Man tries to hack off his own arm in crowded restaurant

A man tried to chop off his own arm with a butter knife in the middle of a restaurant after believing he had injected air into his veins.

Michael Lasiter had been taking cocaine in a Californian motel room when he thought he had got air in his bloodstream.

The condition can be fatal and, believing he only had moments to live, the 33-year-old rushed to a nearby restaurant and grabbed a butter knife off a table.

As diners watched in horror, he repeatedly plunged the implement into his right arm near the biceps.

And when this method proved ineffective, he resorted to taking a butcher's knife from the kitchen and sawing at the limb.

Police arrived at the scene and were only able to stop Lasiter hacking at his arm by blasting him with a Taser gun.

'He wouldn't obey a substantial number of commands and continued to stab himself,'
Sergeant Brian Findlen said.

'He was digging the knife into his arm. I've never seen anything like that before.

'There were some tense moments but a lot of patrons didn't know what was going on.'

Lasiter is currently in hospital in the town of Modesto receiving treatment for his injuries.