Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Dangerous Medical Student Prank 2




I already created here an article concerning medical student prank. And now I found another Philippine urban legend. This time I am very sure where the story started to spread.

I included in the previous article a foreign version - the Baughman version. Actually our's is completely similar to it.

Legend



I'll present first the foreign version.

[Baughman, 1945:]

Foreign Version[2]

This story took place in a hospital which was quite near Bowell, and concerned a nurse, called Jane in the story. For some reason Jane was unable to get along with the other nurses in the hospital, and was constantly quarreling with people. They purposely did things to annoy her because they felt she deserved it. One night after Jane had been particularly trying, they decided to do something particularly unpleasant. One of the nurses on surgery duty agreed to bring an arm which had been amputated that day to Jane's room and slip it in her bed after she was asleep. They knew this would frighten her, but they thought perhaps it might force her to be more agreeable in the future.

The arm was carefully and quietly put in the bed and Jane did not wake up. The next morning she did not appear, and no sound came from her room. The nurses, thinking she might be sick, went to investigate. They opened the door slowly and saw Jane sitting on the bed. Her hair, which had been black, was now completely white, and she was gnawing on the arm, making low gurgling noises all the while.


Here's our own tale:[1]

A group of medical students were bored and so they tried to think of ways of livening things up. Eventually one had the idea of "borrowing" a human foot from the dissecting laboratory and putting it in his girlfriend's bed as a joke. She was also a medical student staying at the same hall of residence. The students "obtained" a human foot, went up to the girl's room and put it in her bed. They thought it would be fun to hear her reactions so they hid around the corner and waited for her to come home.

The student who had the key realized that he had left it in the door. However, before he could remove it the girl arrived back and, not thinking, unlocked the door with the key that was in the lock, took it in with her and locked the door on the other side.

A few moments later they heard her screaming and crying out. They ran to the door and tried to open it but it was locked. They shouted to her that it was alright but she continued screaming hysterically. At this point they decided to break down the door. However, it took them a while and they were relieved when the screaming subsided.

Finally, when they broke in and turned on the lights, they were horrified at what they found. The girl was sitting in the corner of the room with a glazed expression on her face eating the human foot. The practical joke had backfired and they had driven her mad.




Information



As you notice both are identical. They share the same genre and even the way how those medical students put the victim in madness. However, for me ours is much unfortunate. If it really happened, I wanted to know what the boyfriend did next. I wanted to see his remorse after what he and his buddies did.

Anyway, I just thought, the victim is also a medical student. Right? Then why is she very scared seeing a piece of human cadaver if she, herself, as a med used to dissect human body. If it really did happen, then probably there's something wrong with her. Or maybe, in a paranormal perspective, she saw something inside aside from the cut human foot. Or in a believable side, the girlfriend is still a freshman, when they are not yet used to handle corpses.

According to Snope.com[2]:
'Undoubtedly, some of these stories are true and the events as described did indeed happen at least a couple of times. However, it should be pointed out that most of these stories have long since passed into the realm of lore, with each new class of medical students being told this prank or that was played out right in this very medical school just last term.'


I agree, the said urban legend possibly happened in real life, especially the prank isn't that hard to do. Then just spread to the public acting like a kwentong barbero.

Sources:
[1] True Philippine Ghost Stories Book 4. 2004. Gianna Maniego et al. PSICOM Publishing Inc. ISBN 971-8995-99-4
[2] http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/cadaver.asp

Image Source:
http://silhouettesm.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/bed-black-and-white-girl-window-favim-com-178300.jpg

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