The Rick Grimes surviving his first zombie encounter in the hospital shows how luck kept the hero alive when he should have been killed. In The Walking Dead #1 by Image Comics, Rick is attacked by a walker after awakening in the hospital from the coma as the hero should have been bitten after being attacked, but thanks to luck, he manages to avoid what should have been a quick and painful death.
The Walking Dead comic book series isn't for the weak of heart or those who like to get attached to characters, as throughout 193 issues of the Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard series, almost every single protagonist is killed in brutal fashion. In the series, Shane, Andrea, Tyrese, Lori, Glenn, and the most prominent characters all die at some point in the zombie apocalypse, whether at the hands of Walkers or other survivors in the wild. However, for Rick Grimes, who makes it to issue 192 before being killed, his journey should have ended at the hospital after he first awoke from his coma.
In The Walking Dead #1 by Image Comics, Rick Grimes famously awakens from a coma, and before he can even react to his surroundings, he discovers a zombie outbreak has occurred throughout the hospital. He ends up stumbling to the ground after encountering a large group of nurses, patients, and hospital staff as undead monsters, as one manages to grab his shirt. Pushing him to the ground again, the zombie and Grimes fall down the stairs, with the walker getting ample opportunity to bite Rick, but instead, they fall together as the zombie's head perfectly falls off after hitting the ground. By pure luck, Rick avoids certain death.
While Rick obviously wasn't going to die in the first issue of the series, as he was the main character in The Walking Dead, his survival at the hands of the walker who pins him is one of the rare times luck saves a hero from death. For a franchise that kills everyone in an almost random fashion (the zombie apocalypse doesn't pick favorites), Rick getting lucky and the walker's head falling off just as he would have been bitten is a bit of an anomaly for the series. Survivors in the series don't live because they're "good" or "important" but because they make the best of the situation. In Rick's case, he somehow survived a hospital full of walkers despite just awakening from a coma, narrowingly avoiding death. With a slight change in angle from the fall, Rick would have died in the same issue he was introduced. But where's the fun in that? The Walking Dead did have a story to tell.
Despite nearly being bitten in his first zombie encounter and the fact Shane saw Rick as his own metaphorical walker who shouldn't have lived shows the hero was one of the unlikely lucky people during the zombie apocalypse - even if he would eventually meet his grisly end. It's incredible to think that if Rick Grimes fell down the stairs from a slightly different angle, The Walking Dead's main antagonist would meet his early death. Nevertheless, his continued survival is one of the most impressive things in the series.
