Amputating the wrong limb

[Somewhatfoolish]

It seems to me that - outside of emergencies - it should be really easy to amputate the correct limb. All you do is paint the other one (or in the case of fingers, ones) red and you paint the one you want to amputate green. Is there some reason they don't do this or something like it? Or if they do do this or something like it, how on earth do they chop the wrong one off so often?

[Alex Z]

Somewhatfoolish said:

It seems to me that - outside of emergencies - it should be really easy to amputate the correct limb. All you do is paint the other one (or in the case of fingers, ones) red and you paint the one you want to amputate green. Is there some reason they don't do this or something like it? Or if they do do this or something like it, how on earth do they chop the wrong one off so often?

They draw big arrows on the limb to be removed. What makes you think “they” are regularly getting this wrong?

[996Type]

I heard an anecdote of someone going in for a wisdom dental extraction who wrote “TEETH” on his widgy…..