Man amputates own leg with pocket knife

[Foxy Brown]

A California man used pocket knives to amputate his own leg in order to free himself after being pinned under a tree for almost 11 hours.

Al Hill, 66, was cutting trees on a property near the Big Dipper Mine last Friday when a tree fell on his leg and trapped him, authorities said.

Alone in the woods, and in an area where cellular phone service is spotty or nonexistent, Hill was forced to take the extreme measure to save himself.

[schol3s]

DAMN!!
that must have hurt like hell....
i think it will be more hurting when he is on the wheel chair.....

[ctz]

So he waited 11 hours, cut his leg, and then his neighbor heard his cries for help? I would have waited little longer before doing the cutting.

Gotta respect though, I'm not sure if'd be able to do it myself.

[Dj-B13]

WOW that sucks but man that's a true SOLDIER~!!!! 

[BigDnm01]

smart survival tactics, i guess....

but the process must have been horrible, of course.  one small pocket knife and hours of gruesome cutting into ur leg...

[modesta107]

wasnt there a incident exactly like that a few years or more ago?

[Tuffty]

^ From the article

In May 2003, a 27-year-old man from Colorado used a pocket knife to amputate his own arm below the elbow in a desperate bid to free himself after being trapped for five days under an 360-kilogram boulder in a national park in Utah.

It was my first thought when I heard this too. Well, regardless, you must have pretty big cajones to do something like that. Surprised the guy didn't go into shock, I shudder to think what it would be like.

[Maikeru86]

After 11 hours his leg was probably numb to the point where he could no longer feel it. There's no doubt it probably hurt like hell for him to cut off his leg, but i'm sure the numbing made it less painful.

[Mugen]

jeez, looks like saw

[ugdream]

hard to understand the person like him , but there was something wrong with him....

[karcharrat]

Damn, that makes my leg hurt just thinking about it...

[Since1983]

Wow... I would of waited a bit longer. Hope his cut point is at the joints and not directly on the bone itself.

[chera]

Wow... I would of waited a bit longer. Hope his cut point is at the joints and not directly on the bone itself.

Ideally, you don't want to cut at the joint - you want to cut right below the joint (on the bone), so that a prosthesis can be fitted easier. 

But the strange thing is, he was cutting trees.  Yet all he had with him was a pocket knife?  If I had to cutt off a limb, I'd much rather do it with a saw or a machete than a pocket knife.

[solar2504]

I wonder how long it took him cut the whole leg off. Sure, the skin might be easy to cut but the bone would require quite a bit of time to saw through it *shudders*

[drobin]

it remind me the movie saw i can imagine that creepy doll saying "to free yourself from the tree you have to cut your leg"

[ferrar1]

reminds me of happy tree friends, where the deer got stuck underneath a falling tree. He had to amputate with a spoon and after succeeding, he realized he cut off the wrong leg.

[Pinksheep]

Wow... He must have been really determined and mentally strong to do something like that...  It's like the Saw movie.. -__-|| That tree must've been huge to make him do that... 

[djux]

Hell, this is why everyone should have a pocket knife at all times
I guess I would be cutting the tree with that knife for a year if necessary, rather than just stabbing my leg.
I remember reading about the other incident four years ago. The guy first broke the bone and you can imagine what he did next... But the most interesting part was when he approached some tourists and said "Hi, my name is Jack and I have amputated my own arm. A nice weather, isn't it? ..."