According to jail inmate records, Gary Van Ryswyk, of Sebring, was detained by officers from the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office on Monday and charged with practicing medicine without a license resulting in bodily injury, a second-degree felony.
Deputies arrived at the man’s Orday Road residence shortly before midnight Sunday after a 911 hang-up call. The door was answered by Van Ryswyk, who told them he had castrated a man, 53. The man was found on a bed in the home bleeding heavily from the groin.
Close by, a pink container contained his testicles, deputies said. The room had been set up like a surgical center, complete with medical equipment and painkillers. A camera had also been set up to record the procedure, but it was not immediately clear if it was filming.
Van Ryswyk admitted he met the victim, who has not been named, on a website on the dark web site dedicated to eunuch fetishism. Van Ryswyk told the man that he had previously conducted castrations on animals and had removed one of his own testicles back in 2012, the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office said in a release posted to Facebook yesterday.
The botched procedure started on Sunday at roughly 10 p.m. However, the home patient started to bleed heavily resulting in difficulty closing the wound, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Van Ryswyk told police he had attempted the same procedure on the man a week prior but it was delayed. He claimed to have castrated a man “a few years ago” in a motel that had similar results but was not reported to law enforcement at the time, deputies noted.
According to Buzzfeed, the initial procedure had to be pushed back a week because the man had ejaculated while Van Ryswyk attempted to sanitize his penis. Scott Dressel, the sheriff’s office public information officer, told the media outlet he was unsure if the patient’s testicles had been reattached when he reached the hospital, where he remains in a stable condition.
“I don’t know if he would even want that,” Dressel noted. Van Ryswyk’s bond was set at $250,000, jail inmate records posted online by the sheriff’s office confirmed.
“[Hang-up calls] are pretty routine and deputies respond to many of them per shift. But most of them don’t make the cut when it comes to being memorable. This one will definitely hang around in the memory for a while,” the Florida sheriff’s office said.
Anyone who has information about Van Ryswyk has been asked to call Det. Roger St. Laurent at 863-402-7250 or email detectives [@] highlandssheriff.com. Police also said that Heartland Crime Stoppers can also be reached at 1-800-226-TIPS or via the dedicated website www.heartlandcrimestoppers.com.
