While fishing over the July 4th weekend in Alexandria, Minn., one Wausau woman found something pretty unusual at the end of her hook.
"I just kept holding my line up and he just kept pulling my pole, and I said I'm afraid to look,” Beth Krohn said. “I said I can't imagine what it might be."
Little did Beth know, she and her husband Mark would truly catch the unimaginable.
"We decided to go walleye fishing early in the morning,” Beth said. “And my pole ended up getting snagged, way down. And I thought, man there's no snags in this part of the lake.”
Beth said she hoped it wasn’t a dead body.
"I pulled it up a little farther and I said, you're not going to believe it,” Mark said. “It's a prosthetic leg."
They say half of the leg was flesh colored, like skin, and the other half was mossy and muddy. And even still had a water shoe on it.
Determined to find out whose leg was now in her live well, Beth went out on a limb and made few calls.
"When she was making the phone calls, I thought, there's no way,” Mark said. “I figured the phone calls were a waste of time. I mean, the odds of it would be phenomenal."
But when you've already reeled in a body part, odds are, she just might get lucky.
"She says you're never going to believe this,” Beth said, “The lady that lost the leg is right here in the office"
After just four phone calls, Beth got a hold of the doctor's office in town that deals with prosthetics.
"And so she put Pam Reilly on the phone. And she said she lost her leg three years ago swimming,” Beth said. “It was her swim leg."
It was a $7,000 part of Pam Reilly that she never thought she’d get back.
The original owner was reunited with her long lost leg, and even uses it as a spare now.
For Beth, it’s a priceless story she never thought she’d have to tell.
"I'm never going to forget this as long as I live, I don't think,” Beth said. “How can you top that?"
