Comments on: No Limb-its.

No Limb-its.

gman — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:43:17 -0800

Dustin Carter persevered and became a wrestler after he contracted a rare blood disorder which took all his limbs. His training is impressive.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:48:41 -0800

JEEBUS. Talk about core strength! The muscle kind ...and the other kind.

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:57:51 -0800

I admire, I really do. But the Rocky music.. c'mon...

By: ianaces

ianaces — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:08:52 -0800

wasn't this just on CBS news?

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:18:02 -0800

Looks like he keeps getting his ass kicked.

By: Pater Aletheias

Pater Aletheias — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:36:38 -0800

Yeah, well--I'm typing this with my pinkie finger!

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:19:02 -0800

He's an inspiring, impressive kid and it's a great story, but I can't help but feel a little sorry for the high school boys on the other team who had to face him. Either you beat the kid with no arms and legs, or you get beat by the kid with no arms and legs.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:49:53 -0800

For a moment there I was concerned that the training montage would not feature Eye of the Tiger. Thank God my fears were unfounded.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:26:36 -0800

"Yeah baby, my package is so big it drags on the ground when I walk, you know what I'm saying?"so, so, sorry In my nightmares tonight, a thousand Dustin Carters with prosthetic steel jaws are coming after me.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:54:26 -0800

I guess with no arms and legs he's in a much lower weight class than he would otherwise be in. Not that that's much compensation.

By: JZig

JZig — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:42:08 -0800

Note: the wrestling matches linked above appear to be from the STATE tournament, not some random high school. He was good enough to be one of the best 16 wrestlers (of his weight) in the state. He beat many people he wrestled, so I bet they got used to it yhbc. Now I just feel really damn lazy.

By: aeschenkarnos

aeschenkarnos — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:37:40 -0800

In Dean Kamen's dreams, a thousand Dustin Carters wave prosthetic steel arms, and run on prosthetic steel legs. It won't be long 'til that happens.

By: mistersquid

mistersquid — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 03:51:37 -0800

Inspiring, humbling, and profound. A sublime offering, gman. Thank you.

By: gman

gman — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 05:59:05 -0800

save for the typo, i really liked this line from the CBS article - Dustin lost about ever time he set his torso in the ring.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:02:19 -0800

He was good enough to be one of the best 16 wrestlers (of his weight) in the state. How much do arms and legs weigh? I wonder whether losing them and dropping to a significantly lower weight class (for the size and strength of his torso and neck) might somehow almost kinda sorta (no fucking way) make up for the lost limbs. But I'm not going to look. I'll just speculate. I don't think I'd want to see an actual basket case writhing around in combat with freaked out kids. I bet people would pay to see him wrestle Uncle Dirty, though.

By: Rictic

Rictic — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:55:58 -0800

The training montage has one of his victories. He's likely to be a lot stronger than others in his weight class, and if he can get a leg hold or otherwise get his opponent off balance, he's probably very tough. He's in my old weight class, and in all likelihood, he would've beaten me by a large margin, not that that's saying much. Very impressive. You've got to admire someone with the guts to pursue something through such adversity.

By: delfuego

delfuego — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:15:47 -0800

FYI, you know meningococcemia isn't a "blood disorder", right? It's a bacterial infection; calling it a blood disorder is sorta like calling the flu a lung disease.

By: aeschenkarnos

aeschenkarnos — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:56:49 -0800

Hard question, a bit of a stretch for my Google-fu. :) Here's the answer though. Note that the table contains subtotals that are not properly distinguished, they are fractions rather than percentages, they seem to be gender, age and build averages, and the whole thing does not properly add up to 1.0. Possibly that's due to rounding errors, possibly due to derivation from severed limbs, which could vary a lot in terms of the cut location, while still being counted as a "severed arm" or "severed foot". For comparison, here's the specific data for an individual obese woman, apparently middle-aged. Here's a slightly more useful restatement of the table (save as CSV): BODY PART,FRACTION,NUMBER,TOTAL,SCAN Head,0.07,1,0.07,0.054 Torso,0.43,1,0.43,0.575 Each upper arm (shoulder-to-elbow),0.035,,, Each forearm (elbow-to-wrist),0.023,,, Each hand,0.008,,, TOTAL: EACH ARM (shoulder-to-fingertips),0.065,2,0.13,0.073 Each thigh,0.116,,, Each lower leg (knee-to-ankle),0.053,,, Each foot,0.018,,, TOTAL: EACH LEG (hip-to-toes),0.185,2,0.37,0.298 "Number" is how many the ordinary person has. "Scan" is the values for the scanned individual linked above. Note the differences from the average. There's probably a way to work these out, but it'd take more effort than I have time for right now. :)