You'd like to think that when you hire a couple of plumbers, they'd stick around long enough to finish the job.

But that wasn't the case for Dr. Ranulfo V. Gracilla, a retired orthodpedic surgeon who employed two plumbers to do some work in his Mercer County barn Wednesday. In the middle of the job, the plumbers up and left.

Right after they found that human foot in a freezer.

According to Lillian Thomas, one of the Post-Gazette's ace reporters and editors, the plumbers discovered the foot when they opened the freezer to see if it was empty before moving it.

Now, most plumbers are used to seeing some pretty awful things. And they routinely work with everything from shower heads and throat plates to waste arms and elbow fittings. Most of them carry foot valves in their vans.

But this human foot had them baffled. And it resulted in a straight stop.

The workers left the home on Clay Furnace Road in Sharpsville and reported their discovery to local police, who requested assistance from state police. The state police obtained a search warrant and found that there were two freezers containing multiple body parts, which appeared to be human extremities.

The police called Mercer County Coroner J. Bradley McGonigle, and the body parts were taken to a forensic laboratory for analysis.

Eventually, someone asked Gracilla what was up. He told the investigators there was a simple explanation: Research.

"I work overseas. I do a lot of medical mission work overseas. I do some research to improve treatment to offer to developing countries."

The human extremities were used to try to improve pins and other implants used in orthopedic surgery, Gracilla said.

"It's a lot easier for me to have the specimens here, rather than driving to the anatomy lab at the medical school," he said. "After study I take these things back. It's all for research."

Patrick Crowley, a spokesman for the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, confirmed that the parts were on loan to Gracilla, who serves as a clinical assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the school in Rootstown, Ohio.

"They are all cataloged here and then returned after the research is complete," he told Thomas. Such arrangements can be made by faculty members within the school's consortium, he said.

"We're a medical school affiliated with eight hospitals and three state universities," he said. "We would not do that with someone outside the consortium. And it has to be for legitimate, valid medical research."

None of that "reanimation of dead tissue" stuff that some doctors like to dabble in.

It's what I like to call a three-pipe problem

They might need a couple of plumbers in Castle Shannon where an 8-inch water line ruptured near Route 88 and Rockwood Road creating a massive sinkhole that will affect traffic there for weeks.

But with that penmanship, how can you be sure?

You might think that a doctor's signature on a pathology report would indicate that the doctor had laid a pen on it. But it turns out that some of the doctors never even laid an eye on it. The signatures were electronically added for identification purposes -- a policy that the College of American Pathologists has changed.

Move to the front of the class

Every school district wants to be among the state's leaders. The Richland School District in Cambria County is the first in the state to face a teachers strike this school year.