Mark Goddard said the pain is ‘like having continuous cramp and toothache with someone stamping on the part that hurts’ (Picture: SWNS)

A man cut his own hand off with a homemade guillotine after enduring years of excruciating nerve pain.

Mark Goddard built the contraption using an axe, some springs and an old gate post. The 44-year-old claimed he resorted to such drastic action because hospital staff had refused to treat the pains he suffered for over 16 years following a motorcycle crash.

‘I should not have to go to such extremes to get my pain stopped. There was an alternative – and that was having it done properly in hospital,’ he explained.

Mr Goddard built the contraption using an axe, some springs and an old gate post (Picture: SWNS)

Unfortunately for the man from Newton Abbot in Devon, the homemade device only partially severed his wrist and he had to finish off the job with a knife.




He then threw the hand onto a bonfire in his garden so that surgeons could not sew it back on.

Mark Goddard only lost two pints of blood before paramedics were able to stabilise his condition (Picture: SWNS)

‘There should never have been any need for me to do this. It would have spared so much distress all round – but it was the only way. At least it will give me and my family our lives back,’ he added.

Mr Goddard’s pains still continue and he has threatened the NHS with a deadline for treatment otherwise he will chop his arm off at the elbow.

The 44-year-old threw his hand in a bucket of flames to ensure medics could not sew it back on (Picture: SWNS)

After being rushed to hospital, it was estimated that the former mechanic lost two pints of blood.

Mr Goddard was anxious to stress that he had undergone several psychiatric examinations since his difficulties started – and had always been given a clean bill of health.