Tommy McAuliffe was the 'World Champion Armless Golfer'. Tommy was born in 1893 in Buffalo, New York, the oldest of five children. His arms were amputated after being run over by a train in 1902. He was left with no arms, not even stumps. He learned to write by holding a pencil in his mouth. He was the president of his senior class, attended three years of college, married in 1919, father of four children and grandfather of 16. He became a caddy at a nearby golf course. Using an old discarded club, he learned to play by holding the club between his neck and shoulder. He became so good he won the caddies tournament. After finishing college, Tommy was encouraged by his brother Walter, a professional golfer, to start his own Vaudeville Act in New York City. His "Trick Shot' act became so popular he traveled to all 48 states, all over Canada and Australia with his show. He did golf exhibitions at major golf courses in the U.S. He knew and played golf with Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagan, Chick Evans, Tommy Armour, Jim Barnes, Geo Van Elm and Sports Writer O.B. Keller. His low score for 18 holes was 85. His average was 92. Tommy became the "World Champion Armless Golfer."
Jessica Cox suffered a rare birth defect and was born without any arms. None of the prenatal tests her mother took showed there was anything wrong with her. And yet she was born with this rare congenital disease, but also with a great spirit. The psychology graduate can write, type, drive a car, brush her hair and talk on her phone by simply using her feet. Ms Cox, from Tuscon, Arizona, USA, is also a former dancer and double black belt in Tai Kwon-Do. She has a no-restrictions driving license, she flies planes and she can type 25 words a minute.
The plane she is flying is called an Ercoupe and it is one of the few airplanes to be made and certified without pedals. Without rudder pedals Jessica is free to use her feet as hands. She took three years instead of the usual six months to complete her lightweight aircraft licence, had three flying instructors and practiced 89 hours of flying, becoming the first pilot with no arms.
The Armless Guitar Player
Learning to walk means falling a lot for any child. For Tony Melendez, who was born without arms, it meant falling flat on his face time after time, until he learned to tumble and get back on his feet. That lesson, to keep trying, stuck with him. He wanted to play the guitar, and learned to pluck the strings with his toes. He practiced up to seven hours a day until the result was music. In 1987, when Melendez was 25, he played during Pope John Paul II's visit to Los Angeles, and the pope urged him to “continue giving this hope to all the people.” In response, Melendez has traveled to 40 countries and across the United States as a motivational speaker.
The Armless Fitness Woman
Meet a living inspiration, Barbie Guerra. Barb lost her arms at the age of two in an accident, yet she is a remarkable fitness model.
The Armless Painter
This amazing festive image was painted by an armless thalidomide victim, using his right foot. Peter Longstaff's artwork pieces include flickering candles and another depicts a stag in a magical winter wonderland setting. And as well as teaching himself to paint, the 48-year-old has lived life to the full as a pig farmer, father and youth football coach.
Peter was one of many babies born with deformities in the late 1950s and early 60s when their pregnant mothers were given the drug thalidomide to combat morning sickness.
But as a boy he learned to use his right foot like a right hand and was independent enough to complete main stream schooling growing up on Teesside. Peter said: 'My right foot is like your right hand. I figured out ways of doing things.' He opens doors and turns on light switches standing on one leg, using a mixture of agility and balance. As a teenager he had to endure cruel comments from 'ignorant people' but took it in his stride. His ability to get around between home, studio and sports field is down to an adapted Range Rover, which he steers with a plate under his left foot, but which is otherwise a standard automatic. He was once stopped by a stunned policeman who spotted he had no hands on the wheel - but quickly understood when he opened the door. Peter's artwork was on show at the Royal College of Art in London in 2009.
A motorcyclist received a caution from police officers in China - for riding with no arms. Officers in Jimo, Shandong province, stopped the motorcycle for being overloaded - but were shocked when they saw the driver, reports the Qilu Evening Post. Liu, 27, lost both arms at the age of seven after an electric shock.
When he was 10, his parents sent him to a local circus to learn skills, and from then on, he trained himself to ride a motorcycle without arms. Liu admitted that he had been riding his adapted motorcycle for 10 years without arms - and he didn't even have a license.
He said the circus where he worked had closed down three years ago and he and two other disabled circus workers had been performing on the streets ever since. Police decided against fining him because he didn't have any money but issued him a serious warning. Liu promised them he would not ride motorbikes again.
When Mark Stutzman, of Richland, unzipped his bow case and began assembling his compound bow, it drew a lot of attention from some of the other shooters. There is nothing special about Stutzman's bow, case or the tools he uses to put them together with and nothing extra ordinary about his arrows. What was drawing their attention was that Stutzman, 28, was doing all of this - with his feet. Armless from birth and adopted into a family with seven brothers and sisters, Matt has never let his disability slow him down. He does everything with his feet — eat, drive (non-modified vehicles, even stick shifts), write (more legibly than most people), and punch the keys on his cell phone faster than most people with their fingers. He began getting serious about his archery when he was 16.
Shooting in bigger tournaments has meant learning to adjust to people watching him. His normal shooting position is seated in a chair holding the bow with his right foot. He uses a mechanical release attached to a sling around his right shoulder. To pull the trigger, he uses his jaw. When he shoots in tournaments, he doesn't enter as a disabled shooter. He shoots along with everyone else. His average scores are good enough, he said, that he's a contender for the 2012 Olympic team.
The armless piano player who won China's Got Talent
When Liu Wei first hit the stage on China's Got Talent, you could hear a pin drop, and there wasn't a dry eye in the thousand-strong crowd. Armless pianist Liu Wei, winner of China's Got Talent, plays piano with his toes. Sure, Liu Wei started his run on the show by playing a super sad song on the piano called “Mariage D'amour” by Richard Clayderman. But what actually silenced everyone was that Liu Wei didn't have arms…he played the song with his toes. On Oct. 10, 2010, it was announced, to nobody's surprise, that the Beijing prodigy won the competition, earning him a three-week tour in Las Vegas with Iggy favorite Jolin Tsai. Liu Wei lost both of his arms years ago when he was electrocuted during a game of hide and seek. He said playing piano with his feet was hard at first and it gave him cuts and cramps, but he mastered the instrument over time.
After his first performance he told judges with a winning adorable grin: “There's no rule that says piano can only be played with hands.” And if there was, it's officially broken.
The Street Armless Calligrapher
On May 19, 2010, at noon, an amazing scene on the pedestrian bridge walkway in front of the south entrance to Foxconn Corporation, Shenzhen, captured people's eyes. From Shandong province, an optimistic man with no arms used his feet and wrote down some inspirational words in Chinese calligraphy for the Foxconn employees, to advice them not to do any more foolish things – jumping off buildings and committing suicide. During 2010 there were at least 10 consecutive suicides of Foxconn employees. The armless man wrote, “To brothers and sisters of Foxconn, life is priceless, ought to fulfill filial duty, there is always a way out, harmony relies on oneself”. This man's action soon attracted a number of Foxconn employees who were passing by on their way home from work. Many expressed support and appreciation, some stepped forward asking for the inspirational pieces.
The armless man claimed that a few years ago when he was a chef in Beijing, a gas explosion made him severely disabled. After several surgical procedures, luckily he was able to live. But his parents raised him in many difficulties, in order to fulfill his filial duty, and to carry the load for his parents he practiced hard at writing using his feet. His actions not only motivated many people across the country, but also fully paid for his huge medical bills. Recently he was heartbroken when he heard the news on Foxconn employees' ten suicides. He thought these able young bodies should think about the filial responsibility and social responsibility. He hopes they will not do any more foolish things, heaven never seals off all the exits (天无绝人之路) – there is always a way out.
Armless Wrestler
Kyle Maynard is not your average scholar athlete. Kyle was a top wrestler at his high school and also near the top of his class academically. He also attended the University of Georgia. Why talk with him? Kyle is an inspiration to anyone who ever had a challenge to overcome. Kyle was born without elbows or knees - the result of a rare disorder.
Maynard now works as a speaker for the Washington Speaker's Bureau, specializing in motivational speeches. He is also the author of the memoir No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life.
Lilia Stepanova, an attractive 21-year-old contortionist, shows off her skills by shooting a bow and arrow with her feet. Stepanova, who has gained a lot of popularity from her appearances on famous TV shows like the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Show' and ‘America's Got Talent', is known for her body bending and twisting techniques. She has also performed in front of NBA, NHL and NCAA arenas, while also becoming a regular feature on the ESPN Sports Center opening highlights.
Daniel Browning Smith holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest time squeezing through both a tennis racquet and a toilet seat. He is known as the Rubberboy.
At the age of four Zlata discovered she had an amazing talent - and she has been bending over backwards ever since to make the most of it. The Russian-born former gymnast, 24, is one of the world's most extreme contortionists. At 5 ft 9 ins, Zlata spends most of her days working out and training for shows around the world.
Zlata has a rare condition that makes all her tendons extremely pliable, allowing her to adopt seemingly back-breaking positions.
Kirsty Nicholson bagged her dream job as a contortionist in the circus after she was cured of her claustrophobia by her mum, who placed her in bins to get her over her fear of small spaces. Nicholson's mother came up with the drastic solution to cure her daughter so she could join the circus as a singer and contortionist.
With the ability to press his soles to his cheeks, turn himself into a human dart board, and dislocate his shoulders to escape from a straitjacket, Matt Alaeddine's résumé reads more like a medical examiner's report. Couple that with his sizable mass — well over 400 pounds — and the city comic and contortionist has found a ticket around the world, securing him a place in the infamous Jim Rose Circus. Founded in the '90s, the circus features extreme, often masochistic onstage acts involving everything from sword swallowing to genital lifts.
Alaeddine, 30, is one of three Edmontonians in the American troupe of pain-loving freaks. He started doing contortion as a street performer at the Edmonton Fringe Festival about 10 years ago. When performing his contortions, Alaeddine stuffs his rolling hillsides into a gold nylon suit labelled “one size fits all” that he bought from the women's section of a hipster-friendly clothing store.”
Nokulunga Buthelezi, the contortion star of the show "Africa, Africa", went to a German TV show and kicked some butts with her snake-like choreography.
Arevik and Tatevik Seyranyan perform 2 girls, 1 cu…be.
Alexey I. Goloborodko is a contortionist who has been described by many as the most flexible human on the planet. He was born in Tula, Russia, in December 1994. As well as contortion and flexibility, he has been trained in classical and modern dance, and Chinese martial arts. This helps to add fluency, grace and elegance to his contortion performances. He has performed in a variety of arts festivals and competitions, television programs, circuses and shows.
Richard Rosson (stage name Rubber Ritchie) is a British contortionist who has come to some prominence in the British media in recent years. He has appeared on a variety of television shows, including Channel 4 News, The Richard and Judy Show, and the Saturday morning children's show Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow.
Rosson has appeared in adverts and trailers for various products. Notably, in early 2006, Rosson acted as stunt double in a Walker's Crisps advert for ex-England footballer and BBC presenter Gary Lineker. Rosson has also had an impact on the big screen, shooting scenes as Avery the Death Eater for the blockbuster movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Etienne Dumont is an art & culture critic for a newspaper in Geneva who just happens to be covered head to toe in some of the most vibrant tattoos ever mande. He also has silicon implants under the skin which give the horned appearance, 2.7 inch rings in each earlobe and plexiglass piercings through the nose and under his bottom lip. And he claims to wear his tattoos like art
Lucky Diamond Rich: World's Most Tattooed Person
The ultimate in multi-layered tattooing is represented by the chainsaw juggling, unicycling, sword-swallowing Lucky Diamond Rich from Australia, who has spent over 1,000 hours having his body modified by hundreds of tattoo artists. He began by having a full collection of colourful designs from around the world tattooed over his entire body. But not content with stopping there, Lucky next opted for a 100% covering of black ink, including eyelids, the delicate skin between the toes, down into the ears, and even his gums. He is now being tattooed with white designs on top of the black, and coloured designs on top of the white! He is now, officially, the world's most tattooed person, having a full body coverage.
Paul Lawrence: The Enigma
You've probably heard about The Enigma. Paul Lawrence is the guy with blue puzzle pieces tattooed all over his body who has made a name for himself performing stunts such as sword swallowing, pushing a moving power drill up his nose and swallowing various liquids, pumping them out of his stomach and swallowing them again. The Enigma is also an accomplished musician.
Tiger Lady: Enigma's ex-wife
The Tiger Lady is the stage name of the heavily modified female performance artist and tattoo artist Katzen, whose full body tattoo theme is that of a tiger. She received extensive tattooing on all parts of her body and wears tiger whiskers attached via piercings on her face. She was once married to "The Enigma". They got divorced and now she works at a tattoo shop in Austin, Texas.
Elaine Davidson: World's Most Pierced Woman
Elaine Davidson is the World's Most Pierced Woman, according to the Guinness World Records. When examined by a Guinness official in May 2000, Davidson had 462 piercings, with 192 in her face alone. Performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, the Guardian reported that she now had 3,950 body piercings. She has more piercings in her genitalia than in any other part of the body - 500 in all, externally and internally. The total weight of her jewelry is estimated to be about 3 kilograms. As of May 2008, Davidson's piercings total 5,920. As of Feb. 2009 her piercings total 6,005.
The Tentacle Man
This unknown brazilian man shows some heavy tentacle suction-cup implants, done by Dark Freak at Luck All in Sao Paulo, Brasil.
Meet Rick. He's turning himself into a zombie. So far, more than 24 hours of tattoos --costing over $4,075 Canadian dollars-- have got him halfway there and made him a minor celebrity on the internet, where people can’t decide if he’s a body modification visionary or mentally ill sicko.
Eric Sprague: The Lizardman
Born Eric Sprague in 1972, the Lizardman was one of the first people to have a split tongue and in some circles is seen to be wholly responsible for the recent popularity of this particular modification. This 37 year old man has transformed himself into a reptile via 700 hours of tattooing, five Teflon horns implanted beneath the skin of his eyebrows, filing down of his teeth into sharp fangs, bifurcation of his tongue, and stretching of his septum and earlobes.
Tom Leppard: The Leopard Man
Formerly considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world's most tattooed man, Tom Leppard, now 73 years old, fled society years ago after spending £5,500 to have his body covered in leopard-like spots. He lived in a small cabin on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Once every week, the ex-soldier travelled by canoe to buy supplies and pick up his pension. However, in 2008 he moved into a small house on Skye after a friend offered to move him by boat. "I'm getting too old for that kind of life," he said.
Julia Gnuse: The Illustrated Lady
Julia Gnuse, also known as the illustrated lady, was born with a condition called porphyria which causes her skin to blister regularly and ultimately scar. In order to cover this up she started getting tattoos applied over the affected areas. After 10 years she was covered in the bastards and holds the Guinness Record for being the most tattooed woman in the world.
Horace Ridler: The Zebra Man
A professional freak and sideshow performer, Horace Ridler exhibited himself as The Great Omi or The Zebra Man. Horace was an English aristocrat who returned from the First World War to Twenties' London where he began his transformation into one of the world's greatest oddities. Tattooed from head to foot in black and white stripes, he became Omni - the Zebra Man. As the years wore on the Omi’s appearance became more and more outrageous as did his personality. He took to wearing lipstick and nail polish and signed his pitch cards, ‘the Barbaric Beauty’. Despite his appearance, “underneath it all, I’m just an ordinary man,” he insisted shortly before his death in 1969.
Dennis Avner: Catman
Dennis Avner, also known by "Catman" or his native american name of "Stalking Cat", undergone incredible extensive surgery in order to look like his totem animal, the tiger. Modifications include extensive tattooing, transdermal implants to allow whiskers to be worn, subdermal implants to change the shape of the face and the filing and shaping of the teeth to make them look more like a tiger's.
Michael Jackson invented and patented special boots that allowed the wearer to lean so far forward that it seems to defy gravity. He used this for the famous "lean" in the "Smooth Criminal" music video.
Michael Jackson's Oxygen Bed
For beauty proposes and to live longer, Michael Jackson used to sleep in an oxygen tent. He later donated the bed to a Californian medical centre as a therapeutic aid for burns victims.
NOTE: In an interview with Oprah, Michael Jackson denied sleeping in this bed; according to him, he donated a million dollars to a foundation who bought the bed. He then saw that strange piece of technology, tried it on, somebody took a picture and that is how the rumor started. Thanks, Björn.
Michael Jackson Egyptian Sculpture
Flickr user mandalariangirl took a photo of this ancient Egyptian female sculpture picture in the Field Museum in Chicago. She speculates if Michael Jackson got some ideas for his plastic surgeries.
Michael suffered a rare genetic disease
Michael Jackson was suffering from a rare genetic disease called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. The condition is just one among the 8,000 or so known rare disease worldwide.
Bubble the Chimp, Michael's best friend
In 1985, a three-year-old chimpanzee named Bubbles was rescued from a Texas cancer research center by Michael Jackson. From that moment on, Bubbles went everywhere with Jackson, becoming his constant companion and purported best friend. He would even be dressed up in the same outfit as Jackson and toured with him on his Bad tour. Bubbles now resides in an animal sanctuary, he is no longer safe to be let out to play with the public. Jackson continued to visit his beloved pet with his children, and the chimp would resume a very childish and playful behavior when Jackson was around.
Hospital makes a wrong-sided brain surgery... for the third time in a year
For the third time on the same year, doctors at Rhode Island Hospital have operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. The most recent incident occurred Nov. 23 2007. An 82-year-old woman required an operation to stop bleeding between her brain and her skull. A neurosurgeon at the hospital began a surgery by drilling the right side of the patient's head, even though a CT scan showed bleeding on the left side, according to local reports. The resident reportedly caught his mistake early, after which he closed the initial hole and proceeded on the left side of the patient's head. The patient was listed in fair condition on Sunday.
The case echoes of a similar mistake last February, in which a different doctor operated on the wrong side of a patient's head. And last August, an 86-year-old man died three weeks after a surgeon at Rhode Island Hospital accidentally operated on the wrong side of his head.
The Surgeon who removed the wrong leg
In what was, perhaps, the most publicized case of a surgical mistake in its time, a Tampa (Florida) surgeon mistakenly removed the wrong leg of his patient, 52-year-old Willie King, during an amputation procedure in February 1995.
It was later revealed that a chain of errors before the surgery culminated in the wrong leg being prepped for the procedure. While the surgeon's team realized in the middle of the procedure that they were operating on the wrong leg, it was already too late, and the leg was removed. As a result of the error, the surgeon's medical license was suspended for six months and he was fined $10,000. University Community Hospital in Tampa, the medical center where the surgery took place, paid $900,000 to King and the surgeon involved in the case paid an additional $250,000 to King.
The healthy kidney removed by mistake
In St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a patient was submitted at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital to have one of his kidneys removed because it had a tumor believed to be cancerous. Instead, doctors removed the healthy one.
"The discovery that this was the wrong kidney was made the next day when the pathologist examined the material and found no evidence of any malignancy," said Samuel Carlson, M.D. and Park Nicollet Chief Medical Officer. The potentially cancerous kidney remained intact and functioning. For privacy and family's request, no details about the patient were released.
Wide-Awake Surgery led to his suicide
A West Virginia man's family claims inadequate anesthetic during surgery allowed him to feel every slice of the surgeon's scalpel - a trauma they believe led him to take his own life two weeks later. Sherman Sizemore was admitted to Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley, W.Va., Jan. 19, 2006 for exploratory surgery to determine the cause of his abdominal pain. But during the operation, he reportedly experienced a phenomenon known as anesthetic awareness -- a state in which a surgical patient is able to feel pain, pressure or discomfort during an operation, but is unable to move or communicate with doctors.
According to the complaint, anesthesiologists administered the drugs to numb the patient, but they failed to give him the general anesthetic that would render him unconscious until 16 minutes after surgeons first cut into his abdomen. Family members say the 73-year-old Baptist minister was driven to kill himself by the traumatic experience of being awake during surgery but unable to move or cry out in pain.
Not so funny: wrong artery bypassed
Two months after a double bypass heart operation that was supposed to save his life, comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Dana Carvey got some disheartening news: the cardiac surgeon had bypassed the wrong artery. It took another emergency operation to clear the blockage that was threatening to kill the 45-year-old funnyman and father of two young kids. Responding to a $7.5 million lawsuit Carvey brought against him, the surgeon said he'd made an honest mistake because Carvey's artery was unusually situated in his heart. But Carvey didn't see it that way: "It's like removing the wrong kidney. It's that big a mistake," the entertainer told People magazine.
17-year-old Jésica Santillán died 2 weeks after receiving the heart and lungs of a patient whose blood type did not match hers. Doctors at the Duke University Medical Center failed to check the compatibility before surgery began. . After a rare second transplant operation to attempt to rectify the error, she suffered brain damage and complications that subsequently hastened her death.
Santillán, a Mexican immigrant, had come to the United States three years before to seek medical treatment for a life-threatening heart condition. The heart-lung transplant that surgeons at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., hoped would improve this condition instead put her in greater danger; Santillán, who had type-O blood, had received the organs from a type-A donor.
The error sent the patient into a comalike state, and she died shortly after an attempt to switch the organs back out for compatible ones failed. The hospital blamed human error for the death, along with a lack of safeguards to ensure a compatible transplant. According to reports, Duke reached an agreement on an undisclosed settlement with the family. Neither the hospital nor the family is allowed to comment on the case.
A $200,000 testicle
In yet another case of a wrongful operation, surgeons mistakenly removed the healthy right testicle of 47-year-old Air Force veteran Benjamin Houghton. The patient had been complaining of pain and shrinkage of his left testicle so doctors decided to schedule surgery to remove it due to cancer fears. However, the veteran's medical records suggest a series of missteps -- from an error on the consent form to a failure on the part of medical personnel to mark the proper surgical site before the procedure. The error, which took place at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, spurred a $200,000 lawsuit from Houghton and his wife.
A 13-Inch souvenir
Donald Church, 49, had a tumor in his abdomen when he arrived at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle in June 2000. When he left, the tumor was gone -- but a metal retractor had taken its place. Doctors admitted to leaving the 13-inch-long retractor in Church's abdomen by mistake. It was not the first such incident at the medical center; four other such occurrences had been documented at the hospital between 1997 and 2000. Fortunately, surgeons were able to remove the retractor shortly after it was discovered, and Church experienced no long-term health consequences from the mistake. The hospital agreed to pay Church $97,000.
An open heart invasive procedure... on the wrong patient
Joan Morris (a pseudonym) is a 67-year-old woman admitted to a teaching hospital for cerebral angiography. The day after that procedure, she mistakenly underwent an invasive cardiac electrophysiology study. After angiography, the patient was transferred to another floor rather than returning to her original bed. Discharge was planned for the following day. The next morning, however, the patient was taken for a open heart procedure. The patient had been on the operating table for an hour. Doctors had made an incision in her groin, punctured an artery, threaded in a tube and snaked it up into her heart (a procedure with risks of bleeding, infection, heart attack and stroke). That was when the phone rang and a doctor from another department asked “what are you doing with my patient?” There was nothing wrong with her heart. The cardiologist working on the woman checked her chart, and saw that he was making an awful mistake. The study was aborted, and she was returned to her room in stable condition.
The Fertility Clinic that used the wrong sperm
When Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., became pregnant after an in vitro fertilization procedure at a New York fertility clinic, she and her husband expected a beautiful new addition to their family. What they did not expect was a child whose skin was significantly darker than that of either parent. Subsequent DNA tests suggested that doctors at New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine accidentally used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs.
The couple has since raised Baby Jessica, who was born Oct. 19, 2004, as their own, according to wire reports. But the couple still filed a malpractice suit against the owner of the clinic, as well as the embryologist who allegedly mixed up the samples.
