Finger found in trout traced to owner

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SPOKANE, Wash., Sept. 25 (UPI) -- A Washington state man said Tuesday he got back one of the four fingers he lost in a wakeboarding accident when the digit was found in a lake trout.

Haans Galassi, 31, of Colbert told The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review the sheriff in Bonner County, Idaho, called him earlier in the day "and told me he had a strange story to tell me."

"He said that a fisherman was out on Priest Lake [in northern Idaho], and I pretty much knew exactly what he was going to say at that point," Galassi said.

"I was like: Let me guess, they found my fingers in a fish."

No, just one of them was found in a large fish Nolan Calvin of the Rathdrum-Twin Lakes area caught Sept. 11. Galassi had his fingers severed several weeks earlier when they got caught in a line.

Calvin discovered the finger while cleaning the trout. He put it on ice and reported it to authorities. Investigators were able to lift enough of a fingerprint to match it to one on record for Galassi.

Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Gary Johnston told the Spokesman-Review the finger was in pretty good shape, considering what it had gone through.

"I was really impressed with that part of it," he said "You fall asleep in your bathtub or hot tub, you come out and your fingers are all puckered up and prune-like. And it wasn't like that."

Galassi declined the sheriff's offer to return the severed finger to him, the newspaper said.