The boy who did lose his leg

I want to apologize in advance if this post lacks the normal amount of arguing these posts are meant to have. I was sort of out of it in class today because in the argument of what to do when someone is in an accident and needs to have their leg cut off hits home with me a bit. It is an argument I face in my life every time I talk to my friend Nick. To this day, almost 2 years later, I still can't come up with an answer. Nick, also the one I mentioned who has a dead arm, did lose his leg (through his knee and below) in a car accident. Nick, as Kelly tried to do with me and running, lived to ski and race cars. He cannot participate in either of those sports anymore. He is attempted at getting back into both, but so far it has been failure after failure. Every time I talk to him I cannot tell if he wanted to live through that accident or not. Every day is filled with pain both phsyically and emotionally for him. He tells me of how he wish he just died. He is surrounded with friends and family, but no one can truly understand or really make things better for him. I am so glad he lived. He also has days in which he is just as glad, but I'd say there are more when he's really down. So when we brought up the argument of what to do I was really torn. On the one hand, I think we should cut off the leg to save the life no matter what. If Nick wasn't in my life, that would be my answer hands down. The life is important, and in time the person will thank you no matter what the loss. In addition to the individual his or herself, the family and friends will be so thankful. When someone dies it is not just the individual affected, everyone who knows the person is affected. However, with Nick in my life it makes it a hard decision for me. I've been there with him through everything. He's practically a member of my family. I'm the only one he trusts to talk to. Every time he talks to me about how much pain he is in, how hard things are for him, how much he wishes things were different, how much he misses skiing and racing, I just don't know what to do. I'm so glad he's still around, but how selfish am I being? For anyone who has ever seen the movie Garden State, Zach Braff's character makes a good point towards the end of the movie that maybe all his mom wanted was for everything to be over (she was in a wheel chair and died in the bathtub). I just don't think I have an answer. Life happens, and I guess we all just have to try to do the best we can. Again, I apologize for lacking the normal ethical arguments, but this is all I could get out.