Florida Man Botched Castration on Victim He Met Through Dark Web Fetish Site: Authorities

A Florida man was arrested Monday after allegedly botching a castration surgery on another man he met online through a fetish website, authorities said. 

Gary Van Ryswyk, 74, has been charged with second-degree felony of practicing medicine without a license resulting in bodily injury for the August 18 incident, according to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office. 

Deputies arrived to Van Ryswyk’s home in Central Florida just before midnight on Sunday to respond to “a 911 hang-up,” the sheriff’s office said in an unusually flippant, pun-filled news release. 

“These are pretty routine and deputies respond to many of them per shift,” the sheriff’s office said. “But most of them don’t make the cut when it comes to being memorable.”

Van Ryswyk allegedly told authorities he had “just performed a castration” on a man he had met on a “dark web” site for those who have “a castration fetish.” He’d allegedly told the man that “when he was younger and living on a farm he would have to perform castrations” on bulls and other animals. 

Inside Van Ryswyk’s guest bedroom, deputies found a 53-year-old man from Tampa holding a bloody towel on his groin. The man was not identified by authorities. 

“Nearby, there was a pink container which held two body parts that had recently been much closer to the victim,” the sheriff’s office said in the release.

Elsewhere in Van Ryswyk’s house, authorities said they found a “makeshift surgical room” with medical equipment, painkillers, and a camera to record the various procedures. 

Van Ryswyk allegedly said he used painkillers he’d purchased online from England, as well as forceps and scalpels, to perform the procedure—but the man’s uncontrollable bleeding made it difficult for him to close the open wound.

The man was flown to Tampa General Hospital for “life-saving measures” and is currently in stable condition.

Van Ryswyk allegedly said the two had met one week earlier and tried to perform the castration at a local motel, but the man became too aroused while his penis was being sanitized, according to an arrest report obtained by The Daily Beast.

Van Ryswyk, who is currently being held on a $250,000 bond, allegedly confessed to performing a similar operation several years ago in a motel. That procedure also ended badly, and the unknown man went to the hospital, authorities said. 

The 74-year-old also admitted to authorities that he removed “his own right testicle” in 2012.