To have been stopped by a minor hurdle one must necessarily have started. It seems like you mean to disagree with the idea that "there are things worse than dying" and I expect they meant being maimed can be thought of as worse than being successful, due to the long-term personal consequences.

This argument makes sense semantically, but not in practice. Consider these two people

"I should kill myself" grabs gun and fires

"I should kill myself. I'll go buy some poison pills tomorrow." feels better the next day and never actually does