Broken Legs
General#
Broken legs are what happens when a survivor takes a shortcut down a stairwell. It is not fatal on its own, but it removes almost everything that keeps a human alive in a chase.
Getting Them#
Taking 4 or more fall damage as a human, and surviving it, risks breaking your legs. The chance scales with the size of the fall:
| Fall damage | Rough chance |
|---|---|
| 4 (2 hearts) | About 1 in 5 |
| 10 (5 hearts) | About 1 in 2 |
| 20 or more | Certain |
Zombies do not get broken legs.
What They Do#
| Effect | |
|---|---|
| Movement | Heavy slowness |
| Jumping | Disabled |
| Sprinting | Disabled |
| Crouching | Disabled |
| Visibility | You leave a trail of blood particles wherever you move |
Losing sprint is the part that kills you. Every zombie in the game is at least as fast as an unsprinting human, and the Sprinter and Hellhound are far faster.
The blood trail is the part that finds you. A survivor with broken legs cannot hide, because the floor tells zombies exactly which way they went.
Fixing Them#
A Bandage. That is the only item that repairs broken legs. A Syringe will cure your infection and heal 20 health and still leave you crawling.
This is the main reason to carry Bandages even if you are stocked on Radiation Tablets: nothing else in the game undoes this.
Turning into a zombie also clears it, which is frequently how it actually ends.
Avoiding Them#
Take the stairs. Four damage is a fall of about six blocks, which is easy to do by accident when dropping between floors of the Hospital or off a Mall balcony while being chased.
Being pushed matters too. A Bomber blast throws survivors a considerable distance, and landing badly after being knocked off a walkway is a common way to end up with broken legs and a Bomber still coming toward you.