Neil Hopper, a 49-year-old vascular surgeon, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison after it was discovered that he had caused the amputation of his own legs using dry ice.
According to the prosecution before Truro Crown Court, Hopper deceived insurers by claiming $631,744 while pretending to have an illness. His lawyers argued that Hopper suffered from Body Integrity Identity Disorder, a condition in which the patient feels that their limbs are “not their own.”
In addition to fraud, he was convicted of possessing extreme sexual content linked to body mutilation, revealing a sexual obsession with amputation that drove him to unimaginable extremes. Although the hospital insists that its patients are safe, many former patients fear the surgeries he performed.
