Oddity Central

Man Donates Liver to Total Stranger, She Gives Him Her Heart
Canned Polluted Beijing Air Proves Big Hit
South Korean Man Adopted at Age 3 to Be Deported from the U.S. 37 Years Later

Man Donates Liver to Total Stranger, She Gives Him Her Heart

Posted: 27 Oct 2016 06:48 AM PDT

When a code-enforcement officer in Frankfort, Illinois decided to donate half his liver to someone that had never met before, in order to save their life, he had no idea that person would one day become his life partner.

In March 2014, completely out of the blue, 27-years-old Heather Kruger was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer, and learned that she only had a few months left to live. Doctors told her that her only chance for survival was a liver transplant, but with so little time left, waiting for a liver from the state’s transplant list was not the best option, so they suggested finding a living donor. “They immediately told me I was going to need a transplant,” she recalls. “There was not much time to find a donor. By that time I could really feel my body shutting down.”

Her salvation came from a total stranger. Code-enforcement officer Chris Dempsey was in the lunch break room when he overheard Kruger’s cousin, Jack Dwyer, talking about her health problem and how she needed to find a donor or she would die. Dempsey had never heard about this person, let alone met her in person, but he immediately knew he wanted to help. “I spent four years in the Marine Corps and learned there never to run away from anything. So I just said to myself, 'Hey, if I can help, I'm going to help,'” he says. So Chris just approached Dwyer and told him he wanted to get tested to see if he was a compatible donor, and it turned out that the two were a perfect match.

chris-dempsey-heather-krueger

Posted: 27 Oct 2016 05:31 AM PDT

Many Beijing residents go to great lengths to avoid breathing the city’s smoggy air, especially when it reaches critical pollution levels, but one local entrepreneur decided that canning and selling this poor quality air as a souvenir would be a great idea. Believe it or not, he was right.

After seeing a number of companies achieve commercial success by canning fresh air from countries like France, Canada or Australia and selling it in China, Dominic Johnson-Hill, a British-born citizen of Beijing and owner of the Plastered 8 souvenir shop, decided to turn the idea on its head and sell canned Beijing air throughout China and abroad.

“I'd seen people going crazy to buy canned air from Canada and Australia, so I thought it was time to push business the other way,” the entrepreneur said. “They're perfect gifts! What else are you going to take home when you go home from Beijing? A roast duck? A Plastered T-shirt? These cans are light, portable, you can just imagine someone's face when they unwrap if for Christmas.”

canned-beijing-air3

Posted: 27 Oct 2016 04:29 AM PDT

Adam Crapser was just three years old when he was flown from South Korea to be adopted by a U.S. family, but because they never bothered to apply for his naturalization, he is to be deported back to his native country 37 years later.

Adam was born Shin Song Hyuk, to a mother who abandoned him and his older sister when he was three years old. They ended up in an orphanage outside Seoul, and five months later they were flown to the United States to be adopted by an American family. Their adoptive parents fought often and punished the children viciously – Crapser remembers being whipped and forced to sit in a dark basement. But six years later, they decided they didn’t want the Korean kids anymore, so Child Services split up the siblings and put them in various foster homes. Adam ended up with a family in Oregon, which turned out to be even worse than the first one.

Thomas and Dolly Crapser, always had their house full of foster and adopted children, sometimes as many as ten at a time. They also subjected their kids to gruesome punishments, like slamming their heads against door frames, burning them, duct-taping their mouths to shut them up. Adam remembers Thomas once broke his nose just because he couldn’t find his missing car keys. They were eventually charged with dozens of counts of child abuse, including rape, sexual abuse and criminal mistreatment, and in 1992, they were convicted on several counts of criminal mistreatment and assault. However, Thomas served only 90 days in prison, and Dolly got three years probation.

adam-crasper