113
submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

An Olympic athlete has had his finger amputated after he suffered an injury just so he can play in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Just two weeks ago, Matthew Dawson, a 30-year-old hockey player from Australia, suffered a badly broken finger on his right-hand during a team training session in Perth, Australia, and, after consulting with doctors, he found out the injury would take months to recover from and that he would miss out on the opportunity to play in his third Olympic Games.

But instead of opting for a long recovery, Dawson made a decision that would shock his teammates and has already made headlines around the world. He decided to amputate his finger so that he could compete in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] garretble@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah that's a bad choice. Like real bad.

Edit: I keep coming back to this in my mind - thinking about this guy who will think this is a GREAT IDEA for two weeks. And then get home sans a finger.

Not even to mention the possible outcomes of the games. Anything could happen. Their team could be out in the first round (maybe because everyone didn't have all their fingers at it hurt their play more than they expected!). There was also a fire on the trains earlier today in an arson attempt. I hate to think about it, but the Olympics have had bombs go off before, and what if the games are postponed for some reason. I really hope that doesn't happen, but I'm just thinking about all these possibilities that could come up to make amputation even more dumb than it is right now.

I get that competitive spirit makes you do crazy things sometimes. But I will 100% predict - no matter what this guy says in the future - that when he's 50, 60, 70...30 years + one month old he's going to have the biggest regrets. It doesn't even matter which finger - you use that finger more that you think. And there's going to be something that is now worse. Shit, I'm typing this message and I'm using ALL my fingers. I can't even imagine not having one.

I feel bad for him.

[-] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 1 month ago

I find it somewhat shocking that the doctors agreed to amputate. You can’t force patients to make good decisions, but amputating a finger because he doesn’t want to wait for it to heal seems to go beyond what’s ethical. If he wasn’t going to be stopped from going regardless I guess you could make an argument it was harm reduction.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Or they might have been worried that he would do it himself if they said no.

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

That’s what I was thinking.. if the doc doesn’t do it then this pounds a bottle of whisky and has his buddies get the hedge trimmers

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
113 points (95.2% liked)

News

22793 readers
3352 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS