A human leg found at a recycling facility in Incheon was identified as belonging to a woman in her 80s who is receiving treatment at a nursing hospital.
According to the Incheon Yeonsu Police Station on the 18th, the National Forensic Service informed police that the DNA of a left leg found on the 10th matched that of A, a hospitalized patient in her 80s at a nursing hospital.
The nursing hospital reported to police the previous afternoon that it had disposed of A's leg, according to investigators. The hospital said it amputated the patient's necrotic leg with no blood flow and discarded it in a medical waste container in accordance with regulations, but a cleaning staff member mistakenly disposed of it after misidentifying it as plaster cast supplies, according to the statement.
Police believe A's leg, which was improperly discarded, was loaded onto a transport vehicle and brought into the recycling facility.
Police will determine whether to apply charges for violating the Wastes Control Act after confirming whether the hospital followed medical waste disposal regulations. They also plan to check whether the hospital's medical staff complied with the Medical Service Act during the amputation. The hospital has neurosurgery, surgery, and Korean medicine staff, but is known to have no separate operating room.
At about 2:28 p.m. on the 10th, a human leg was found during a recycling sorting operation at the Southern Regional Resource Recovery Center in Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon. At the time of discovery, the leg was wrapped in bandages and measured about 41 cm in length.
After a 64-member task force failed to find clues to solve the case, police on the 15th added 38 investigators from the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency's Major Crime Unit to trace how the body part entered the facility.