Just a quick show of hands, who here is just crazy about their job? I mean, so much so that you’d do it for free? Gun writing doesn’t count.
I used to get paid to fly helicopters for the Army, and it still seemed like work sometimes. Work is generally unpleasant. That’s why they pay us to do it.
A quarter century of medical practice will change a guy. I didn’t start medical school until I was 32, so I already had some fairly ingrained opinions about the way things worked.
I had traveled widely, lost friends as a soldier, jumped out of airplanes in the middle of the night, and commanded multi-ship air assaults under night vision goggles. In short, I thought I had seen enough of the world that I could no longer be surprised. It turns out I was wrong.
I never might have imagined the extraordinary things human beings intentionally do to themselves and others before I worked in a busy urban emergency room.
It is truly shocking how many folks were just working on their ceiling fans in the middle of the night while naked on a ladder, only to fall onto some weird errant object and get it lodged up their backsides. Tragically, I have actually seen that happen more than once. And then there are those who are just full-time professional lazy people.
Raising Sloth to an Art Form
Don’t get me wrong. Disability is not funny. If someone gets legitimately hurt at work, it is the right thing to do to take care of them until they can get back on their feet. However, suffice it to say, there are those who strive mightily to take advantage of that institutional altruism.
One particularly artistic practitioner of turbocharged languor torqued his back while working on an assembly line in my little town. Back pain is the second-most common reason people go to the doctor, right behind head colds. I hurt mine when I was 27 and a soldier. It sucks. I agree.
However, this dude strolled into the clinic like clockwork every few weeks for more than 9 months, seeking nothing more than a work excuse to stay home. His job was willing to have him answer the phones or, basically, do whatever he would otherwise be doing at the house, but he adamantly refused. I don’t recall what happened to him, but it was frustrating.
I have countless other examples. However, all of them pale in comparison to the story of Julija Adlesic. Ms. Adlesic was indeed truly committed. I’m a fairly creative guy, and I’m not sure I could have made this stuff up.
This is Julija Adlesic. She voluntarily chopped her own arm off in an effort to score a big insurance settlement. Instagram photo.
The Scheme
In 2019, a 22-year-old Slovenian woman named Julija Adlesic was out working in the yard with her boyfriend, sawing branches with a circular saw. Something truly horrible happened, and Julija cut her left hand off above the wrist. Her boyfriend leapt into action and bound the stump.
The distraught boyfriend then threw the hysterical woman into the car and raced to the hospital. In the rush, they forgot to retrieve her severed hand. Once in the ER, the Slovenian medical system kicked into high gear. Some poor slob was dispatched back to her home to retrieve the cooling limb. In a truly impressive feat of doctoring, a hand surgeon actually got that rascal sewn back on. That’s all objectively ghastly, but there’s more.
I honestly cannot fathom any manner of enticement that might motivate me to willingly stick my arm into this thing. Public domain.
The Plot Thickens …
Over the course of the previous year, Julija had taken out five different insurance policies against bodily injury and disability. It was later discovered that her boyfriend had undertaken Internet searches about artificial hands in the days and weeks preceding the event.
After the traumatic amputation of her limb, Julija stood to gain around $1.16 million in insurance payouts. Half of that would come as a lump sum. The rest would be paid over time. All totaled, that’s a bit like winning the lottery … except that, to win, you had to chop your hand off with a circular saw.
Somebody alerted the authorities, and an investigation ensued. Julija declared her innocence throughout. However, a court in the capital Ljubljana was not convinced. She was sentenced to two years in prison. Hard time in the Big House was probably even tougher with that gimpy mitt.
This sordid scheme was actually a family affair. It seems that her no-account boyfriend was the criminal mastermind. He got three years for his part in the fraud. Julija’s dad got a year suspended. Several other relatives were arrested as well.
At trial, it was discovered that Julija and her boyfriend had intentionally abandoned the severed hand at the work site rather than bring it along to the hospital.
Apparently, not having your hand at all paid more than having it chopped off and then reattached. That was the only way to prove that the disability was indeed permanent. Prosecutors used all of this circumstantial evidence to establish that the injury was intentional.
It is frankly amazing that there was a surgical team available that could reattach Ms Adlesic’s severed hand given the sordid circumstances. Wikipedia photo by Piotr Bodzek, MD.
Ruminations
I’m 59 years old. I’m close enough to retirement to at least start dreaming about the details. I would, likewise, love to think that I could abandon my medical clinic and live out the rest of my days recreationally banging out GunCrank columns. However, I’d struggle to do that if I intentionally chopped off my primary typing hand first.
We live in a fallen world populated with fallen people. As Julija Adlesic so graphically demonstrated, some of those fallen people are also pretty darn stupid. This wasn’t just some lame tattoo or an impractical pet.
That chick chopped her own arm off in hopes of scoring insurance money. I’m genuinely curious to know how her worthless boyfriend actually talked her into that. That dude clearly missed his calling. He should be out there selling ice to Eskimos.