Sherri Shepherd Pleads For Man's Lost Prosthetic Leg (VIDEO)
Sherri Shepherd pleaded with viewers on today's "The View" to help a Poughkeepsie, NY man find the prosthetic leg he lost while skydiving in June.
Shepherd, who is the Star Jones lookalike that effectively replaced Rosie O'Donnell on the show late last year, said she was personally "upset" that the man hadn't been able to find his leg after it slid off during a dive near the Catskills.
"If anybody sees his leg in the grass or the flower beds, please turn it in to your local authorities," she said on the show. "I don't know if you're racking up on your heaven credits -- if you find that leg and give it back -- but it concerns me to get it out there."
See the video below:
We decided to find out what the chances are that a prosthetic leg would survive a midair drop. Pete Draper, a tandem instructor from Finger Lake Skydivers out of Ovid, NY, told us that the chances of the leg remaining intact were slim. (He added that he is not an expert on prosthetic legs.)
Draper said that a person free falling "belly to earth" typically goes 120 miles per hour -- a speed which would flatten a victim's face beyond recognition, as the 1994 movie "Terminal Velocity" reminds us -- but a leg would fall anywhere between 40 and 70 miles per hour. Still, that's enough speed that the leg "probably going to be severely damaged." Although it depends on what the leg is made of and what it lands on (it would fare much worse against pavement or a car than it would an empty field), "anything that fell from 10,000 feet would hit terminal velocity," he said.
"I would think it wouldn't survive," he said. "That's probably $8,000 to $10,000 down the drain."
You can read more about the story here.
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Huffington Post | Adam Rose | July 15, 2008 12:16 PM