THIS IS SAM. A nice normal-looking woman we’re sure you’ll agree.
But normal she isn’t. ‘Sam’ has absolutely no idea who she is, where she is from, or whether or not she has a family.
She was discovered by firefighters near Carlsbad, California at the start of February. Suffering with acute amnesia, a medical examination soon turned up the fact that she was suffering from ovarian cancer. What she was doing at the time she was found remains unclear.
Soon after being found Sam underwent a seven-hour operation to remove a tumour from her ovaries. She was resident at the same unnamed hospital until three weeks ago.
According to the bio on the Facebook page set up to try to discover where she has come from, her cancer prognosis is not good. Her amnesia has been blamed on specific antibodies being created by the acute cancer.
Apart from an impression that she may have visited Australia (she bears a slight Australian accent), Sam (who’s estimated to be roughly 50-years-old) simply has no recollection of her past.
She remains lucid in every other way – indeed she speaks both English and French.
Dr. Alan Lerner, director of the Brain Health and Memory Center at University Hospital’s Case Medical Center, told ABC News that ovarian tumors have been known in rare cases to cause memory loss or psychiatric problems for patients due to anti-bodies or proteins produced by the tumor.
“Proteins can bind to the cells in the brain in areas that are important in memory,” he said.
If you’re having trouble taking this seriously, both the FBI and Interpol have vouched for the situation. Interpol even have a missing person’s file open on her, although where she is missing from no-one knows.
Sam’s Facebook page currently has people submitting photos to it of unidentified persons pictured between 20 and 30 years ago in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery.
According to her Interpol missing person’s file she is 1.7 metres tall, right-handed with brown eyes and piercings in both ears.
A mystery and no mistake.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say