In a survival situation, would you rather have both arms broken or both legs?

This question is giving me an existential crisis.

I guess it depends on the circumstances. If I'm just trying to survive within a limited area until someone comes to save me then I'd rather have my hands. But if I have to actually find myself to safety then I'd probably rather have my legs. Unless I'm escaping via raft.

Long term I'd much rather lose my legs than hands. I don't go anywhere very often anyway.

I would probably just die. How good are the chances that your broken limbs would get an infection or something soon anyway?

Arms. I've had my arm broken before and while certainly very far from ideal, you can still use it for virtually anything. My experience with people who've broken their legs tells me it doesn't work the other way around.

@justin258 I don't know for sure, but isn't that like, none? I didn't get medication of any kind for any of the broken bones I've had. As long as the break doesn't rupture the skin, I don't think it will (can?) get infected.

You can move with your legs.

I would break one leg over one arm in a heartbeat, but two legs? No way. In a survival situation where I'm looking to get out alive I need to be able to get around and, in the worse case, outrun something. That's not even to mention the amount of harmful bullshit close to the ground that you can no longer step over. Now, you have to slowly drag your way through all of it with your hands/arms. The only time where I would break legs over arms is if I had readily available resources and my goal was survival by living, not escaping. In that case, I could put my arms to some serious work which would outvalue my legs.

Legs all day every day. That would only impair my movement, and that could probably be helped by building something WITH MY HANDS.

I would die in any survival scenario. But probably legs.

You could still manipulate objects with your feet and learn how to do so. You can't really walk with your hands. I vote for broken arms.

Broken arms is more preferable of the two. If I broke my legs, that's it, I'm done. I don't have enough weirdo survivalist knowledge to do much with my perfectly working arms and hands, and I'm pretty crap at starting a fire unless I have at least have a flint or lighter. At least with unbroken legs I could wander in a direction long enough that I find someone who is less useless than me and has a connection to civilization.

I can do feet things with my hands (pull myself along)
I can't do hand things with my feet.

Some people can, I can't. Plus if I survive, I use my hands for a lot more stuff than my legs so I gotta think of the aftermath too.
Plus, if the future happens, I could get robot legs and leaps over buildings and run really fast and kick my enemies. If I had robot hands I would probably wind up accidentally crushing stuff.

This was a tough choice, but I'd have a better chance if I was mobile, so I'd rather have both arms broken. If I could be half as functional with my feet as these people I might have a chance:

Easily arms. If you can't move in the wilderness you're just dead. You can be as resourceful as you want with your hands, but if you can't get around to gather stuff etc it means jack shit.

Most people who die in the wilderness die of exposure, so shelter and a fire are probably the most important things. Those two things are going to be much easier with working arms. Your best bet, provided someone is looking for you, is to stay where you are anyway. The only situations I can think of where it might be preferable to have your legs over your arms is one where you know where you are and can make it back to civilization by walking or if you somehow know that no one will be coming for you.

Legs. Mobility via a wheelchair is an inconvenience but touch is such a huge thing.

Legs. I can't wield a weapon with toes.

How is this not a Bombcast question?

Gymnasts are crazy and can walk while using only their arms. So I'm gonna say break my legs resulting in my arms getting huge and me walking/pulling myself with my jacked arms.

Definitely arms. Even moving around with a sled wouldn't really be possible in the wilderness because of the uneven and if you can't move around you're definitely done for. Having no arms would suck, but you would still be able to move around to find stuff like berries and shelter and could presumably still somewhat use a stick by holding it in your armpit.

In most survival situations you're supposed to stay put so people can find you anyway, so I'd want my arms over my legs. Also there was an episode of Survivorman where the pretense is that he was in a plane crash and he tried having one arm in a sling like it was broken since you'd probably be injured in that situation, and he eventually had to give up the sling and use both arms because it was too hard. If Les Stroud can't even survive with one arm broken how am I supposed to survive with both of them broken?

i choose grim death.

@davidh219: Yeah, I've seen that one. I was definitely thinking about that episode when I was pondering about this last night.

Legs. The average person isn't going to be able to do jack shit without the use of their arms, your mobility will be for naught.

I've been in a survival situation similar to this. I used to lead expeditions into the Rocky Mountains and have a lot of experience with survival situations. One year I was a guide for a group of men and their "assistant." Well we had a good night drinking and eating hog. Well the next morning they woke up their "assistant" and forced him to run into the woods while the other 8 hunted him. Sure at first I was confused and in denial, but two of the guys looked like Gary Busey and Rutger Hauer. So we hunted him.

The man ran, and he ran well. He ended up killing a lot of the people on the trip. Infact the only one to escape with his life was the guy who looked like Rutger Hauer. And he ended up tracking down the guy, and the dude put a rock in his gun and the Rutger Hauer lookalike ended up blowing himself up with a bad shot. Things got pretty crazy. In the end, the documentary of this movie made a lot of money, but I'll never forget it.

Eh, I'd rather break my arms then legs. Robot arms would be cooler.

Break my legs. Actually getting stuff done and built in a timely manner is important, and it would take me longer to learn how to build with my feet than to crawl around with my arms.

The biggest two advantages I can think of for having your legs are being able to travel easier and escaping a predator or some kind of danger. After thinking about it, you'd want to stay put anyway unless you could just walk to safety. And if I did get chased by something or have to escape a danger I'd probably get caught legs or no legs. I'm a good runner but not good enough to outrun something in unfamiliar territory.

This.

@upperdecker: As someone working in a similar job just a year prior to you, I can confirm that these crazy sounding stories are definitely pretty common in our field. I had this case where these shady guys - who seemed to have literally appeared out of thin air - lured us onto the mountain, saying they needed to be rescued, when they actually just wanted us to recover their stolen money that they lost when their plane had crashed. Needless to say we gave them a very warm Rocky Mountain welcome.

I'd hardly call the movie they made out of that a documentary though - that story about me being all traumatized because I lost that chick on the mountain is complete bullshit. I never lost anyone. I do look a lot like Sylvester Stallone though, so at least they got that part right.

This thread is a clear showcase of how people don't really know what it means to break an arm. They don't become useless. You in fact have near 100% functionality, it just hurts. You could even still chop wood.

It doesn't work that way with legs.

since I'm an actual artist......... legs can go.

I would rather be able to get around, so arms. I could wait for our inevitable robot limbs to be available to the masses.

Edit: Well, I hit the "both arms" option thinking it was (Which would you rather lose). Oh well...

Legs, definitely. I mean, I feel like the overwhelming majority of my life has been spent sitting or lying down anyway >_>

Being immobile is a death sentence in a dangerous environment. Also, you said my arms would be broken, but you don't specify the hands (you did allude to it, but not in the rules). Your hands would still have some function even if both arms were broken. Can't say the same thing about feet/legs.

Its Knife Vs Bat all over again.

It depends entirely on how your arm or leg is broken. Are we talking a hairline fracture or a severe compound fracture? Those two things are both "breaking your *insertlimbhere*", but one is going to leave you with a whole lot more functionality than the other. (Not to mention risk of infection from any compound fracture.) The OP's hypothetical might be better worded "Which limbs would you rather lose the use of?" rather than just "Which limbs would you rather break?". At least that seems the intent to me.

@zevvion: I'm going to guess that you've never experienced the joy of a compound fracture. You'd definitely not have the use of your arm(s) in the case of a severe break. Also depending on the severity and location of the break a person would likely die from blood loss. The femur in particular is a very vascular bone.

Man, this is super tough! I'd say legs, just because I feel you would be able to do very little with broken arms. What if you need to create something, or get food, or defend yourself? Sure, you can run if you just have the legs, but that's about all you can do.

Some people in this thread severely overestimate their ability to use their feet for things other than locomotion.

Well you said Broken so i would probalby have to go with my arms as I could possibly have rudimentary use of my hands still and would need the mobility of my legs to move around and fight off possible predators. If need be use my legs as hands as best i can when trying to eat and make tools, the biggest issue would be getting my arms in any kind of sling to help them heal.

That is correct. As the majority of breaks, the bone did not rupture my skin. Instead, my bone just split in two like most breaks do. Given that OP has not specifically stated the bone would rupture your skin, it's okay for me to assume a 'regular' break is what was meant.

If it were to be a compound fracture, the question is rendered moot, since the odds of getting an infection in a survival environment would be a safe 100%. You'd pretty much die no matter what at that point. Unless this survival is supposed to last such a short amount of time that survival skills with either legs or arms don't even matter anyway.

Because of that I stand by my answer. With a regular break, you can still use your arms with very high functionality, whereas you cannot use your legs to stand on, which defeats the purpose of choosing legs over arms.

@imsh_pl: You could say the same thing about people overestimating their ability to get around in the wilderness using just their arms. But let's be honest, your chance of survival either way is pretty damn close to 0%.

@ares42: I would say that doing stuff whilst having limited movement is more important than moving while having limited ability to do stuff. When I think 'survival strategy' I probably think cultivating some sort of space by creating shelter, tools, a fire, etc.

With two legs you can move around sure, but what for? You probably won't build a sturdy shelter. Even simple tools or objects like a spear, rope or a basket will probably be impossible to make. Hunting is out of the question.

But yeah, we'd probably die in like 3 days anyway.

You're probably right but the spirit of this question definitely feels like 'Which do you give up'.

The legs can go. I can probably learn to walk like Sebulba from Star Wars.

Seems I'd be pretty well fucked either way. Just give me a gun and one bullet.

The thing is, people take for granted how much moving they would do while doing those kinda things, especially in the wilderness where you don't have everything easily available near you. Just a simple task like finding some sort of branch you could use as a crutch becomes insurmountable when you have to crawl through rough terrain, not to mention gathering materials for a fire or shelter, or even just finding fresh water.

Having your legs you can find water, you can find things you can eat off the ground and you can find a cave or tree or bush to huddle under. Thinking you'll build yourself a camp and start providing for yourself is way too hopeful for such a dire situation.

How anybody would say they'd rather have broken legs is beyond me. I would be counting on the ability to walk, but I guess that's just me.

I have no confidence in my ability to escape the situation on foot and very little idea how I would make safe use out of anything I'd be able to find. At least with my arms I can think of rudimentary actions to take. I'd at least feel like I was productive as the wolves came for me.

This is a good question. No legs, because I'm pretty handy and have good upper body strength. I could probably make a lil wagon for my feets.

Both legs, easily.

Anybody thinking they will be able to build any form of decent shelter without their legs are completely kidding themselves. Your ability to move to actually find branches, your general vertically and just trying to stay upright with one arm while building with the other, will all be super limited.

So basically you aren't going to be building anything of note. Maybe you'll get a sled of some sort to move around and start a fire if you have the materials close by, but that's about it. Much better to have legs, so you can move around and find food, shelter and hopefully signs of civilization.