Man Accused of Deliberate Finger Severing: "SALZBURG, Austria (AP) - Prosecutors on Tuesday accused a former fingernail designer of deliberately putting his hands beneath a passing train so his fingers would be severed and he could collect on a euro1 million ($1.17 million) insurance policy.
The suspect told police he was riding his bicycle when he lost control and rolled down an embankment and onto railroad tracks just as a train was passing by, losing a thumb on one hand and an index finger and a pinky on the other.
Insurance company investigators became suspicious after they found that the man had taken out the policy a few months before the alleged accident.
State's attorney Elvira Gonschorowski-Zehentner said Tuesday that prosecutors had reason to believe the man cut off his own fingers in an attempt to cash in on his insurance.
The defendant's lawyer, Karl Wampl, dismissed as outlandish the notion that the man would intentionally have mutilated himself in such a fashion, contending he could have used a power saw to cut off his fingers rather than risk death faking an accident with a train.
The suspect has admitted that he had accumulated about euro150,000 ($175,000) in debts at the time he lost the fingers, prosecutors said."