History Main / LifeOrLimbDecision

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** And even before that (in-series time) in ''Brotherhood'' and the manga [[FanNickname Scarbro]] transmuted his right arm to Scar to keep him from dying.

** Which could all have been avoided if he just [[WhatAnIdiot ''told someone where he was going'']]

* Coyotes are suppose to chew their own leg off if they get caught in a trap. This leads to the expression "coyote moment." Probably irrelevant, it's about dating: "when you wake up with them sleeping on your arm, and would rather chew it off than wake them."

* In {{Naruto}}, [[spoiler:The Fourth Raikage]] attacks [[spoiler:Sasuke]] while he is being protected by extremely hot [[spoiler:black]] flames, and is forced to sacrifice his arm to prevent the rest of his body from being burned up.

* Played for laughs in SpongeBobSquarePants episode "Idiot Box", when Sponge Bob and Patrick decided to play Mountain Climbing Adventure! Their constant yelling and laughing triggers an avalanche.

* In {{Pyramids}} from the Discworld novels Pharoah Pteppic shakes a stonemason's hand in an attempt to be friendly. His ideas of kingship are a little different from those in his country, and is shocked when the man backs away screaming and clutching his arm. It's explained to him that for the man to use his hand would be a blasphemy against the divine pharoah, which is probably punishable by death. The man's hand is amputated by the priests. When Pteppic protests this the high priest tells him that if he hadn't been restrained the man would have done it himself, with his chisel.

** Though note that, Dimo being a Jager(and therefore a construct), this isn't so bad for him - he just has to wait to get it fixed.

* In ''{{Series/The Walking Dead}}'', the zombies arrive at the rooftop where Merle Dixon has been handcuffed and abandoned by the rest of the group, and he escapes by amputating his hand with a hacksaw from the bag of tools that was conveniently dropped next to him.

* In the {{House}} season 6 finale, [[spoiler: the victim of the week gets her leg crushed under a building. To avoid crush syndrome (even though by then, it would have set in...), House and Cuddy decide to hack her leg off using a scalpel and a crude anesthetic. She dies of a fat embolism on the way to the ER.]]

* ''127 Hours'' is based on the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston. See it in the Real Life section.

** "Red Leg" Zeff on the other hand was forced to sever his own leg in order to save a drowning Sanji (anime) or in order to avoid starving to death by eating it (manga). {{Badass}} either way.
** "chapter 0" shows that Gold Lion Shiki escaped the [[KryptoniteFactor sea stone]] shackles in [[TheAlcatraz Impel Down]] by cutting off his own feet, which he replaced with ''swords''.

* In a recent issue of Marvel's ''The Initiative'', 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.

* ComicBook/{{Batman}} foe the [=KGBeast=] cut off his own arm with a fireaxe after Batman snared it in a loop of rope and and was holding him pinned until the police arrived. [[FridgeLogic Some have wondered]] why he did not just cut the rope instead.
** We know what arms are made of, but not Batman's ropes.

** And in ''{{Terminator}} 2'', the T-800 has his arm trapped and crushed between two gears, and pries it off above the elbow so he can defend John and Sarah Connor from the murderous T-1000.

* In one of Peter F Hamilton's earlier books, the main character and his friend mangle each others' hands so that they can slip them through handcuffs.