Man Trapped in Furnace, Amputated Own Arm to Live

June 11, 2010— -- Surgeons today grafted muscle tissue onto Jonathan Metz's shoulder, two days after he amputated his arm with household tools to free himself from his basement furnace.

Metz's arm had become caught between heating cores inside the boiler on Sunday, Battalion Chief Matthew Stuart of the West Hartford Fire Department told ABC News.com.

Three days later, Metz, 31, could smell the flesh of his crushed arm beginning to rot, the telltale sign of life-threatening infection.

Floating in and out consciousness, and drinking water leaked from the furnace, Metz made a decision that doctors say saved his life: He placed a makeshift tourniquet near his left shoulder and, using the tools he had available, began to cut off his arm.

Today's surgery was the first step in fitting him for prosthesis.

"This morning we went back to reexamine the wound," Dr. Scott Ellner, the surgeon who operated on Metz at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn., told ABCNews.com.

"The area around the wound looked healthy and viable. He is in very stable condition and is in recovery. He is awake, talking and appreciative. He has a very strong sense of what's going on and understands his situation," he said.

The surgeon said Metz saved his own life by amputating. The dying tissue would have caused a deadly infection, he said.

"People wonder how someone could go to that extent and remove his own extremity. But he saved his life by removing the non-viable part of the extremity. The wound released toxins that were circulating through the body. Cutting away that dead tissue saved his life," he said.

Ellner did not know the tools Metz used to sever his arm, but said the cut "was very clean for someone who had no medical experience. He was able to preserve blood from leaking."

A small bit of fat and likely a nerve were all that prevented Metz from fully amputating the arm, Ellner said.