I honored my dad’s dying wish — I threw his prosthetic leg overboard

The leg had its own mind.

Before dying in December at the age of 66, British sailor Michael Harris half-joked with his children that he wished they would throw his prosthetic leg into the sea in hopes it would float to Ibiza, a Spanish island.

Daughter Natalie Denning, 41; and his sons Ricci Harris, 35, and Daniel Harris, 43; threw the leg from Michael’s hometown of Lydney, England on January 19.

“Daniel had taken Dad for radiotherapy, and as they were driving home he said he had always wanted to go on a trip again, and so, rather comically, he asked if we could send his leg ‘around the world’ “, Denning told SWNS.

“We almost didn’t, but we thought, ‘This is going to be fun.’ It kept him alive for us too.

The prosthetic leg – which Michael wore for five years – did not arrive at its destination. A marine biologist reportedly came across it 30 miles away in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town in England.

“I didn’t think we would hear about it so soon, but when my brother texted that it had been found, I was shocked,” said Denning, who had stamped the leg.

Her father had his leg amputated in 2017 after he developed a circulation problem, she said. He had spent 20 years in the merchant navy.

Michael’s kids have loved this trip – and they’re hoping someone will make the next leg of the trip happen.

“If anyone wants to get it out of Weston on a direct boat to Ibiza that would be amazing!” said Denning. “We also said wherever it ends we will definitely visit it because it will be hilarious.”

Michael isn’t the first to make an unusual death wish. In 2021, great-grandmother Catarina Orduña Pérez had an interesting request for her grave: a 5½-foot-tall, nearly 600-pound penis statue. In Texas, 81-year-old Jodie Perryman made her own Ouija boards to hand out to all the guests who attended her funeral.