[karajorma]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/ebola-phone-theft-steals-infected-patient_n_1832927.html

A man stole a cell phone from an isolation ward in Uganda two weeks ago, but realized he had more than the police to worry about when he began showing symptoms of Ebola, the Daily Monitor reports.

The unidentified, 40-year-old thief took a $23 phone from a patient at Kagadi Hospital, where several people were quarantined during a recent Ebola outbreak in the area. The patient has since succumbed to a deadly hemorrhagic fever stemming from the virus, but reported the phone missing shortly before he died, the Global Post reports.

Investigators tracked the swindler after he started making phone calls to friends and it wasn't long before the thief began showing symptoms. He checked himself into the same hospital he'd stolen the phone from and confessed his crime to police. Doctors said he is currently being treated.

Well that was pretty dumb.

[z64555]

It does shed light on a potentially effective transfer medium... but then again anybody who remembers the old payphones would already know about this.

[An4ximandros]

All the Karma bull**** comments sicken me, how could the thief know it was form a near death person? how is it proportionate that for stealing a phone, something that could be paid with community service, he gets the most deadly and horribly killing virus in the known world? IT LITERALLY MELTS YOU DOWN FOR ****'S SAKE!

[karajorma]

Well I'm pretty sure the isolation ward would have been labelled as such. Pretty stupid to not label it.

And although it might not deserve a death sentence, stealing from someone in hospital is pretty low.

[Mongoose]

I do feel sorry for him more than anything else, but still, that's an incredibly stupid move.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Talk about a laser guided karma missile.


...not that stealing a phone warrants dying from Ebola, which, by all accounts, is absolutely, terrifyingly horrible. Ah, what can you do.

[Davros]

It does shed light on a potentially effective transfer medium...

Douglas Adams knew all about this....