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Man cuts off own arm to escape reality TV nightmare

A 24-year-old man from Lincolnshire cut off his own arm with a ring-pull from a can of Carlsberg to escape a reality television nightmare, doctors report.

After five days trapped on the sofa of his modest bedsit Dave Anglia realised that he must sacrifice the arm — or die.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Anglia recounted the tale of horror beyond everyday human comprehension: "It all began when the remote fell down the back of the sofabed," stammered a visibly-limbless Anglia. "I put my hand down to retrieve it and my arm stuck fast in the folding mechanism. After an hour of trying to free myself, It became clear that it wasn't going to work itself loose. I then had to sit and wait for help to arrive."

But there was no easy escape for Mr Anglia. After three days, and still no knock on the door, desperation began to set in. "I ran out of Pringles after two days, and the last of the beer went shortly after that. And all the while the TV kept broadcasting endless footage of socially and mentally inadequate ex-celebrities simpering in the jungle somewhere," said Mr Anglia. "After a while, the banality of it all began to play on my mind. I started to hallucinate. Ridiculous visions of top-quality television drama danced before my eyes. Only then did I make the decision to cut off my own arm with the ring-pull from a beer can."

As anyone who has ever cut off their own arm can tell you, this is easier said than done. Mr Anglia has cut off his own arm, so he takes up the story: "At first I couldn't even cut the flesh covering my wrist. In fact, I needed to break the bones to stand any chance of success, so I clubbed it with a copy of OK! magazine until it went limp. After that, it was a simple matter of cutting through the tendons and muscles until I was free."

Fighting his way to the telephone with his bleeding stump in tow, Mr Anglia dialled 999 and slumped on the floor to await the ambulance. "They told me they'd definitely be round before the end of the week," recalls Anglia, "so I kept up morale by switching manually to BBC1. I reckoned there'd be some documentary strand worth watching, but all I got was an endless loop of celebrities pulling off their faces to advertise some BBC channel package. It just went on, and on, and on...."

At this point in his harrowing tale Mr Anglia broke down. Doctors asked the frantic scrum of hacks and paparazzi to let the poor lad get some rest. The assembled press respected that wish, but not before one last question: "What was the worst moment?" A sobbing Anglia did not hesitate in his reply: "John Simpson's pompous and self-satisfied face twittering on for the 200th time about 'Freeview — a new package of BBC channels...'."

Mr Anglia is expected to make a full physical recovery. His long-term mental well-being depends largely on the TV schedules.

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