They’d Give Their Right Leg

Newsweek, June, 2008 by Jesse Ellison

When Josh amputated his own hand with a power tool a few years ago, he says he was fully prepared. He had tried before, once by crushing it beneath a truck (the jack didn’t collapse right), another time by almost hacking it off with a table saw (he lost his nerve). Sometimes he would drive around for miles with his hand dangling out the window, hoping to get sideswiped. But this time he was determined. He had practiced on animal legs bought from a butcher. He kept a supply of bandages nearby to stop the bleeding, and a cell phone in case he got dizzy. Today Josh—who insists on using a pseudonym because his family thinks he lost his hand in an accident—says he feels wonderful, that his self-amputation ended a “torment” that had plagued him since middle school. “It is a tremendous...

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