Not quite dead is a near dead situation.
In most cases, people already assume the person is dead and help is needless. It is like being eliminated from a game or a competition when the game has not ended, simply because there is no hope of recovering.
It can be literal or not according to my explanation above but I have seen the literal case. Everyone has deemed them hopeless, but in the end, the not quite dead survived the near dead experience.
Sometimes we should not give up, even in a hopeless situation.
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