Thread: WW1. Amputation by razor.

I've just watched a show on Foxtel called ANZAC Battlefields - The Western Front. It's been a high quality series.
Anyway, the host, Neil Piggott was reading from a WW1 diary where a medic said that the had to amputate an arm at the shoulder and a leg at the thigh using nothing more than a razor. You'd want to hope that it was a bloody huge Wade and Butcher to have to do something like that with it. The thought of having to cut through tendons and cartilage with a razor is pretty grim.

Patient: "Who…who honed it?"

The crude saws & knives in a typical surgeons amputation kit of the era probably wouldn't have been much better. Just hope it got stropped first!

Interesting that you mention honing as one of the major battles was in Ardennes so there might have been a few coticules floating around.

Better than hacking it off with a saw thats been used on multiple people, and is probably dull.
The hard part would have been, no anesthesia

Did the surgeon check the edge with the HHT first?

He checked it with the HAT and the HLT.

Originally Posted by outback

Better than hacking it off with a saw thats been used on multiple people, and is probably dull.
The hard part would have been, no anesthesia

Maybe a bottle of whiskey & a belt to bite down on, or in this case a strop.

has anyone actually felt pain when the razor has bitten? I've had two good ones and not felt any pain at all.

How the hell did they cut through the bone with a SR?