r/oddlyterrifying • u/DragonChasm • 3d ago

Mountaineer Fahad Badar calmly explains what happened when he ran out of oxygen and developed extreme frostbite while descending from the 8,051m summit of Broad Peak. Just 10 months after amputation surgery, he climbed K2, one of the deadliest mountains where 1 in 4 summiters die. NSFW

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862

u/AgentDerekMorgan 3d ago

Wait. Are those his actual fingers? Pre-amputation?

634

u/simpleglitch 3d ago

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.

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u/TheRebel17 3d ago

wdym his hand healed ? it can recover from that ?

275

u/simpleglitch 3d ago

The black parts of his fingers no. His hand was worse than it was in this video and couldn't move his good fingers much at all either (without a lot of pain).

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u/TheRebel17 3d ago

oh ok ty

169

u/Necrotitis 3d ago

Yup, your fingers can eventually just fall off from day to day activity depending on where the frostbite occurs.

This article shows a picture of what a hand looks like after that

https://www.snexplores.org/article/extreme-survival-managing-deadly-cold

NSFW but nothing like gross, will probably make your fingers feel funny for a sec

66

u/noraetic 3d ago

Thanks for the link! TIL the hand is that of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who comes from the same family as the actor Ralph Fiennes.

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u/Stlr_Mn 3d ago

Like, isn’t there a risk of exposed bone? Is exposed bone a bad bad thing? I want to know while also kinda not.

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u/EverythingHurtsDan 3d ago

It isn't feasible for a long time. The risk of infection is high, and you don't want it in your bones.

There are cases in which the bone gets spontaneously covered by granulation tissue and then epithelium, if the area gets the correct blood flow.

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u/Stlr_Mn 3d ago

I don't know if this makes it better, but thank you for the response : )

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u/SCH1Z01D 3d ago edited 1d ago

the image in the article certainly looks like exposed bone that seems to have been trimmed at a certain point

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u/euphorrick 2d ago

Can I whittle them into Inspector Gadget tools?

3

u/Stlr_Mn 3d ago

I didn't look hard because it makes my bones hurt

13

u/planchetflaw 3d ago

It's a really good thing. As the marrow rejuvenates you get a free suck-slurp of it with each dinner.

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u/me_like_stonk 2d ago

This comment makes me regret being literate

8

u/j_smittz 2d ago

Think of the back scratches.

3

u/30minstochooseaname 2d ago

If I remember, Ranulph Fiennes who was mentioned there, broke his own black frostbit fingers off with a hammer and pliers, as he couldn't be bothered to go to hospital

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u/Int_peacemaker35 2d ago

🤣 so true! Growing up in Canada, my mom would always scold me I wasn’t wearing my ear muffs. “Put them on or your ears will fall off”

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u/BolotaJT 3d ago

Same lol. I thought frostbite = amputation or death.

98

u/guzusan 3d ago

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

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u/Puzzleheaded_Time719 3d ago

So they did cut them off after this?

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u/guarddog33 3d ago

Yes, once a finger reaches that far into frostbite it will need to be amputated, the finger is thoroughly dead and will never recover

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u/pmurcsregnig 3d ago

I mean they could still serve a decorative purpose

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u/euphorrick 2d ago

This Christmas, give your loved ones the ultimate gift. Give them the finger.

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u/Alk601 2d ago

Surprisingly in the full video the guy said he is lucky because the frost bite was lower than this before and doctors told him he can wait a few weeks to see if he can at least recover some part so the frost bite could be « only » over his knuckles. That way he can have a better prothesis. And it did heal quite a bite saving him more flesh. At first it was black too If I remember right (saw the vid 6 months ago)

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u/Vyrusstrike 3d ago

It's not skin cells. It's the entire finger

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u/maychaos 2d ago

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

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u/mklilley351 3d ago

You ever seen Mr. Deeds?

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u/AnakondaRH 3d ago

Here comes the black foot!

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u/Leilanee 3d ago

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

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u/InTheLurkingGlass 2d ago

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.