Prosthetic leg lost at sea 5 years ago discovered by fisherman
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}June 7, 2012: Matt Willingham, owner of the shrimp boat Michele Dawn, looks for identifying features on a prosthetic leg at his dock in Valapraiso, Fla. (AP Photo/Northwest Florida Daily News)
A fisherman was surprised when he found a prosthetic leg while trying to catch shrimp off the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning.
“That’s not something you want to see at 2 a.m.,” the fisherman, Matt Willingham, told WKYT-TV in Lexington, Kentucky. “I was hoping I wasn’t going to find a body with it, as well.”
The leg is emblazoned with the logo from the University of Kentucky and the school’s wildcat mascot. Willingham was able to contact the prosthetic manufacturer to track down the leg’s owner, Fred Robinson.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Robinson played on the school’s football team in the 1980s and had lost his leg in a work accident in 2007.
“I got the call and I was shocked,” Robinson told WKYT-TV. “I just started laughing, they found my leg!”
The leg’s owner told the station that he lost his leg while boating over Memorial Day weekend.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“At the end of the day we were coming back and goofing off and swimming in the bay,” he said. “I jumped in and I guess at some point in time when I was swimming it sucked my leg off.”
Robinson did not ever intend to be reunited with the $30,000 personalized prosthetic, WKYT-TV reported.
Robinson is planning to meet Willingham next week, and is picking up his leg from the Sheriff’s department.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Click here for more from WKYT-TV.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.