Amputee happy to be reunited with foot: Fortunately for Ezekiel Rubottom, there's no law against keeping your severed foot in a bucket on the front porch.
Rubottom, a 21-year-old Lawrence resident, expressed relief Monday after police gave him back his left foot, which he began storing in a five-gallon bucket of formaldehyde on the porch at 627 Conn. after it was amputated three weeks ago. Police seized the foot Saturday, thinking it could have been evidence of a crime, but returned it after verifying Rubottom was the rightful owner.
"It's cool. It's all good," Rubottom said. "Now I've got my foot back. That's all I wanted."
Rubottom, an artist, occasional hip-hop emcee and recovering methamphetamine addict, is technically homeless right now but often stays with a friend at the home on Connecticut. He said he was born with a clubbed left foot and struggled throughout his life with pressure sores and infections.
Earlier this summer, a bone infection in the foot got so bad that he had to have it amputated at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. He decided to keep it. [...]
Karen Shumate, vice president of quality services for LMH, said people are allowed to keep body parts if they want them. "They've had women that want their uterus. People take tonsils. They take appendixes," she said. "I think it's unusual that someone would want a foot, but it's within their rights because it's theirs." [...]
Rubottom said he cut off two toes, which he was considering giving to friends. He added trinkets to the bucket, including a porcelain horse and a can of Hamm's beer, to make it what he called "a collage of myself." [...]
Sitting on the porch Monday afternoon, he put on a plastic glove, dipped a hand into the bucket and lifted out the foot for anyone to see. The next time, he joked, it would cost $2 to see it.
notice the article on the right:
Keith Whealy is beloved among his circle of friends and family for his homemade salsa, [...]
figures....
"It's cool. It's all good," Rubottom said. "Now I've got my foot back. That's all I wanted."
Funny, those two sentances tend to make DNA security want to amputate parts from the one uttering those most hated words. 99% of the time, they are said in response to getting caught doing something they shouldn't be doing.
"Sir, this is the women's room. What are you doing in here?"
-"It's cool. It's all good"
Theough I believe the true magic words are "Oh my bad. It's all good."
You sir, have quite probably never encountered the world's most reliable verbal red flag.
That being: "She'll be right, mate".
Although "It's all good" serves as a lesser substitute.
hip-hop emcee and recovering methamphetamine addict
Isn't that redundant?
Not really. Some emcees prefer to keep it old school and stick with good ol' crack cocaine.
I'm imagining a horror-type movie where instead of strangling people, the disembodied foot goes around at night kicking people in the ass. Lord knows in Lawrence it'd have no trouble keeping busy.
Now I'm mad that the dental surgeon didn't let me keep my wisdom teeth. "Ca ah ha doze?" "No, those are medical waste." Why oh why didn't I pocket them when they left the room???
yeah! i've known loads of people who've been denied their own body parts after removal! Not fair! I wonder if there's state or federal law regarding this kind of thing, or whether policy varies from hospital to hospital. I work at a hospital, so i'm going to try to find out...
Please let me know what you find out!
I didn't get to keep my wisdom teeth, but that was because they came out in many tiny pieces. He said there wasn't much left that looked like a tooth.
It's probably a CYA liability situation, someone could potentially sue a doctor if something bad happened involving their removed and festering body part, like if it attracted bears and raccoons who subsequently ate their family. Wisdom teeth though, not so much.
My brother and I both got to keep our tonsils, but it was considerably harder to arrange for my brother, just a couple of years later. I always figured it was creeping litagation fear.
i got to keep my extracted (not wisdom) teeth. they will look mighty purty on a necklace someday soon.
are you just longing to keep that retina of yours in a jar or something? ;p
heh! i was thinking about that, but the only thing they actually extracted was the vitreous humor, which wouldn't really be very exciting thing to keep in a jar.
i'm still making inquiries around the hospital. so far i found out that labor and delivery gives the placentas to patients if they request it and if the MD OK's it. that's usually because of cultural issues - some cultures mandate that you bury the afterbirth and/or perform various rituals on it...
Various rituals.
oh god!
My dad had part of his small intestine removed, and I told him he should have asked for it. I'd be all about having one of my organs in a jar on a shelf. You can't buy decorations that cool at Pier 1!
The fucked up part about all this, is they made him jump through hoops to prove that the foot was his. As if the cops couldn't just look at the foot and then his stump and put two and two together.
I can't stop giggling at the idea of the cops litterally making him jump through hoops. Now THAT would've been cruel...
On tonight's show: cop-enforced one-legged hoop-jumping!
they actually picked me up and took me to the hospital to get a release but the intire time they kissed my ass for fear of lawsuit they also had to get photos of my stump the foot and the officer who initially took it giving it back
Union General Daniel Sickles had a leg smashed by a cannonball and amputated; he donated it to the Army medical museum, where it is still on display, and visited it most years on the anniversary of the amputation.
Sickles is also noteworthy as the first person in the US to successfully get away with murder (of his wife's lover) via the insanity defense.
They still make Hamm's beer?
Oh my god... why does all the wierd shit happen here in the KC, lawrence, topeka area?
when i read the article it didnt dawn on me that this was from lawrence, ks. they would NEVER let this sort of thing happen in overland park
I didnt ask for this shit to get as big as it did but since the story made it world wide any suggestions on how I can profit off this shit