A Desire To Be Different

A RARE condition sees sufferers wanting to cut off their own healthy limbs.

- Warren Robertson

NICK O'HALLORAN is just 29 years old, seemingly fully fit and able and yet has recently been making newspapers around the world for his unusual neurological condition. Nick doesn't believe his right leg below the knee is part of his body, and is desperate to have it amputated. 

He is so desperate he even straps his leg up until he can no longer stand the pain and wraps it in bandages to make it look as though it has already been removed. In fact he so badly wants to convince doctors to take it off, that he injects his leg daily with medical grade alcohol in the hopes of causing himself a bad enough injury that the medical professionals, who have thus far refused to assist, will be forced to act. 

Nick is not alone. Karl is a double amputee, but not by accident, birth or disease. He is an amputee by choice. In 2000, a man who wishes to be known only by the name Karl sat alone in a parked car with 40kg of dry ice and an obsession for destroying his legs.