Monday, March 05, 2012

What Happens When A School Kid Breaks A Body Worlds Exhibit



The incredible Body Worlds exhibit has just closed at OMSI(Oregon Museum Of Science And Industry) in Portland, Oregon. But, last week OMSI went into full panic mode when a school field trip tour turned into a small disaster when one of the priceless preserved human figures was damaged by a 12 year old. It seems that one boy decided to check out the figures a little too close and and began pulling on a hand of an Olympic type figure who was working out with rings, and managed to break a finger off. This seemed an incredible achievement given how well secured this was with some metal bits as well as the underlying bone of the finger. Even worse than breaking the exhibit, the digit from the plasticized corpse turned up missing as well. Some school kid was well headed toward leaving with a souvenir human finger. That's one hell of a show and tell piece, huh?


With OMSI staff alerted in full disaster mode a virtual lock-down took place until the missing digit was eventually recovered. The boy involved did indeed give the OMSI staff the finger.


Now, you know what happens when parts of plasticized dead people go missing in a museum.


BTW, Apparently the missing digit was temporarily attached to it's rightful deceased owner. However, this figure is headed back for a repair job by the owners of Body Worlds, a German company run by a German physician.

6 comments: