Team DailyPedia
In July 2012, Leo Bonten suffered a terrible accident while goofing off in a kiddie pool. This caused infection on his broken leg that doctors where left with no choice but to remove it surgically.
Before the operation, the 53-year-old Dutchman opened his idea of turning his soon-to-be lopped off limb into a lamp. But the medics sacked his request telling him that it’s specific hospital protocol to incinerate amputated body parts for safety and sanitation reasons.
He fought for his right to keep his leg until he and the hospital administrators came into a mutual agreement. “My leg is my property. People keep kidney stones in a jar on the mantelpieces. Ashes of dead people are included in tattoos. I’m going to make a lamp of my leg,” he told the reporters.
A pathologist named Frank van de Goot preserved his limb after the surgery. Then, Willem Schaperkotter, a lighting designer, came into the scene and fixed the leg in formaldehyde inside a large cylindrical container, eventually turning it into a fully functional lamp.
In an interview with The Mirror, Bonten stated, “I know I will never run again but the fact that I still have the leg helps me deal with the loss, particularly if I can sell it and use the money to buy a bionic leg.”
Soon after, Bonten tried to sell his leg lamp on eBay with a starting bid of $80,000. Unfortunately, the site stopped him from doing so as it violated eBay’s policy of selling human body parts.
To this day, Bonten is still looking for ways to trade his lamp so he can use the cash to pay for his medical debts and eventually put up a foundation that reaches fellow amputees deal with their condition.
