Florida man loses his prosthetic foot, boy finds it during treasure hunt

A Florida man lost his leg while surfing – after a boy found it in a treasure hunt, to be reunited with his prosthetic weeks later.

When Carter Hess was surfing the waters of St. Andrews last month, a wave hit him and knocked off his usual $ 3,000 titanium prosthetic leg.

He tried to search for it in the next couple of days and came up empty. Panama City News Herald Announced.

“I knew immediately that it was out of my reach,” Hess said. “I was surfing in the biggest waves and it never came.”

Weeks went by until Sebastian Morris, a 13-year-old man from Santa Rosa Beach, discovered that the toe was often buried in the jetties of a park about 30 feet away. .

“I don’t think I would have found it,” Hess said.

Dean launched an online campaign to find its owner, and Hess’s friends sent him a bid.

Hess has been linked to Sebastian’s family online, and they met back in the morning and allowed Hess to host them for dinner.

“I was very upfront that this was a wonderful, brilliant young man,” Hess told Sebastian’s magazine. “A lot of guys, especially treasure hunters, would have put this on a trophy case – but it could be important. He felt that somebody might be needed.”

Hess, who suffered an ankle injury while working in Afghanistan in 2012, said he plans to return to surfing – and may be on a scuba mission with Sebastian if his father allows.