More Fingers In The News

Two days ago I provided you with information about which finger to tell kidnappers to cut off. As is so often the case, once an offbeat theme pops up in the news, a slew of stories on that same topic follows.

Actually, I'm not sure what number constitutes a slew, but here's two more recent stories about fingers. Even more coincidentally, they both involve animals as well.

Golfer Sues Resort After Crocodile Bites Off Fingers

A Long Island duffer seeking birdies and eagles on a Cancun golf course instead found a crocodile — and lost two fingers in the encounter.

The horror unfolded when Edward Lunger hooked the ball to the left of the fairway at the lush Iberostar Cancun Golf Club in Mexico.

There's his problem right there. If he'd slice the ball like me he could have avoided the whole mess.

“It was in the sand,” Lunger recalled. The 50-year-old engineer took a couple of practice swings and then chipped out of the bunker. He heard leaves rustle.

“All of a sudden, his arm went back, and his head went back,” pal Mark Martin recalled. “I saw the crocodile leap up.”

The angry female chomped down on Lunger’s left arm up to his elbow, using its tail and claws to drag Lunger to the sand, the men said.

“She pulled me back and flipped me, and I went to the ground,” Lunger said.

Martin jumped out of his golf cart and, in an adrenaline-fueled act of courage, grabbed a 40-pound boulder and smashed it onto the monster’s head just as Lunger freed himself.

“That’s when I used the opportunity to run with Eddie,” said Martin, 52, also of Holtsville.

The men used golf towels to make a tourniquet.

Paramedics took Lunger to a private hospital where, he claims, he was forced to pay the $17,800 bill up front before he could get treatment.

Well, this was in Mexico, after all. They don't have free universal health care like we do under obamacare.

Oh, wait...

The men, and two other friends, split the tab on their credit cards.

Doctors managed to reattach Lunger’s index finger, but he lost his middle finger and most of his ring finger.

Not to make fun of the poor guy, but it looks like he'll have a hard time communicating with his fellow New Yorkers without that middle finger.

But wait!! There may be hope for Lunger after all.

Doctor Uses New Technology To “Re-Grow” Man’s Finger

It’s being called a medical marvel. A south Florida doctor used a unique procedure to actually grow back a man’s finger that a horse bit off.

 A horse?!? I didn't know horses were carnivores.

Halpern was feeding his prized, hungry horse when it confused (his finger) for a cookie.

Here's a little tip for those of you unfamiliar with horses. Don't stick your fingers in their mouths.

More seriously, put whatever you're feeding the horse in the palm of your hand and hold it flat. Don't hold the treat like you would if you were eating it.

According to Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez, Paul Halpern, 33, arrived in Delray Beach with his finger in a zip lock bag.

Really? A zip lock bag? Talk about packing your lunch...

The insurance company wanted the rest of the finger amputated. However, a doctor wanted to try a unique procedure.

I wish the story named the insurance company. I want to make damn sure I don't do any business with them. Imagine going in with a head cold and the bean-counters suggest decapitation as the most cost-effective treatment. (obamacare, anyone...?)

“One of the guys that worked with me reached his hand in the horse’s mouth, took the fingertip out, and I jumped in the car, grabbed the rest of my finger wondering what we should do,” said Halpern.

On the way to the hospital, Paul put his fingertip on a popsicle, but it wasn’t enough to save the extremity.

Then, he heard about a Deerfield Beach doctor that might have a way to fix the finger.

Advanced, cutting edge, and without any surgery or amputation, general surgeon Eugenio Rodriguez said he could make the finger grow back.

Using the bladder tissue of a pig, Dr. Rodriguez made a template of Halpern’s finger and attached it to what was left.

The result was astounding.

The finger’s cells, bone, soft tissue, even nail grew into the mold...

It’s a procedure both Dr. Rodriguez and Halpern agree could pave the road for other more complex injuries.

When popsicles don't work, turn to pig bladders.

Which brings us to the moral of this story. Pigs are fabulous animals. Their bladders enable us to regrow appendages, and they provide us with bacon!