Mad Medicine

Previous legend || Mad Medicine || Next legend

No title

Debunked: A series of hospital deaths was due to a janitor who unplugged life- support systems to plug in a floor polisher.

"For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a dead patient in the same bed every Friday morning", the standard version of this legend begins, and concludes "It seems that every Friday morning a cleaner would enter the ward, remove the plug that powered the patient's life support system, plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket ..." The story first appeared in this form in 1996 (though variants of the story precede this version by decades), set in South Africa, and was widely reported, with some variations. It turned out that the original report was of an unconfirmed rumour (though later versions reported it as confirmed fact), and all relevant officials (including everyone at the indicted hospital) deny the rumour.

References:

• http://www.legends.org.za/arthur/cleanfaq.htm