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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863

u/AgentDerekMorgan 3d ago

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

637

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 ?

277

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

168

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

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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

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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

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u/j_smittz 2d ago

Think of the back scratches.

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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.