The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  TOOTHBRUSH SURGICALLY REMOVED FROM MAN’S RECTUM

  In 2001, the British Dental Association reported that a 69-year-old man had to have a toothbrush surgically removed after using it to relieve the painful itch of haemorrhoids but then losing it in his rectum.

  SUPERSTITIOUS TAIWANESE MAN WANTS PIG-LIKE SNOUT

  A Taiwanese man asked a cosmetic surgeon to perform an operation to change his nose to the shape of a pig’s snout so that it would bring him luck in 2001. According to traditional Chinese beliefs, the shape of a person’s face determines their fortune, and in Chinese society pigs are regarded as a symbol of wealth. However the man’s luck was out on this occasion as the surgeon flatly refused to carry out the bizarre alteration.

  MAN SUPERGLUES CONDOM TO PENIS

  A father-of-five required medical assistance in 2004 after supergluing a condom to his penis in an attempt to achieve a more effective form of contraception. When 43-year-old Romanian Nicolae Popovici donned the condom he decided it was too big, so for a tighter fit he stuck it on with glue, but was unable to get it off afterwards. A nurse who treated him commented disbelievingly: “He even said he thought the condom could be used several times and that he wanted it stuck on his penis so he could use it again later. We really struggled to remove it.”

  PARKING STRESS LEADS TO CANCELLED OPERATION

  A surgeon cancelled a heart operation at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales after taking an hour to find a parking space. He said he was so stressed by the experience that he was in no fit state to operate.

  DENTIST EASED PAIN BY MASSAGING PATIENTS’ BREASTS

  California dentist Mark Anderson was accused in 2007 of inappropriately massaging the chests of 27 female patients. After allegedly fondling one woman, he asked whether she had undergone breast augmentation. When she replied in the affirmative, he is said to have remarked: “They did a good job.” In his defence he claimed that the procedure was an accepted method of dealing with jaw pain.

  MAN WORE THREE PAIRS OF CONTACT LENSES

  A Chinese man had to have his contact lenses surgically removed after he didn’t take them out for a whole year. Mr Liu had never taken the lenses out because he found it too difficult. After nearly 12 months of wear he began to feel his eyesight deteriorating, so he bought another pair of lenses and wore them on top of the old ones. When that failed to help, he put a pair of used contact lenses over the other two pairs, so that he was now wearing three pairs of lenses. The following day, his eyes reacted so badly to his makeshift optical treatment that he finally sought medical help, and a doctor found that the first lenses had actually grown into his eyes.

  DOCTORS REMOVE PATIENT’S PENIS “JUST TO BE SAFE”

  When 67-year-old mechanic Hershell Ralls went into hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1999 to have a cancerous bladder removed, he did not expect to wake up and find his penis missing too. Surgeons said they lopped off his penis because they thought the cancer had spread there – but it hadn’t. Ralls, who said that doctors never warned him or his wife that amputation of the penis might be part of the surgery, recalled: “My wife had to hold my hand in the bed there. And she said, ‘Honey, it’s over. They got all the cancer.’ And she waited a few minutes and then said: ‘But they had to remove your penis.’”

  BABY SURVIVES FALL THROUGH EXPRESS TRAIN TOILET

  A newborn Chinese baby boy endured a traumatic introduction to the world in 1999 when he fell through the toilet of an express train, landed on the tracks and was nearly crushed to death by a passing train. The boy’s mother, Yang Zhu, was nine months’ pregnant and returning home by train near the city of Guangzhou when she started to suffer stomach pains. Her husband took her to the washroom where, to her great surprise, she gave birth into the toilet as soon as she squatted down. In a panic, she then ripped off the umbilical cord, as a result of which the baby promptly disappeared down the toilet. Three security guards spotted the baby lying in the middle of the tracks but before they could reach him, another train sped by, passing right over him. Amazingly he escaped with slight bruising and a small cut to the head.

  MAN DEHYDRATED DESPITE TWO DAYS IN LAKE

  After the water scooter he was riding broke down, Ricardo Enamorado was rescued from Lake Michigan in 1997, suffering from dehydration. Paramedics were baffled as to why he had spent two days on the water without drinking any, as Lake Michigan is a freshwater lake.

  BOYFRIEND FORCED TO HAVE BREAST REDUCTION

  A Chinese woman forced her boyfriend to have breast-reduction surgery because his man boobs made her look flat-chested. Doctors in Chongqing sucked out more than 200 millilitres of fat and tissue from the breasts of Zhang Jianguo to prevent his girlfriend, Xiao Feng, dumping him. Zhang, who is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 15 stone, explained: “She said that whenever we went out, she felt embarrassed because my breasts were eye-catching compared to hers.”

  FORTY-SIX TEASPOONS REMOVED FROM MAN’S STOMACH

  Surgeons in Taormina, Sicily, removed five and a half pounds of “inedible matter” from a man’s stomach – including 46 teaspoons, two cigarette lighters and a pair of tongs. The man was described as “psychologically disturbed”.

  MOTHER RUNS OVER SON IN HOSPITAL PICK-UP

  A man on his way out of hospital ended up back inside after his elderly mother ran him over when she came to collect him in her car. Ron Carter, 49, had just been discharged from Elliot Hospital, New Hampshire, and was walking to meet his mother Lillian, 84, when she accidentally hit him.

  FATHER TRIES TO SWAP DAUGHTER FOR BOY

  A Romanian soccer fan whose wife had given birth to a daughter in 2002 tried to bribe maternity nurses to swap the little girl for a boy. He claimed that he had always wanted a boy and that girls were more expensive. Upset because nurses would not comply with his request, he then refused to take his wife and daughter home.

  SURGEON AMPUTATES WRONG FOOT

  Shortly before an operation to have his gangrenous right foot amputated in 1995, William King, a 51-year-old diabetic, joked with staff at the University Community Hospital in Tampa, Florida: “Make sure you don’t take the wrong one.” When he awoke, King discovered to his horror that the surgeon had indeed removed the wrong foot, amputating the healthy left limb while leaving the gangrenous right one intact. After the unfortunate patient had been awarded $900,000 compensation, the hospital announced that it was introducing a foolproof new system to prevent any reoccurrence: in future the word “no” would be written in large letters in marker pen on all limbs that were not to be amputated.

  CIGARETTES CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH

  Feeling powerful cravings for a cigarette, a patient at a hospital in Llanelli, South Wales, decided to light up secretly under the bedclothes while the nurses’ backs were turned. Unfortunately he did so right next to his oxygen mask with the result that as soon as he flicked his lighter he blew himself up.

  DOCTORS HAVE TO SEPARATE ENTANGLED LOVERS

  Two Malaysian lovers who were having an affair got stuck together during sex and had to be rushed naked to hospital by ambulance. After the 50-year-old woman had taken a sexual stimulant, she became so excited that her 60-year-old lover was unable to disengage. In a panic, they called neighbours who in turn summoned the emergency services. Still joined together at their private parts and watched by intrigued villagers, the naked couple were carried gingerly to the ambulance and taken to hospital, where they were finally separated after being given an injection.

  TIME-TRAVELLING DOCTOR SURRENDERS LICENCE

  A chiropractor who claimed to be able to treat patients using time travel relinquished his licence to practise in 2006 after the Ohio State Chiropractic Board ruled that he was suffering from a serious delusional disorder. State regulators had been investigating Dr James Burda, of Athens, who said he could treat ailments by travelling back in time to when the injury occurred. He called the skill bahlaqeem; medical officials called it malpractice. When asked initially about the case, a state spokesman repli
ed: “Doctor who?”

  GOOD SAMARITAN MUST PAY STRANGER’S HOSPITAL BILL

  A Good Samaritan drove a sick woman to hospital in Germany – only to be landed with a $9,000 bill for her treatment. Resul Mor was driving home from work in Hamburg when he was flagged down by a man who asked him to take his desperately ill wife to the hospital’s emergency room. On arrival Herr Mor was asked to sign a patient registration form, unaware that it committed him to settling any fees she couldn’t pay. Two weeks later, the hospital sent him the bill, and judges subsequently ruled that he was legally liable and must pay up.

  DOUBLE AMPUTEE IS GIVEN TWO RIGHT LEGS

  A Dutchman who lost both legs in separate accidents complained that the health service had given him two false right legs. Jelle Wagt, from Assen, lost his right leg after falling into the hold of a ship in 1998 and lost his left leg in another accident three years later. He said the Dutch health service originally gave him a prosthetic right leg which was too long for him. They corrected that mistake but after his left leg was amputated, they sent him home with another right leg. “I didn’t want to undress to try on the new prosthetic leg,” he explained, “so I opened the bag when I got home. I was stunned to find a right foot on my left leg. I’d love to try to walk again but with two right feet it just doesn’t feel comfortable.”

  RELIGIOUS ZEALOT SAWS OFF HIS OWN HAND

  As a deeply religious individual, Norfolk, Virginia construction worker Thomas Passmore was alarmed to see a mark on his hand in 1994 that looked ominously like the demonic sign “666”. Remembering the Biblical passage “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off”, he proceeded to do just that with a circular saw. When doctors tried to save the limb, he refused to agree to the operation, saying that he would go to hell if the hand were reattached. He then tried unsuccessfully to sue the hospital for $3 million on the grounds that they should not have paid any attention to what he said.

  WOMAN INCUBATES BIRD’S EGG IN CLEAVAGE

  A Norwegian woman spent several weeks using the warmth of her cleavage to incubate a bird’s egg. After a local farmer found the abandoned curlew egg, Anne-Mette Smette, a 58-year-old former hospital midwife, initially tried to persuade a hen to incubate it but when the bird refused, she decided to tuck it down her cleavage instead. She even slept at night with the egg in place. Meanwhile her husband Knut was under strict instructions not to touch her breasts for fear of cracking the precious egg. “It’s look but don’t touch,” he told a local newspaper wearily.

  WOMAN IS ACCIDENTALLY GIVEN NEW ANUS

  A German pensioner sued a hospital in 2008 after she checked in for an operation on her leg – and woke up to find she had been given a new anus instead. The clinic in Hochfranken suspended the surgical team concerned after they apparently mixed up the notes for two patients.

  MAN KEEPS SEVERED LEG FOR 20 YEARS

  A Chinese man has preserved his severed leg in formaldehyde for more than 20 years to warn people against the dangers of drink driving. Song Weiguo, who lost his left leg when his motorbike crashed into a tractor after he had been drinking in 1989, puts the amputated limb on display every year on the anniversary of the accident. He takes it out of its sealed tank and invites friends and people he suspects of drink driving to come and view it. “It scares the hell out of people,” he says. “None of them ever drives after drinking again.” His wife said his husband is obsessed with his severed leg and often talks about it in his sleep.

  “DOCTOR” FOUND WITH DEAD DEER IN STOLEN AMBULANCE

  A 37-year-old man reported missing from a Florida hospital in 2005 was found a month later in North Carolina dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer in the back. He was admitted to a North Carolina hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

  WOMAN ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL WITH CAN OF HAIRSPRAY UP HER BUTT

  A 37-year-old woman was admitted to hospital in Arad, Romania, in 2009 with a large can of hairspray stuck up her backside. She arrived at the clinic in extreme agony but refused to say how the aerosol came to be there, even after a successful operation dislodged the canister. The doctor in charge of the operation said: “She was very embarrassed. She was clearly in a lot of pain, however it got there.”

  DENTIST EXTRACTS PAYMENT FROM PATIENT

  When a female patient’s insurance company refused to pay the cost of her $600 dental work, her dentist allegedly took drastic measures to get his money back. She said that he turned up unannounced at her home in Germany with his medical instruments and, after tying her hands, forced her to open her mouth and removed the expensive bridgework. According to the victim, he never said a word throughout the procedure. The dentist faced charges of assault and theft.

  SERIAL BELCHER IS BANNED FROM MARINE WORLD

  Fourteen-year-old Joey Ramirez was banned from Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California, in 1999 for persistent belching. Officials claimed he belched loudly and deliberately in visitors’ faces. His mother said: “He has a lot of indigestion.”

  DEER URINE PRANK FELLS STUDENTS

  A dozen students at a school in Church Hill, Tennessee, had to be treated by paramedics for headaches and nausea in 2008 after someone poured deer urine into an air conditioning unit as a joke.

  SURGEON SNAPS TATTOOED PRIVATES

  A surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, faced a disciplinary hearing for taking a photo of a patient’s tattooed genitals during an operation and showing it to other doctors. The medic is said to have taken the photo with his cell phone while inserting a catheter into the penis of a strip club owner. The tattoo on the patient’s penis read “Hot Rod”.

  MAN ROBS BANK TO GIVE TRANSVESTITE LOVER NEW BREASTS

  Austrian car mechanic Robert Steinwirt, 29, was jailed for six years in 2007 for robbing a bank in Grinzens to pay for his transvestite lover’s breast operation. He stole $14,000 in the raid and went straight to a plastic surgeon who, suspicious that someone would pay up front for an operation with a large sum of cash, promptly alerted the police.

  MAN WAKES TO FIND BARNACLE ON PENIS

  To stay cool while sleeping naked on the beach, a man from Bor, Serbia, decided to rest his body in shallow water. But when he woke up, he found to his horror that he had a barnacle stuck to his penis. A female nurse at the local hospital tried unsuccessfully to remove it with tweezers until the man suddenly got an “unplanned erection” and she was finally able to prise away the barnacle.

  WOMAN WITH “MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES” SUES SHRINK OVER GROUP THERAPY CHARGE

  In 1997, Nadean Cool, of Appleton, Wisconsin, sued her psychiatrist, Dr Kenneth Olson, for convincing her that she had 120 separate personalities – including those of a duck and the devil – and then charging her insurance company $300,000 for group therapy. She won a settlement of $2.4 million.

  CAT RUNS OFF WITH SEVERED TOE

  A cat ran off with its owner’s toe after he chopped it off in a freak accident and left it on the floor while he called an ambulance. Udo Ried, 41, was slicing bread in his kitchen in Lubeck, Germany, in 2005 when he dropped a large kitchen knife onto his bare foot, slicing off his second toe. He hopped to the bathroom to fetch a bandage but while he was on his cell phone calling the emergency services, his cat Fritz pounced on the bloody toe and ran off with it into the garden. Herr Ried tried to retrieve it but was in such pain that he was soon forced to give up the pursuit and wait for medical help. Lubeck Hospital said they would have been able to reattach the toe if the cat had not stolen it.

  MAN GOES TO COURT TO GET HIS LEG BACK

  As if he hadn’t suffered enough by being shot five times, a Nebraska man then had to go to court to get his prosthetic leg back from prosecutors. Val McCabe’s false left leg had been held since the shooting because the Box Butte County Attorney’s office wanted to run tests on both the leg and a bullet lodged inside it. But a judge ordered them to return the limb to the victim because it was impractical for him to replace the $28,000 prosthesis. Police did, however, remove the bullet before ha
nding back the leg.

  THANKFUL WORSHIPPER CRUSHED BY CHURCH ALTAR

  A devout Catholic who believed his prayers were answered when he was rescued from an elevator was killed when he went to church to give thanks and the stone altar fell on him. Forty-five-year-old Gunther Link was so relieved to have been freed from the elevator that he rushed straight to the Weinhaus Church in Vienna, Austria, to thank God. There, he warmly embraced a stone pillar but his action caused the 860-pound altar to collapse and it landed on him, killing him instantly. He was found the next day by parishioners attending Mass.

  MAN DIES TRYING TO RETRIEVE TOY FROM LION ENCLOSURE

  When his child accidentally dropped a toy into the lion enclosure at Moscow Zoo in 2001, Anton Briesov sprang into action. Fetching a ladder, he boldly climbed down into the enclosure, hoping that the lions wouldn’t notice. Alas his escape route was cut off when the ladder toppled over. Briesov managed to outrun the lions and climb to safety, only to drown in the moat surrounding the enclosure.

  FLORIDA MAN PERISHES IN CAT FLAP

  A 32-year-old man was found dead in St Augustine, Florida, in 2007 – wedged fast in the cat flap of his girlfriend’s house. It appeared that he had been trying to get back into the house after she had kicked him out. A witness said: “His head was caught, like he was trying to reach up and unlock the door.”