History Main / LifeOrLimbDecision

* In 2010, a similar thing happened to a man named Jonathan Metz, whose arm became trapped behind his boiler when he tried to clean behind it. He realized that not only was he going to die if he didn't cut his arm off, so was his pet beagle Portia, who was wandering around upstairs, hungry and confused as to why he had disappeared and whose barking fits were becoming shorter and less frequent, coinciding with his own weakening state. Much like the Ralston example, his timing was perfect--the arm had become gangrened enough that it was relatively painless, and police and EMS crews were converging on his house, alerted by friends who were alarmed by his disappearance.[[note]]His story was featured on the show ''I Survived'', and, in case you're wondering, the dog survived as well.[[/note]]

* In an issue of ''ComicBook/AvengersTheInitiative'', trainee superhero Komodo's legs are injected with poison, which will kill her when it reaches her heart. Her teammate Hardball decides that the best way to deal with this under the current dire circumstances is to amputate the legs. Komodo can regenerate, of course, but this still triggers a phobic reaction, as her civilian form lost her legs as well.
* The ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' villain [=KGBeast=] cut off his own arm with a fire axe after Batman snared it in a loop of cable and was holding him pinned until the police arrived. Since the cable was too tough to cut with an axe...
* Invoked for laughs in ''ComicBook/DeCapeEtDeCrocs'' when Armand, a [[FunnyAnimal fox]], wakes up in jail, briefly freaks out and attempts to gnaw his leg, "as any self-respecting fox should do".
* In ''ComicBook/DeadlyClass'', Shabnam handcuffs Saya to a pipe near a spreading fire. Her sword is in arm's reach and she's about to [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks throw it at him]] before he tells her she's going to need it. It won't cut through the cuffs or the pipe, but there's another way... [[spoiler:After a TimeSkip or two, she's seen alive with a stump at the end of her right arm.]]
* In a variant, Two-Edge from ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' has his feet trapped in solid stone by the rock-shaper Ekuar, whom he's kidnapped. He somehow gets free, leaving the empty, foot-shaped gaps drenched in his blood, but precisely how much of his feet he'd also left behind isn't clear.

* In ''ComicBook/Hitman1993'', Hakan gets bitten by a zombie penguin and immediately cuts his hand off to avoid infection. Subverted when he later learns that it wasn't infectious.
* In an issue of ''ComicBook/IronMan: Director of Shield'', Tony Stark cuts half of his foot off with a laser in order to remove a power-suppressing anklet so that he can access Extremis and beat the Mandarin.
* In ''ComicBook/TheMetabarons'', Aghnar (the second metabaron) has implanted a lot of miniature bombs in his body and set them to go off if he is mortally wounded. When he faces off against a beast impervious to all his attacks, he shoves his arm down its throat and lets it get bitten off. The bombs in his lost arm then make the creature collapse into a small sphere.
* The first issue of ''[[ComicBook/MicronautsMarvelComics Micronauts: The New Voyages]]'' has Arcturus Rann forced to remove his hand to avoid certain death.
* In the ''ComicBook/PlanetHulk'' storyline, Miek chops off his own arm to avoid getting pinned down during a fight with another alien monster. Being a giant insect, Miek has arms to spare, but it doesn't grow back.
* In the comic book backstory for Lieutenant Jean Rasczak from ''Franchise/StarshipTroopers'', the young marine is the only soldier survivor of the first encounter with the bugs. As he hauls ass back into the dropship, one of the Warrior Bugs traps his arm with its mandibles and attempts to pull him back out. He orders the terrified civilian survivor to seal the door -- doing so severs his arm but saves his life.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'', Spider decides that chewing his arm off at the shoulder is the obvious means of escape when he [[spoiler:wakes up in bed next to Yelena]].
* This occurs several times in ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead''. Most notably, the character Dale is bitten and needs his leg amputated. Also happens earlier in the series with Allan, however, the amputation doesn't save him.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', crazy AntiHero Rorschach tracks down a kidnapper who had killed a young girl, handcuffs him to a furnace, and sets his house on fire with him inside, leaving him with a saw. He tells the kidnapper not to bother trying to cut through the handcuffs since he wouldn't be able to make it in time, and then he stands outside, watching to see if the guy manages to escape. He doesn't. They changed this in [[Film/{{Watchmen}} the movie]] because they were worried that people would [[OnceOriginalNowCommon be reminded too much of]] ''Franchise/{{Saw}}''. Instead, Rorschach simply cleaves his head open, which is the same thing he just did to the man's dog ("Men get arrested. Dogs get put down."). That ignoring the fact that the whole set-up is directly lifted from the infamous ending of the first Film/MadMax.

* In ''Fanfic/PurpleDays'', Joffrey, in his role as the Dawn Legion Commander, is grievously wounded in an arm. Through the haze of pain, the medics tell him they need to amputate or he'll die. For about a second, Joff contemplates the idea of allowing himself to die and wake up whole and healthy back at King's Landing, where he doesn't have to bear the burdens of the Legion's command or the impending threat of the undead. However, he realizes that giving up would mean he's still the same awful shit he was at the beginning of the loops... so he opens his eyes and unhesitatingly orders the doctors to proceed, going down with his BandOfBrothers.

* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Duane wakes to find his body well restrained and suspended with Ana about to [[NotEnoughToBury Core Leach]] him, he quickly detaches one hand to free himself of the anti-spellwright cuffs so that he can cast back at her. Given his {{Undead}} state removing a hand is a [[https://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch10/ch10_96.html less daunting task than it would be for some.]]

* In ''Mindstar Rising'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton, the main character and his friend mangle each other's hands so that they can slip them through handcuffs; describing the whole sequence of events, in [[{{Squick}} squicky]] detail, takes several pages. The hero can use his neural implants to minimize the pain, but not his friend.

* In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', all players of the Nonary Game are outfitted with bracelets on their left arms that will inject them with a lethal dose of muscle relaxant, disabling their lungs and suffocating them to death, if they either break a rule or lose all of their Bracelet Points. You can see where this is going. On one route, [[spoiler:Dio extorts Sigma into picking Ally against him in the following AB Game, knowing full well Dio will pick Betray. This brings Dio up to 9 BP, which allows him to open the Number 9 Door and escape, and brings Sigma below 0. Sigma uses the closing Number 9 Door to chop off his left arm before he recieves the injection. For some reason, he needs to learn that [[ArtificialLimbs his arms have been replaced with cybernetics]] on a different route first, or else he'll never think of doing this, even though it would work just as well with a real arm. And for those wondering, the cybernetic arms consist of enough artificial flesh and blood that a lethal injection would still be lethal to him, so yes, he did need to cut it off to save himself here]].

* The choice is made on behalf of one character in ''VisualNovel/ShitoShoujo.'' In order to save [[spoiler:Kuchiki Toko]], the hospital opts for limb removal due to her poor condition. However, by this point, most of the limbs probably wouldn't have worked well anyway.