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PHARMOCOPŒA FORTEANA

Back Bizarre by popular demand.

A DRUNKEN DRIVER ran off the road on 28 August and sideswiped a telegraph pole support wire, decapitating his best friend, who was hanging out the passenger window feeling nauseous. John Kemper Hutcherson, 21, then drove 12 miles (19km) back to his house in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, and went to sleep in his bloody clothes, leaving the headless body in the truck. A neighbour walking by with his baby daughter the following morning discovered the torso of Francis Daniel Brohm, 23, in the parked truck and called the police. The head was found in the bushes near the pole. It appeared that Hutcherson was unaware of the death until informed by police.

Newsday, 31 Aug 2004.

DEBU SAHA, 22, was arrested for beheading his neighbour, Gobindra Mondal, 80, as he slept in his home north of Kolkata (Calcutta) in India. He told police he had dreamed that the flooding of the Fulahar river could be checked if he made a human sacrifice.

D.Telegraph (Australia), 26 July 2004.

Sadeque Zaman, 29, fatally stabbed his mother Quamrun Nessa, 53, at their home in Broadlove Lane, Stepney, east London, in December 2003. According to testimony at his Old Bailey trial in August, Zaman had become convinced Mrs Nessa had killed his real mother and taken her place - a delusion known as Capgras Syndrome. The key symptom is prosopagnosia, an inability to recognise the facial features of a near-relative Shropshire Star, 17 Aug 2004.

CECIL AND TERI LYNN CARVER (38 and 35) were in bed in Rose, Oklahoma, on 24 February when they began arguing about a daytime television show they were watching. He hit her, then fired his gun into the headboard. She phoned police, he tried to stop her, and, in the ensuing melee, was fatally shot. The subject of the television show was how to survive domestic violence. Independent on Sunday, 13-14 Mar 2004.

GAIL (OR GAYLE) GRINDS, 39 (OR 40), of Stuart, Florida, weighed 34 stone/216kg (or 43 stone/273kg) and did not move from her sofa for six years - not even to go to the lavatory. When she had trouble breathing and sought medical help, it was found that her skin had fused with the fabric: woman and sofa were as one. There was such a stench, rescuers pumped in fresh air. Firefighters had to demolish a wall to get her out of the house. The 4ft l0in (147cm) woman was towed to hospital on a trailer, still stuck to the sofa. Surgeons separated her from the fabric, but she died of morbid obesity soon after.

Sun, D.Mirror, D.Express, 13 Aug 2004.

ARAVIS WALKER, 23, and Antonio Robinson, 27, were cruising through Melbourne, Florida, lighting fireworks and throwing them at pedestrians when their stock pile on the back seat caught fire and the car was engulfed in a fireball. Robinson scrambled out with 90 per cent burns, but Walker, who was driving, was trapped and died in hospital the next day. D.Star, 4 July 2004.

A MAN FROM BRNO in the Czech Republic, who washed his car for the first time in a year, was startled to find a corpse in the boot. He said he had no idea how long the body, identified as a missing 42-year-old, had been in his Renault Laguna.

Metro, Sun, 29 July 2004.

A 44-YEAR-OLD TAIWANESE MAN, identified only by his surname, Chang, survived a suicide attempt when he jumped off a 23-storey building in Taiwan, but killed a woman motorist when he landed on her. Chang's mother apologised to the victim's family, adding that her son had a 10-year record of manic depression.

AFP 6 Sept 2004.

A 35-YEAR-OLD WOMAN in northern China jumped from a block of flats in a suicide bid. She landed on her husband, who was trying to break her fall, and they were both killed. The man, together with his mother-in-law and other family members, was standing outside the flats when he saw his wife climbing out of the window.

Amsterdam Metro, 16 Jan 2004.

Constantin Mocanu, 67, from a village near Galati in southeastern Romania, couldn't sleep because of a noisy chicken. He decided to kill the bird but claims he mistook his penis for the chicken's neck and chopped it off. When he realised what he'd done, he threw the severed organ to the dog, which ate it. "It was after midnight when the bloody cock was making such a trouble outside," he said. "I got very angry and went outside to kill it. I don't know how I got my penis instead. I was so irritated I threw it to the dog before my wife called the ambulance. What could I do with a piece of penis?" He was rushed to the local hospital, bleeding heavily. Surgeon Nicolae Bacalbasa said he was not convinced by Mr Mocanu's story and there was no chance of rebuilding his penis; the best that could be done was to restore his ability to urinate.

Ananova, 4 Oat 2004.

Aurica Marinescu, 50, from Constanta in Romania, had his testicles ripped off by his wife after she accused him of having an affair. He managed to call an ambulance before he passed out. Doctors at a local hospital managed to re-attach his scrotum after a 10-hour operation. Despite his injuries, Marinescu said he wouldn't press charges against his wife. "I wouldn't have said she was a strong woman," he said, "but she was furious and she seemed to have superhuman strength in her anger. The pain was incredible."

Ananova, 14 Sept 2004.

Naum Ciomu, a Romanian surgeon and urologist, was operating on a 34-year-old man for a testicular malformation on 13 July when he accidentally cut the urinary channel. Losing his temper, he sliced the man's penis into three pieces. The patient was rushed to a Bucharest emergency hospital for emergency reconstructive surgery by loan Lascar, a highly respected plastic surgeon, who constructed a new organ from skin on the patient's forearm. Dr Ciomu was banned from entering an operating theatre for six months pending the results of an investigation by the medical council.

D.Express, Irish Independent, 17 July;

Other Pharmacopœa Forteanas can be found at:
hoolet edition 48 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 33 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 32 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 31 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 29 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 28 - Pharmacopœa Forteana
hoolet edition 27 - Pharmacopœa Forteana

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.