why does amputation require surgery instead of hacking the hand off and fixing from there?

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There’s not really a not dense way to ask this so apologies for the bluntness. When someone has a limb amputated, it’s a long, arduous surgery. But when people are in accidents and lose a limb and live, I’m assuming they have some kind of surgery to fix the damaged tissue? Is the intentional amputation safer? Quicker? More cost effective?

Thanks in advance!

In: Biology

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Simply hacking a limb off is quite dangerous. The bleeding will be profuse and uncontrolled, you’re damaging all kinds of bones, blood vessels, and nerves, you’re opening up a huge wound that could get infected, and you’re not taking any effort to leave some skin to make a decent-looking healed stump.

In extreme situations it’s necessary, like in battlefield surgery, sometimes the surgeon does basically take a saw and just cut an arm or a leg right off. But as I said, that’s dangerous.

If it’s not such an extreme scenario like that, you can take the time to amputate right, to leave the right stuff intact and prevent a nasty infection or ugly disfigurement or more severe disability.

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