News of the Weird
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Glenn Vickers, 53, allegedly intoxicated, wildly tailgated a driver in January on Interstate 64 that happened to be Kanawha County, W.Va., sheriff Mike Rutherford in an unmarked car. After jockeying behind Rutherford for a while, Vickers peeled off at an exit and flipped Rutherford the finger, but immediately crashed into a guardrail.
“I was 6 when I first became aware of my desire to lose my legs,” wrote “Susan Smith” in London’s The Guardian. “The image I have of myself has always been one without legs.” News of the Weird has reported several times on people with “body identity integrity disorder” (apotemnophilia), which leads them to remove one or more limbs (or men their scrota). The worst part, said “Smith,” was having to kill her leg, by freezing it in dry ice for at least four hours (she tried twice before it succumbed to an infection), because surgeons cannot ethically amputate a healthy limb. (A 1998 News of the Weird story involved a de-licensed San Diego surgeon who illegally removed limbs of needy men.)
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD