From the Bali Discovery,
This Little Piggy Went to Market, This Lettle Piggy . . .
Discovery of a Severed Foot on a Bali Beach Panics Local Residents.
(10/11/2008) The residents of Sudimara, living near the Yeh Gangga were shocked on October 6, 2008, to discover a separated human foot laying on the beach.
The foot, discovered by a Mengwi man at 6:30 a.m. while walking the beach looking for flotsam and jetsam, who at first thought to be a plastic foot of a mannequin. Once aware that he had, in fact, found a human foot, he immediately raised the alarm with local villagers.
Police and villagers quickly rushed to scene on the popular beachside near Tanah Lot. Police were initially suspicious that the foot, largely intact, was possibly connected with a murderous mutilation and sent the leg to a local hospital in Tabanan for closer examination.
However, the Tabanan police quickly identified the foot as the "former property" of a Mengwi resident, I Wayan Brata, still very much alive although short one foot. According to police, Brata's foot was amputated the previous Sunday at a nearby hospital due to complications arising from chronic diabetes.
Brata's family, who felt burdened by the Rp. 50,000 (US$5.40) per day fee charged by the hospital for storing the severed foot, took the appendage home, performed the required religious ceremonies and then tossed Brata's foot into the nearby sea.
24 hours later the foot washed ashore causing the momentary panic for local residents.