A man who chopped off his own arm in a chainsaw accident used his remaining upper limb to knock on his neighbour’s door to ask for help.

John Stirling, 59, from Brighton, was cutting a tree when his chainsaw slipped and severed his arm below the elbow on Monday morning.

With blood spurting from the wound, Mr Stirling then walked calmly round to his next door neighbour’s house, knocked on the door and said: “Please help, I’ve just cut my arm off.”

Steve Francis, who lives next door to Mr Stirling, told the Brighton Argus: “He wasn’t screaming, he was as relaxed as can be. I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I looked down and saw his arm missing.”

Mr Francis, 49, dashed inside to call an ambulance while the injured man waited outside on a stool. “I came out and tied his arm up with a belt and towels. The ambulance people talked me through it,” he said.

“But through it all he sat there talking away like it was normal. When the ambulance came they put him on a stretcher and asked where the arm was… I put it in a plastic Tesco shopping bag. I then put it in another bag with frozen pastries in to keep it cold."

Mr Stirling was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton before being transferred to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex where he underwent 14 hours of specialist surgery.

A team of four reconstructive plastic surgeons worked overnight to reattach Mr Stirling's arm, which is now back in place, and hopes are that he will have a full recovery.

A spokesman at the hospital today described him as being “very well”.

“He is comfortable and the early indications are that the procedure went well,” the spokesman added.

Mr Francis said Mr Stirling was calm throughout the whole ordeal. “He’s a brave man, I’ll give him that. I couldn’t believe he didn’t faint.”

South East Coast Ambulance Service said crews attended Ambleside Avenue, Telscombe Cliffs, at 11.14am yesterday. “It was a traumatic injury which caused a lower arm amputation,” they said.

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