The opposite, the hiker that cut off his arm made the harder choice. He chose life, even with a new disability. Also, he had to deal with the pain of cutting, the pain he'll experience until getting to the hospital, and the lifelong effects of that one decision.
Anyone who commits suicide is essentially a coward. Unless you're a terminal cancer or some Spetznaz or Special Forces guy about to risk betraying your teammates or something, suicide is the easy way out and for chickens.
The guy who killed himself that way is the most chicken of them all, he chose a method where he had almost no risk of failure, didn't need to work up to courage to pull a trigger, and was probably quick and maybe painless.