Lost Leg Lands In Good Hands As Sonoma Deputy Returns It To Owner

NORTH BAY, CA — If you lose something in Sonoma County, rest assured it will land in good hands. A Marin County man is sure to vouch for that after a deputy with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office turned up with the man's lost prosthetic leg.

"Today we got a strange call of a found prosthetic leg at a Cloverdale lumberyard," the sheriff's office said Monday. "The deputy gathered the intact leg, checked the area and contacted some folks at the nearby airport. Turns out that an amputee went skydiving yesterday and his leg fell off in mid-flight from about 10,000 feet up."

That is how the leg —with the owner's Nike tennis shoe still attached — ended up at the lumberyard and then in the hands of the sheriff's office.

When tracked down in nearby Marin County, the leg's owner, Dion, was reportedly happy to see the deputy and even happier to see his leg. Apparently, it was the second one he has lost while skydiving.

After he and his friends landed Sunday, they looked around the area for the leg but couldn't find it.

At a cost of $15,000 per prosthetic, the sheriff's office noted, Dion plans on making a tether for his leg prior to the next flight.