Should we name him this site’s Man of the Year? Last week, after finding the freshly cut fingertip of an employee in his frozen custard at a Wilmington, N.C. dessert stand, Mr. Stowers “refus[ed] to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it’s too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.”

Soon after Stowers found the finger in a mouthful of chocolate soft-serve he bought Sunday at Kohl’s Frozen Custard in Wilmington, he put it in his freezer at home, taking it out only occasionally to show to television cameras.

He refused to give it to the shop’s owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle.

Medical experts say an attempt to reattach a severed finger can generally be made within six hours.

But according to the shop’s management, Stowers wouldn’t give it back when he was in the store 30 minutes after the accident.

“The general manager attempted to retrieve it and rush it to the hospital,” reads a statement posted Thursday on Kohl’s Web site. “Unfortunately, the customer refused to give it to her and declared that he would be calling the TV stations and an attorney as he exited the store.”

What attorney decided to represent Mr. Stowers? Glad you asked; it’s Lee Andrews of Greensboro, N.C., who

wouldn’t say if a lawsuit against Kohl’s is planned, saying he needed “to get some more facts.”

But Andrews said his client is concerned about possible disease in the fingertip and kept it because he wanted someone to test it for “all the diseases that are out here now.”

“He’s upset to the point that he’s been debilitated to some degree,” Andrews said. “Emotionally, it’s been very upsetting to him.”

(“Fight over finger found in custard”, AP/CNN, May 6).

Filed under: food safety, hospitals