News of the Weird, An Occasional Series

The vacuum cleaner attachment came loose under the furnace, and Jonathon Metz reached down to get it. His arm got stuck and he was trapped their for hours, screaming for help in the basement. Every five seconds the timer on the microwave would beep upstairs, reminding him his leftovers were ready. No one came. He tried to free his arm but it would cut and bleed, and as the hours passed it began to swell and grow infected. He tried working it loose with some spilled furnace oil but that didn't work.

The day became the next day and still no one came. Some of his tools were in reach. He thought of MacGyver, and sawed off his own arm with a hacksaw. It took him six hours to work up the nerve for the self-amputation, switching to a larger saw when the blade reached a bundle of nerves that was difficult to cut. A friend found him on Wednesday. Firefighters had to destroy the furnace to save him. The nearly-severed arm could not be saved.

Friends and family started a website to pay for his medical bills and soon he'll be fitted for a prosthetic arm. A local company donated a new furnace. He's getting married in November. Everyone is lauding his courage. At the time he thought if he could free himself he might get the arm in the freezer and save it for reattachment. That didn't work but he saved his life. Doctors said the spreading infection probably would have killed him.

It's a grisly story, and it's a reach to think of metaphors about the self-amputations we perform in life, the ways we get stuck in jobs or relationships or bad habits, the misery we endure, and the rash acts we perform to free ourselves. I wish the man in the story only well, and I'm sure his story is story is a tragic accident and nothing more. He reached down in annoyance like anyone would, trying to retrieve the spilled attachment, and something awful happened. It made me think of Ronny Cammareri in Moonstruck, who lost his hand in an accident at the bakery. In the story Loretta told him he was a wolf, that he cut off his own hand to escape the trap of a bad engagement. I'm sure Mr. Metz's story is nothing like that. Art imitates life, and life art, but neither does so perfectly.

In our lives, though, the infections of doubt and despair spread everyday. Unexamined and unchecked, they can lead to death, usually a slow and painful one, a trap that cannot be escaped. Circumstances can mount to a place even MacGyver could not unscript, not with a thousand paper clips or containers of household cleaning products.

The keys to our escape are less rash than a hacksaw. We have to find the detachment to look at our situation calmly. We have to have the courage to recognize when we need help, advice, love and support. We have to have the discipline to maintain sustaining practices in our lives, spiritual practices that strengthen and renew us, recreative practices that restore our mind, energy and hopes, giving us the clarity to make choices and take positive action. The critical thing is recognize the next step and take it. We are all stuck to a degree and freer than we imagine. Our real life dilemmas are far less drastic than hacking off an arm. The phone is always in reach. We have time enough to change or pray.