When Mark Holmgren had his arm amputated this spring, he couldn’t stand the thought of his severed limb ending up in the trash.
Instead, he had his arm bones cleaned, mounted and preserved for posterity.
“If I was going to get rid of it, I wanted to do something cool with it,” Holmgren said in an interview Tuesday with CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM.
“I thought about it for years, you know. I always see those Halloween decorations with a hand holding an ashtray or something like that. That’s where I got the idea from.”
Holmgren was 17 when he wiped out on his brother’s motorbike, severely damaging the nerves in his right arm and shoulder.
The limb hung immobile and numb at his side for years before he finally decided to have it amputated and contacted doctors at the University of Alberta Hospital.
