Ferdinand Demara Fake Korean Surgeon

During the Korean War, con man Ferdinand Waldo Demara posed as surgeon Joseph Cyr aboard the Royal Canadian Navy destroyer HMCS Cayuga. When 16 badly wounded soldiers needed operations, he could not refuse, so he locked himself in his quarters, speed-read a textbook on general surgery, and took detailed notes before heading to the operating room. Demara then performed amputations and other procedures while directing trained corpsmen, strictly following what he had just studied. All 16 patients survived, and only later did the Navy discover that their lifesaving surgeon had never attended medical school.

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