"I have never heard of someone beating someone with a prosthetic leg," said Kristy Harnish, a resident of Baker, Florida, after being asked by a reporter whether she had ever heard of that. That means she either doesn't read this blog or—and this is obviously much more likely—only subscribed recently.

Harnish was not personally involved in the incident, but according to WEAR-TV it is "all anyone can talk about" in the small town in Okaloosa County, and I guess the interview with her established that.

According to the victim, Brandon Fleming, the incident happened last month when his ex-girlfriend showed up at his house (along with two unidentified males) demanding custody of their two-year-old son. (He likely has custody because she is a convicted felon.) When he went to call police, she pulled the boy out of the window and took him to her car. Fleming followed.

"As I jumped in the back of the car," he said, "the guys jumped on me. She comes from behind me and my feet [were] hanging out [of] the car and she goes to grab my prosthetics off." Fleming lost part of his left leg in a lawn-mowing accident when he was a boy. He says his prosthetic leg is easily detachable, and indeed she seems to have had no trouble detaching it. "And my feet [were] hanging off," he continued, "so she goes to hitting my legs with it. It wasn't like a hitting me all over, it's just a hitting me on the legs." Despite being repeatedly hit on his existing legs with his now-detached other leg, Fleming said he was able to get out of the car and get his leg back from his former love.

That's when she got out a shotgun, which changed the balance of power significantly.

"I ain't scared of nothing or nobody," Fleming said of his decision to retreat back into the house, "but I think she's crazy enough to do it." So, technically, not scared of nothing or nobody except for a shotgun in the hands of an ex-girlfriend with a criminal record, which I think is the most you could really ask of a man.

The woman and her two accomplices fled with the boy, but deputies located them and the boy was returned unharmed.

In the video clip that accompanies the report, Fleming noted that this is not the first time his ex has beaten him with his own leg. "Probably two or three times she's done it," he said. "Just a way to get the upper hand." So to speak.

Nor, as suggested above, is this the first time for such a beating in general. In the prior incident mentioned here, a couple in Michigan were drinking and arguing about something or other when that man's girlfriend also seized his prosthetic leg and began to beat him with it. See "Man Beaten With Own Leg by Leg-Wielding Girlfriend," Lowering the Bar (Aug. 17, 2005) (establishing both that I have been doing this for a long time now and that I am still a big fan of that particular headline). That case was less serious in some ways (she used a spare, not the one he was actually wearing) and more serious in others (she stole the leg).