A nursing hospital in Incheon told police that a human leg recently found at a recycling center may have come from the hospital, investigators said Thursday.
According to police, the hospital reported that the leg found at a public recycling facility in Songdo, Incheon, appeared to be waste discharged from the hospital.
The leg is believed to have been amputated from a woman in her 80s who was being treated at the hospital after necrosis developed in her left leg. The hospital reportedly said the amputated leg had been disposed of as medical waste, but a cleaning staff member mistook it for part of a mannequin and sorted it as recyclable waste.
Under the Wastes Control Act, medical waste, including human tissue, must be placed in designated containers and collected and transported separately from other waste.
Police are investigating on the assumption that the body part found at the recycling center came from the hospital. Investigators collected DNA from the patient and asked the National Forensic Service to compare it with DNA from the leg.
A police official said the case has not yet been confirmed, but investigators had identified a patient missing her left leg and had grounds to believe the body part may belong to her.
The body part was found at the Southern Regional Resource Recovery Center in Incheon at around 2:28 p.m. on June 10 by an employee sorting recyclable materials.
Police had been investigating the case based on an NFS analysis that found the leg appeared to have belonged to an adult between 161 and 165 centimeters tall.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
