14 DAY TRIAL // In what might be today's most bizarre news, a 65-year-old man named Semen Gendler swears to it that, following a liver transplant surgery that he underwent earlier this year, his skin mysteriously started getting darker and darker.
The man, who lives in the city of Krasnodar in Russia, is convinced that this happened because the new liver surgeons put into his body came from an African-American donor.
The liver transplant was performed in the US
The 65-year-old explains that, when he was told that he had hepatitis C and cancer, he quickly realized that, to at least have a chance to survive this gloomy diagnosis, he had to find a way to fly all the way to the US and get surgery there, seeing how liver transplants can be quite a hassle in his home country.
“I do a lot of business in the US with partners in New York, and I asked him to help me arrange for the operation where if you have enough money it is possible to do it more quickly than in Russia,” the man explained in an interview, as cited by Oddity Central.
The intervention went well - at a personal cost of $500,000 (nearly €450,000) for Semen Gendler, it better had - and the man was cured. He returned to Krasnodar and resumed his life. Sometime after, however, he noticed that the transplant had come with an unexpected and quite shocking side effect.
His skin started turning black, the man claims
Semen Gendler says that, not long after the surgical intervention in the US, his skin suddenly and for no apparent reason turned darker than it used to be. His friends and his family all noticed the change, the man claims. As mentioned, he thinks this happened because the donor was African-American.
Apparently, others share his expert opinion on the weird phenomenon. “When he told me they had given him the liver of an African-American man, I guess that was probably the reason for the color change,” confessed one of the man's colleagues, Igor Atamanenko.
Then again, 65-year-old Semen Gendler says that, although an oddity through and through, he is not in the least bothered about being a few shades darker than his former self. Not when he is now hepatitis C- and cancer-free and has many happy years to look forward to.
Don't forget to add a grain of salt to this story
Just for the record, it should be mentioned that, other than the his testimony, there is no evidence that the man's skin actually turned darker after the liver transplant.
True, there are some photos that supposedly show him before and after the intervention - scroll down to check them out - but other than this, there is nothing to certify that he is telling the truth.
