing so is if you were in the middle of healing yourself or another Survivor and you got attacked suddenly. If that happens, it would be best to use your melee attack to push the attackers away to give yourself time to switch to another weapon. Needless to say, using your melee attack while holding a first aid kit does the same amount of damage as any other melee attack, but it's easy to get caught up on trying to heal another Survivor (both the melee attack and healing another Survivor share the same button). Pistols would generally serve better in a (serious) fight.
Defibrillator
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| Hud icon | 
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| Healing Type | Permanent |
| Damage restored | 50 |
| Features | Revives a dead teammate. |
- "OW, whatcha shockin' me for?"
- ―Ellis
Ellis holding the defibrillator.
The Defibrillator, also referred by Survivors as "chest paddles", is an item used only in Left 4 Dead 2, symbolized by a lightning bolt. It can be used to revive dead teammate and can only be used once. For balancing purposes, the player cannot carry a defibrillator and health pack at the same time.
To use the defibrillator, players must walk up to a corpse, which will acquire a faint red glow, and hold either of the attack buttons. A charging meter, which takes 3 seconds to complete, is shown. Then, there is a short burst of electricity and the teammate has been successfully revived. He/she comes back at 50 health (which is permanent health that doesn't drop like temporary health gained when being revived after being incapacitated) and can pick up all dropped items except for secondary weapon before continuing. There will be a message on the left side of the screen informing everyone who brought whom back to life. It is recommended most Survivors pick up Health kits and just have one Survivor have a Defibrillator at a time. The Defibrillator can become especially useful in Expert difficulty and/or Realism Mode, where a Witch is able to instantly kill a player, and since in Realism Mode, there are no rescue closets. A defibrillator can be used on any Survivor corpse, even they have already been saved from a Rescue closet (even your own corpse); the player's "consciousness" will then enter the body of the newly-revived teammate. It should be noted that you cannot revive someone as long as somebody is standing over the body. Also in single player, when a bot dies and is then kicked out of the game, if the player attempts to revive the playerless body, it shows "Healing yourself" in the middle of the screen and the reviving animation plays, but nothing happens and the defibrillator cannot be used again.
In reality, defibrillators cannot revive somebody from the dead - they only do so in fiction. Seeing as both games are "movies" in a sense, though, it makes sense to be able to revive one with a defibrillator.
If someone dies from a hanging death (holding onto a ledge), they cannot be revived at all.
Secondary/Temporary healing slot
Pain pills
- "Pills here!"
- ―The Survivors
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| Hud icon |  
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| Healing Type | Temporary |
| Damage restored | 50 |
| Features | Gives the Survivor a temporary health boost that diminishes over time. |
Early HUD icon.
Pain pills, unlike the First aid kit, will only give the user 50 temporary points of health when taken. When carried by Survivors, it is held on the Survivors right hip, probably on the belt.
Pills can be given to teammates by pressing the melee button (right click on PC or left trigger on 360). When not facing a teammate, pressing the melee button will allow you to use your melee attack against enemies.
Since the health from Pain Pills is only temporary, it will slowly decrease over time, dropping one point every few seconds until all the temporary health is gone. The pills you take will restore your movement speed and stop you from limping for as long as your total health is above (or equal to) 40%. Since temporary health goes down 1 every five seconds, the effects of pain pills will last 4 minutes, 10 seconds, assuming no damage is taken.
Keep in mind that taking damage when both permanent health and temporary health exist, permanent health will be taken first. If you have temporary health and your actual health (read: permanent) drops below zero, your temporary health will continue dropping until it reaches 1%, where it will stay until you heal, take some more, etc.
Adrenaline Shot
- "Grabbin' a shot!"
- ―Coach
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| Hud icon | 
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| Healing Type | Temporary- 15 second boost |
| Damage restored | 25 - temporary |
| Features | Eliminates melee fatigue, allows the player to perform actions faster and eliminates slowing down while common infected hit you. |
Ellis holding the adrenaline injector.
Adrenaline is included in Left 4 Dead 2, occupying the pain pills' inventory slot. Upon injection, the user gains 25 temporary health; and for 15 seconds, they move faster, do not experience melee fatigue, are immune to the horde's slowing melee attacks and their speed isn't affected by water.
It also increases the speed of using health kits, reviving Survivors, and reloading and switching weapons and items. As temporary side effects, the user also experiences tunnel vision and sound becomes monophonic, hindering their ability to determine the direction from which a sound came. This can become annoying during a split screen campaign if one player uses Adrenaline too much, as the monophonic penalty affects both players.
The Adrenaline shot is always seen in the Crescendo event in "The Park". This item could become valuable at the end of a finale, where Survivors must reach a rescue vehicle while being impeded by the horde. Like Pain pills, the Adrenaline shot can be passed to a teammate by using the melee button. [1]
The adrenaline shot is a very precious item during a scavenge game, as it can increase your speed and increase the speed of the gas pouring by roughly 50%. Generally 2 shots will be spawned during a scavenge game. Wasting them can be a big mistake.
Achievements
Left 4 Dead
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DEAD GIVEAWAY | (10G) |
Heal a fellow Survivor when your own health is below 10.
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PHARM-ASSIST | (20G) |
Give pain pills to 10 Survivors.
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FIELD MEDIC | (20G) |
Heal 25 Survivors with a first aid kit.
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UNBREAKABLE | (30G) |
| Finish a campaign without ever using a first aid kit on yourself. (NOTE: Being healed by another Survivor counts, too)
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Left 4 Dead 2
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THE QUICK AND THE DEAD | (30G) |
| Revive 10 incapacitated Survivors while under the speed-boosting effects of adrenaline. | ||
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HEARTWARMER | (20G) |
| In a Versus round, leave the saferoom to defibrillate a dead teammate. | ||
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SHOCK JOCK | (30G) |
| Revive 10 dead Survivors with the defibrillator. | ||
Behind the Scenes
The early Med kit.
Early screenshots show that the First Aid Kit has a more boxlike shape, didn't look like it was made out of soft materials and had a carrying handle at one time. This design can be still be seen in the final version's First Aid Kit icon.
Early videos showed, it was possible to share medkits like pills instead of healing them. (As seen as in this video at 0:36)
The placeholder for the Adrenaline Shot was nothing like a syringe, rather a reskinned pain pills model with a yellow bottle. The texture can still be found in Left 4 Dead 2 files. Then it became an syringe similar to the one used in the HUD before the current look for adrenaline.
- The Defibrillator world model was originally supposed to be a reskined first aid kit model. Its textures can still be found in Left 4 Dead 2 files.
Notes
- A poster in The Terminal advertises these specific pain pills, saying "Yes, we've got... Pills Here!"
- Even whilst holding pain pills or a First-Aid kit, Survivors can still use their flashlight. This is odd as there is nowhere for the light source to emanate from.
- In the game, Survivors swallow the entire bottle of pain pills at once. However, if someone were to do this in real life, they would likely die from an overdose soon after, or choke on the pills considering the Survivors don't ingest them with water. Plus, Ibuprofen usually takes around 20-30 minutes to actually start relieving pain, with a recommended dose of no more than 6 tablets per day, where in Left 4 Dead, the pills take affect immediately.
- It is possible for a merciful Director to change a bottle of pills into a first-aid kit, even if a Survivor has already seen the pills.
- Pain pills are attached to the Survivors' belts with no visible strap holding them. Likewise, the First aid kit and Defibrillator stay on the their backs with apparently no straps keeping them on.
- After using a first-aid kit, small bands of gauze will appear on the right arm and left thigh or the target, but disappear a couple seconds later.
- The First Aid Kit, like the new P220 pistol in Left 4 Dead 2, had no walking animation, staying still on the screen when moving.
- The defibrillator has no cords from the pads to the pack on a Survivor's back. This would make the defibrillator unusable in real life.
- AI-controlled Survivors will never take the defibrillator, similar to their treatment of explosive items.
- Using a Defibrillator on a Survivor who has become a ragdoll (falling after hanging onto a ledge) may sometimes cause a glitch where the Defibrillator will be used, the animation will play, and it will count towards the achievement, but the Survivor will not be revived.
- Louis, Bill, and Francis each seem to have the same healing animation, while Zoey's is unique. While the three men simply strap the gauze around and appear to rip off the excess, Zoey straps it around and seems to bite it.
- Before the Adrenaline and the Defibrillator models the beta Version of the adrenaline was a yellow can of Pain Pills and the Defibrillator was a yellow medkit with a lightning symbol instead of a cross.
- Much like the weapons, the healing items for the first game are based off of real world items. The first aid kit is modeled after two types of first aid pouches by Ortovox. Both pouches were designed for use by hikers and skiers and are meant to be fit into hiker's backpacks (which accounts for the lack of shoulder straps on the in-game med kit). Though an interesting item that fans would like to get their hands on, both of the pouches are no longer being manufactured. The pain pills for first game has a label that is based off of the generic brand Ibuprofen from the Target shopping stores, with subtle alterations (such as the Target symbol being removed, where it states "Compared to Advil" and the tablet count is replaced with "PAIN KILLERS"). The Medkit itself also has differences from the real-world examples they are based off of, such as the inverting of the First Aid symbol (on the real world pouches, there is only a white cross. In the in-game version, it is a red cross inside of a while box. Also, where the patch that states the company's name in the real world items, the "First Aid" patch is located in the in-game item).
- Normally, adrenaline is available in a bottle form, in which a separate syringe and needle would be required in order to inject it.
See also
References
| Healing Items | |||||||
| Left 4 Dead | Left 4 Dead 2 | ||||||
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