The leg had a mind of its own.
Before dying in December at the age of 66, British sailor Michael Harris half-joked to his kids that his wish was for them to throw his prosthetic leg into the sea in the hopes it would float to Ibiza, a Spanish island.
Daughter Natalie Denning, 41; and sons Ricci Harris, 35, and Daniel Harris, 43; cast the leg off from Michael’s hometown of Lydney, England, on Jan. 19.
“Daniel had taken dad for radiotherapy, and as they were driving home, he said he’d always wanted to go traveling again, and so, rather comically, asked if we could send his leg ’round the world,” Denning told SWNS.
“We nearly didn’t do it, but we thought, ‘This is going to be funny.’ It’s kept him alive for us as well,” Denning added.
The prosthetic leg — which Michael wore for five years — didn’t make it to his intended destination. A marine biologist reportedly stumbled upon it 30 miles away, in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town in England.
“I didn’t think we’d hear anything about it so soon, but when my brother messaged saying it had been found, I was shocked,” said Denning, who had affixed a note to the leg.
Her father had his leg amputated in 2017 after developing a circulation problem, she said. He had spent 20 years in the merchant navy.
Michael’s children have been getting a kick out of this voyage — and they’re hoping someone will go out on a limb to make the next leg of the journey happen.
“If someone wants to get it out of Weston on a direct boat to Ibiza, that’d be amazing!” Denning said. “We’ve also said wherever it ends up we’ll definitely go out to visit as that’ll be hilarious.”
Michael is not the first to make an unusual dying wish. In 2021, great-grandmother Catarina Orduña Pérez had an interesting request for her grave: a 5½-foot-tall, nearly 600-pound penis statue. In Texas, 81-year-old Jodie Perryman made her own Ouija boards to be handed out to every guest who attended her funeral.