The Severed Hand: A classic spooky campfire story

A favorite camping activity is to sit around the campfire and tell spooky stories to scare the kids. The key element of an effective scary story is the fact that it is true and current. Here is the latest seeds of a new campfire classic:

The Severed Hand (WSLS.com)

According to Park Ranger Greg Johnston, around four o'clock Monday afternoon, the office got a call about a man who's hand was severed, and what led to that call is even more eerie. Johnston says the man, who had parked his truck at a picnic area and walked down into the woods, suffered a severe injury that took his hand. The man then picked it up and walked back through the woods up a hill and another 50 yards to his truck, then he drove himself almost half a mile to the Rocky Knob visitor's center where workers called for help.

The only way rangers were able to figure out where he'd come from was by following the blood trail he'd left behind. But since that trail led them outside the Blue Ridge Park line, Floyd County Sheriff's Department has taken over the investigation.

Investigator Brian Craig says they believe it was a chain saw accident that caused the injury, but they're still unsure of what the man was doing in the woods.

The man was airlifted to Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

The news report ends here, but the story continues...After preparing the operating room for surgery, the nurses returned to pre-op to find the man's gurney empty except for a severed right hand. Meanwhile a deputy followed the blood trail back to its source. Hidden in the thick brush, the deputy discovered the body of a young man with a bloody stump on the end of his right arm. Laying next to the body was a chainsaw and a freshly severed left hand. The one handed chainsaw murder has never been found. Some say that at night you can hear him rummaging through these woods looking for his missing left hand.

Good night kids. Sleep tight.