Saturday, September 15, 2012

Life in a Northern Town

The township of Birch Hills is all fiddles and flutes, most days, but Dr. Devon Herman says there's a dark, dangerous side that visitors rarely get to experience firsthand.

"Dozens upon dozens of people have come into my clinic suffering from shark bites," says the affable curmudgeon. "These individuals are suffering everything from simple lacerations to missing limbs."

Birch Hills is over 1100 miles from the nearest ocean, and the closest waterbody is a slough that farmers dump septic waste into, unsuitable even for beetles or freshwater clams.

"I recently called [the time of death] on an elderly gentleman who'd been bitten in half by a great white. It was just like in the movie. There was a tooth lodged in his spine. A shark tooth. All that I report has been verified by experts."