Speaking to Channel 4 for a documentary titled The Man with a Penis on His Arm, Malcolm MacDonald, 47, revealed that after suffering a blood infection, his genitalia “just dropped off onto the floor.” In order for it to be replaced, he had to undergo a transplant for his former penis, also known as phalloplasty surgery. For MacDonald, this meant having it growing on his arm for the past six years instead.

While homeless and using drugs, his penis turned black and “fell off” in his hands back in 2010. Understandably, he “felt like a shell of a man”—although fresh hope was offered when doctors said they would be able to build him a new six-inch pee-pee.

The £50,000 NHS-funded creation was due to be placed on his groin in 2015 but a lack of oxygen meant it was instead grafted on his arm. Channel 4’s extraordinary film followed MacDonald’s story, along with those of two other men with similar experiences, focusing on how the absence of genitalia has affected their connections with masculinity.

MacDonald shared that he was living a “nightmare” as he had to cover it up with long sleeves when the COVID-19 pandemic and hospital delays meant his surgery was pushed back. But in hindsight, he now looks at it from a somewhat positive perspective. “It’s something to tell the grandchildren,” he said after a nine-hour operation recently fixed his problem.

“The first thing I did was look down and I was like, ‘Oh my days. They got it this time.’ I feel like a real man again,” MacDonald continued when speaking to Channel 4. Excited at getting his body back to normal, he has hopes that it “could be a turning point in his life,” The Mirror reported.

“Can you imagine six years of your life with a penis swinging on your arm? It’s been a nightmare, but it’s gone now,” MacDonald added.

It was previously revealed that the man was initially so pleased with his new pecker that he had nicknamed it ‘Jimmy’. But things became complicated when people occasionally spotted it on his arm while he was out drinking at his local pub in Norfolk. “I get it. It’s not every day you see a man with a penis on his arm. Of course I see the funny side—I have to. I don’t have any other option. If I couldn’t laugh at the willy on my arm, I’d be finished,” he told The Sun in 2020.

MacDonald owes it all to Professor David Ralph, an expert in phallus construction at London’s University College Hospital who is known as the “penis master.” Eventually, it is said that MacDonald will be able to prepare it for sex with a pump in his scrotum which will fill with a saline solution.

In a case of fortune prediction gone terribly wrong, Capital City Police Peshawar, Pakistan, are currently searching for a proclaimed healer who is accused of convincing a pregnant woman to hammer a two-inch nail into her head. Per local news reports, the unnamed Pakistani woman embedded the nail into her skull after the healer told her that doing so would result in her having a son. Yikes.

The spine-chilling story goes something like this: a woman showed up at a local hospital in Pakistan with a two-inch nail (five centimetres) implanted deep into her skull. According to local outlet Dawn, she had three daughters and was desperately hoping for her current pregnancy to give her a son as she was afraid her husband would leave if she had another girl. Approaching an unlicensed religious healer, she was advised by him to hammer in a nail into her skull  in order for her to guarantee she’d be giving birth to a son.

The extreme lengths the woman went to in order to pursue having a male child become more understandable considering the preference of male children in Asia. Several populations use common practises such as dowries and many value the notion of male heirs continuing on the family legacy.

Hospital staff who attended to the woman at the Lady Reading Hospital told Dawn, “She is three months pregnant, and because of her husband’s fear, she went to the faith healer.” The healer in question allegedly gave the woman ‘taweez’ (an amulet for good luck in common South Asia), as well as “things to recite, and the nail.” “The victim then returned home and hammered the nail in her head,” the hospital staff member continued. The woman had initially told them that she hammered it in herself, however she later revealed that the healer she went to had carried out the act.

According to the local publication, family members of the woman heard her screaming in pain and made attempts to remove the nail but were unsuccessful. She also tried to take the nail out herself with pliers. Her family eventually took her to hospital to be treated.

Haider Suleman Khan, the resident neurosurgeon at Lady Reading, also spoke to Dawn and shared that “doctors successfully removed the nail in an operation” after the woman arrived at the hospital. “She said that a woman in her locality did the same and gave birth to a boy even though the ultrasound had shown her unborn child to be a girl,” Khan continued.

An X-ray of the victim’s skull showed that the nail had pierced the top of her forehead but missed her brain miraculously. Khan stated that a hammer or another heavy object must’ve been used to knock it in, according to The Telegraph. He also shared with AFP that the woman was “fully conscious” during the procedure but was in immense pain.”

Now Pakistani police are on the lookout for the charlatan doc. While investigations are ongoing as of now, they are looking for the healer to bring him in for questioning. Covering the story, the BBC noted that the healer’s name still remains unknown and the woman left the hospital soon after the nail was removed without talking to law enforcement.

Insider reported that police are also inspecting CCTV footage in order to ascertain the woman’s identity.

In a tweet posted on Tuesday 8 February, Peshawar police chief Abbas Ahsan claimed that a special task force had been formed to investigate the incident. “The team will also investigate why the incident was not reported to police by the treating doctor,” Ahsan wrote.

The Los Angeles Times also investigated the situation and found that ‘pirs’ (faith healers) are fairly common in Pakistan while police crackdowns on them are rare. However, the usual advice of offering an assortment of herbs to try, advising people to pray for their ailments and money troubles is a far cry from telling someone to hammer a nail into their head.

Among several other translated tweets posted by Capital City Police Peshawar, an update posted today, Thursday 10 February, stated, “The woman’s mental balance does not seem to be right. She is undergoing a medical examination. The woman’s husband has also been included in the investigation.”