could you hack your arm off with a knife?
 

i just read this article about this farmer hacking his arm off with a knife after having it get stuck in a machine..

so it got me thinking about all the other stories that ive heard like this.. like that guy a few years ago in the US on some trek that had his arm pinned behind a boulder, so he hacked his arm with knife and broke his foream bones by leveraging against the boulder..

could you do it? ultimately its survival and id rather e alive with no arm than just plain dead. so id say yes, but you'd have to be in a different frame of mind than your everyday mindset.

i rekon crompsin could do it...


http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=328811

Trapped man hacks off own arm with knife
Tuesday Nov 27 06:00 AEDT
By ninemsn staff

A US farmer hacked off his right arm with a pocket-knife after his hand became jammed in a machine and a fire began burning around him.

Sampson Parker told WIS-TV that his nightmare began when he noticed a piece of cornstalk wedged inside a rusty mechanical picker.

He lent in and tried to release the stalk but his hand became stuck in the device.




"I went up with my hand and the roller that takes the shucks off the corn had grabbed the glove and pulled my hand into the rollers," Parker said.

"The more I tried pulling my hand out, the farther up my hand went."

After around an hour being trapped on his knees, and with no sign of anyone hearing his screams for help, his arm began to get numb.

Using a rod to jam the machine, Mr Parker began to cut his arm out of the machine using his John Deere pocket-knife.

But before he was able to finish the job, the rod caused the machine to spark, and a fire began burning around him.

Mr Parker began using his left hand to try and fight back the flames which were spreading out across the grass around him.

"My skin was melting. It was dripping off my arm like plastic, plastic melting. I realised I was in trouble," he said.

Then, he said, he picked up the knife and began slicing his arm off.

"And I just jammed it into my arm, just like that, just started cutting away from the bone -- just dropped," he said.

Suffering bad burns and a loss of blood, the man managed to make his way to the road in front of his home and signalled down a passing fire-fighter.

"My biggest fear was this guy is going to die on me right here and there's nothing else I can do, other than what I've done," firefighter Doug Spinks said.

"I'm just thankful I was there."

It really depends on the situation. I certainly would wait a few hours to see if someone could come to my aid or I could keep working it out. That would suck to chop your arm off, only to run into someone with a cell phone walking your way.

I answered yes, assuming there was absolutely NO WAY anybody could come along to help me and I would lay there to die. Besides, getting it mangled in the compactor would be excruciating enough that hacking it the rest of the way off wouldn't be that much more painful. I'm sure your brain would be overloaded with natural endorphins by then.

What I don't understand from these guys is how did they break their arm bones? It's takes a lot of effort to break your arm, and you can't generate a whole lot of momentum to break it when you're pinned down.

What? Me? Gah, the associations kill me. :)

...

Oh, I could do it, but I'd be really pissed at the loss of a hand.

No more motorcycle. No more rifles. A life barely worth living.

That and I wouldn't be able to post as quickly on TFP.

It's much easier to think that you'd never do it or that you would do it if you're not actually in the situation. If you were there and your <l>life</I> depended on getting out of there without your arm, I imagine you'd do some crazy shit to live. The human will to live can do amazing things.

you do what you have to do...

You know, when the hiker who got his armed trapped happened, there was a lot of talk about it then. At that time I realized that this is the kind of thing that I don't bother to think about. Mostly because you don't know until it happens how you will react. Seems a pointless exercise to mull it over ahead of time.....

Before I was married? Nope, nothing to live for, not worth it.

Now? Absolutely. I could still support my family with one arm.

Bah! You could be a drummer for Def Leppard.

Mars bar?

Sitting here right now? I doubt I could do it, if the situation called for it and I was full of fear and adrenaline... maybe, who can say unless they are in that situation.

No, I couldn't do it. I would only hope that Crompsie was there to do it for me, after I was foolishly playing with heavy farm equipment after having far too many boilermakers on Nanna's farm.

is it possible for me to do it? yes. would i? probably not. do i hate when people answer their own questions as a form of them telling you what they want to say? absolutely.

Exactly. I have no idea how I would truly react to such a situation. Under normal conditions, no, I could not hack my arm off. But put to the test in an extreme situation, I imagine my reservations would be overridden by my desire to live.

I'd rather have Crompsie around to get me out of the mess in tact, if possible.

Sure, but it'd hurt like a bitch.

I have no idea...

The guy in Utah (canyonlands np to be exact) that got pinned under the boulder was pinned for several days and was able to smell his arm decomposing on the other side of the boulder before he finally did it.

I have two more...


Wait... What?


Yep.

I think i'll have to keep my leatherman slightly sharper from now on.

I answered yes but I guess it would depend on life circumstances, at 24 hell yes I could, now after all I've been through, I'd welcome death. Maybe? The will to live is is much stronger than most could ever imagine! Trust me...

C'mon, Baraka... chicks dig scars, right? Just imagine how big your one tricep is going to be from all that missionary position on one arm!

Yeah, I totally imagine using my Leatherman Wave to do this, too. Oh, it's so horrible. Thing has two types of saws. Use the wide serrations at first on the skin and muscle, then the close teeth on the bone and connective tissue. Good thing it offers one-handed blade opening on that first saw.

Errr knowing how I get involuntarily queasy frrom the sight of blood, I'm pretty certain I'd pass out after the first few moments of attempted hacking...so...

No.

There's an even better question, could you cut someone elses arm off if they were trapped and you had no way to get help?

Hell, you can make yourself do anything if you get detached enough.

hell,I'm spluttering again Crompsin, thanks.

Yes I could. If it were someone else, yes.

( I was laughing at the word ' detached' it just struck me funny, I do not know if it was intended to be.)

whys crompsie so popular when it comes to the gore stuff??

anyways...well this guys skin was falling off.. the guy under the boulder had his hand decomposing.. so their arms would have been pretty mingy and in bad form. most likely numb and therefore making it easier hack away cos you cant feel it.

only thing is. u cant look away when u do it to ureself. the othe problem would be loss of blood.. so u may die anyways.

wheres analog when u need him?? we need some advice here..

i know im threadjacking my own thread here.. but would you eat ure dead mate if u were in the middle of no where? i dunno if i could. esp if it was someone i know

I believe that the combination of his arm already being numb, the ensuing adrenaline rush as panic set in were major factors. If one were to try to cut their arm off purposely for no reason, there is a good chance shock would
set in, you'd lose conscious and then possibly bleed to death. His arm may have been in the mid stage of crush-syndrome by then.

The thought of burning has even motivated people to jump to their deaths
from buildings.

Eating dead people?
If I were dead, and the only way someone else could live was to consume me,
I would be honored by that.

i'd probably pass out before i had the chance to follow through. this reminds me of that scene in SAW.

If, somehow, truly all other options were exhausted and they gave me permission (in a clear state of mind), then sure.

I wouldn't like it, though.

Getting a little grody in here. This thread needs a warning...not safe for full stomachs.

I could chop yours off with no problem, if you needed it... hehe

i have no idea.
i doubt anyone has any idea in the abstract.

US Army: Because cutting off your own arm and eating dogshit out of a brown bag for a year are things you can now do.

...

Your genetics make you strong, our ignorance will make you Army Strong.

I couldn't imagine hacking off my arm. I'd probably just die.

realisticly, i know i couldn't do it. it involves too much pain and strength. you have to break your bone, then cut through tendons, nerves, and muscle. anyone that cooks knows how annoying and tough that can sometimes be; now imagine that's your own flesh you're cutting through. maybe if i was like three days into it and was numbed by my dehydration, starvation, and lack of sleep, but that just makes the physical effort more daunting. all in all, there's a reason this is rarely seen and makes news.

I doubt I could.

What would Tony Robbins say about this?

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13...59f72c72f7.jpg

"C'mon, you CAN do it."

cromp..isnt that something outof an Arnie movie??

predator to be exact...

cmon do it..kill me im heeayaa..cmon do it nowww!

anthony robbins can walk on coals..but i doubt he'd hack his own arm... chicken shit i say... besides.. he's make a better legacy dead than having just one arm giving talks.. somehow...a man with one arm just doesnt sell books...not in my books anyways

crack - give me your number in case i ever need you to hack off my arm. you may come in handy one day

HAH! Excellent Predator reference.

That's the whole enchilada right there. Fight or flight at its finest. Survival instinct kicks in, you body starts pumping the adrenaline, and who knows what you can do?

OK, let's change the game slightly. Imagine, through whatever circumstances, your arm is mangled and trapped in all this farm equipment, but there is a jaws of life type device nearby enough that you can slip it over your bicep and hit the button, giving you a guarunteed fairly clean (if agonizingly slow) cut in a couple seconds. Now you're not having to hack it off with a knife, just hit the button that disconnects you and arm. Anyones answer change?

Guaranteed quick cut? Hell, that makes it easier. Less shaky effort required.

The push-button interface simplified warfare... it makes everything easy.