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Farmer Cuts Off Right Arm With Pocket Knife to Save Life

By Fox News
Published | Updated

A South Carolina farmer cut off his own arm after it got stuck in a corn harvester, WYFF4.com reported Sunday.

The nightmare for Sampson Parker of Kershaw County, S.C., began when he noticed a piece of cornstalk stuck in a farm machine in September. When he tried to release the cornstalk, his hand got stuck in the machine.

After about an hour of being trapped, with no response to his calls for help, Parker's arm became numb. He reached for his John Deere pocket knife and started cutting his fingers.

Click here to read the WYFF4.com report.

Shortly after Parker began his dramatic rescue, a fire broke out. He then did the only thing he could to save his life — sacrifice his right arm, WYFF4.com reported.

With little-to-no time to spare, Parker went straight for his arm, cutting away from the bone as fast as he could. Once he severed his arm from his body, he managed to drive himself to a road where a firefighter helped him with the injury.

"My skin was melting. It was dripping off my arm like plastic, plastic melting. I realized I was in trouble," Parker told WYFF-TV.

"I just told myself, 'I'm not going to die here,"' Sampson Parker said Monday on NBC's "Today Show."

"I just kept fighting, kept praying. And then when I did get loose, I jumped up running, I had blood squirting from my arm," he said of the September incident. "It was pretty scary there for a while."

Parker, a construction supervisor in Kershaw County about 20 miles east of Columbia, farms as a hobby.

"I could feel the nerves as I was cutting my arm off," he recalled.

Parker ran to his truck and drove to the front of his home about the time firefighter Doug Spinks passed by. Spinks wrapped Parker's arm and called for help.

Parker said he is doing fine now and has tried to put the ordeal behind him.

"It really wasn't the corn picker's fault. It was my fault. It was just a mistake I made," he said.

Parker did not immediately return a telephone message Monday from The Associated Press.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.