Did a homeless man named Steven Wood (43) from San Diego snap his penis in half after having sex with a manhole cover in a drunken stupor? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian entertainment website that makes a living by publishing fictional stories often involving weird crimes, bizarre sex acts or strange accidents. It is not real.
The story originated from an article published on January 23, 2019 titled "Homeless man's penis 'snapped in half' during frantic sex with manhole cover" (archived here) which opened:
A San Diego homeless man was hospitalized and later arrested for indecent exposure and lewd act after he was seen in public having sex with a manhole cover.
The incident occurred on University Avenue around twelve in the afternoon when nearby high school students on lunch break alerted local police.
San Diego Police and paramedics were forced to separate the man's genitals from the manhole cover which resulted in hospitalization after it was revealed he had suffered from a severe penile fracture.
Steven Wood, 43, claims he was drunk and passed out when he later woke up and found that his genitals were stuck inside the gap of a manhole cover and, unable to free himself, asked passersby for help in vain.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Homeless man's penis 'snapped in half' during frantic sex with manhole cover
A San Diego homeless man was hospitalized and later arrested for indecent exposure and lewd act after he was seen in public having sex with a manhole cover. The incident occurred on University Avenue around twelve in the afternoon when nearby high school students on lunch break alerted local police
But the picture of the man illustrating the article actually shows a sexual predator who attacked a woman in a Seattle park:
Sexual predator who attacked Seattle woman in park sentenced to prison time
The Seattle woman who fought off a sexual predator in a Ballard park bathroom faced him again Friday to see him sentenced in a King County courtroom. Gary Steiner was sentenced to 36 months of an indeterminate sentence, meaning after he serves his time, he will appear before a state sentence review board, which could assign him more time behind bars.
The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes worldnewsdailyreport.com as:
A website that publishes hoaxes and made-up stories that are often widely shared and mistaken for news.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Binge Eater NOT Hospitalized After Gobbling Up More Than 30 lbs of Urinal Deodorizers
- Fake News: Court Did NOT Order Tiger Woods To Take 137 Paternity Tests
- Fake News: NO Drunk Demolition Worker Arrested After Blowing Up The Wrong Building
- Fake News: Doctor Did NOT Say Man Struck by Lightning Has Permanent Erection
- Fake News: Saudi Man Did NOT Eat Two Of His Four Wives To Survive 13 Days Stranded In The Desert
