Jonathan Metz’s Self-Amputation Escape

In 2010, a 31-year-old Connecticut man named Jonathan Metz spent three days with his arm trapped in his broken furnace before anyone found him. After he began to smell rotting flesh, he used a saw blade to try to amputate his own arm, fashioned a tourniquet from his shirt, and survived by drinking water leaking from the furnace until he passed out from the pain. A worried friend finally called 911 when Metz did not show up for work; firefighters used heavy tools to free him, and doctors said his attempt to remove the arm likely saved his life by stopping the infection from spreading.

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