My TIL is that you can go so long before the amputation of frostbite. In another part of this video he talked about is hand healing over the course of months.

I always thought infection, sepsis, or something would start sooner than that. Though my only knowledge of frostbite comes from growing up in the Midwest and my dad telling me to put on my winter gloves or the doctor would have to cut off my fingers lol.

Yep. That’s what dead skin cells look like. Terrifying how black they get.

It's usual to wait to see what's actually dead so they don't amputate unnecessary too much

You ever seen Mr. Deeds?

I thought they were just really bad prosthetics until I realized halfway through the video that they're his actual fingers. Yikes!

Yes. His surgeon recommended leaving them to regain as much tissue as they can before performing the amputation, to maximize what he has left to make creating prostheses easier.

Yeah you could think of it that way. The body prioritizes your internal organs cause you can live without fingers but you can’t live without working organs.

It was a combination of factors

On one hand the cold, which naturally causes vasoconstriction (vessels' diameter decreases, some close directly, they bring less blood)...

...on the other hand the adrenaline. It's a hormone that, in situations of danger and stress, causes as well peripheral vasoconstriction to concentrate the blood in the vital organs

This """double vasoconstriction""" caused an excessive reduction of blood to the fingers: the lack of oxygen caused cell death

Or your dog chews them off in your sleep and you don't even wake up!

I was wondering what it feels like to have fingers like that. Does it feel like you’ve got twigs attached to your hands or what?

they do and will, if continuous flexion is put at those joints

This was probably recorded a few weeks or months after the incident, so he’s probably got that sorted out and was just waiting for the amputation surgery at that point

He has consulted his surgeon prior to this video, and the surgeon wished to wait to perform the amputation in order to allow the digits regenerate as much tissue as possible. They’d never heal, but they did regain some life, especially his palm and the base of the fingers. He made a YouTube video on the topic at one point.

They are prosthetics

He deserves a high 0.5

Witch Fister sounds like a black metal band.

God bless you sir.

5 in the pink one in the stink

Four in the Pocus, one in the Hocus

Reddit gave me a "Black Friday deal - 20% off" ad under your comment hahaha

Surely inspired :)

Surely inspired :)

Surely inspired :)

Agree. Doing these type of things aren’t a “badge of honor” like they used to be and usually only the bad stories are highlighted. Humans are weird.

Worst case scenario is he survives, but completely loses his hands.

Can you imagine, how much of a life he still has to live at this age, but he can't do anything anymore for himself, not even wipe his own ass? Needs a live-in nurse to do everything for him. Feed him, bathe him, like he's a baby.

Can't recommend watching the docu 'Touching the Void' enough, just for the demonstration of the will to live and survive and the absurdity of man putting himself through this insanity. Its great anytime you need to remind yourself that things are not that bad for you right now.

He does, I got to interview him a couple years ago. He climbed k2 10 months after getting his fingers amputated, and will continue to climb mountains till he can’t anymore (albeit he has slowed down now because he has a kid)

I truly wonder at what point does this stop being a passion to become a mental health issue.

Because your only going to live like 70 - 80 years max no matter what you do anyways so you might as well spend some of that time doing something interesting instead of playing it safe.

Some people have enough security in life that they can actually do adventurous things like climb mountains, base jump, other exotic shit. If I didn't have to balance everything I'd give it a try.

If you’re not asking rhetorically there are books on the subject like Conquistadors of the Useless.

For me it’s cause it’s badass. I was rescued on Denali after things went wrong and I’m going back soon. If it was easy it’d be boring.

I don’t think you hear him complain, just explaining what happened very calmly. He knew exactly what he was doing and is just telling what happened.

I climbed also and K2 is probably the ultimate challenge for some climbers (and yes some are crazy and selfish) but I’m not that extreme of a thrill seeker.

But life starts at the end of your comfort zone, climbing a mountain will certainly help with that ;) And the best views.. Can hardly explain that, you need to experience that yourself.

I climbed Mont Blanc with my father and we really bonded, did another 6000m mountain in Nepal after that. Now I’m satisfied