“16 Years Old, A Virgin… I Was Going To Change It That Day”– The Story Of How Viral Florida Man “Lieutenant Dan” Lost His Leg Is A WILD One

What a story... somehow, it's even crazier than I could've imagined. And I imagined it being pretty dang wild... If you've been on social media at all this week, and especially TikTok, you've probably seen clips and interviews with a man in Florida, a viral sensation at this point, who goes by the name "Lieutenant Dan." The one-legged-man currently calls a 20-foot sailboat home, and he's apparently refusing to leave the area with Hurricane Milton currently about to make landfall, because God told him to come there in the first place. His argument is that he's on a boat, and when the water starts to rise, he and his sailboat will just rise with it:

@terrenceconcannon @JoeSea ♬ original sound - Tampa Terrence

Obviously, there were mandatory evacuation orders in the Tampa Bay area, where his boat is on the bay, in order to keep Floridians safe. I saw another video of a police officer stopping by the other night telling Dan he needed to leave, though as of this afternoon, with weather conditions quickly getting worse, he is still there in his boat.

@tiffanytravels07 @Reed_toney did a great job keeping us informed on Lt. Dan @JoeSea . Now all we can do is keep him in our prayers.🙏🏽 #milton #tampa #liuetenantdan #hurricane #weatherchannel #stayfafe ♬ Inspirational - neozilla

He did say that he'd be willing to leave on one condition: that he have a woman to hang out with (I'm keeping it PG), until the hurricane was over. Unfortunately for him, it seems like that didn't exactly work out, and hopefully he can quite literally weather the storm and come out unscathed. Of course, he got his nickname from the internet recently because of the fact that he got he looks like Lieutenant Dan from the movie Forrest Gump since he has only one leg, and that same sort of spirit in terms of surviving, and he lives on a boat, and the movie character works on one. There are obvious similarities, and it's a pretty great nickname, I have to say... though his real name is Joseph Malinowski. But I think a lot of people were wondering how he lost his leg since he's become pretty much famous overnight, and a TikToker named Terrence, who met him last week, gave everyone the story on TikTok. Naturally, it all started on the day Joseph was supposed to lose his virginity and do the dirty deed with his girlfriend for the first time. He scootered over to the local jewelry store to buy her a gold chain as gift for the occasion, but he took his eyes off the road for one second on the way to her house, and ran into a car: "16 years old, and I was a virgin. I was going to change it that day. Me and my girlfriend had it all worked out. And on the way to her house, I'm driving my scooter, and I took my eyes off the road for a second. I had just stopped at the jewelry store and picked up a gold chain for her, I'm on my way to her house, and we had a family friend that owned a gas station... so I took my eyes off the road to see who was working that day, and when I came back around... a car stopped right in front of me. I ran into him doing about 45, went up, hit my leg on the back windshield, shattered that, broke my femur, had a compound tib and fib fracture." But as luck would have it, a "beautiful blonde girl" saw it all happen, and rushed over to comfort him. Joseph says it was in that moment that he knew he would be just fine: "As I'm laying in the middle of the street, and I'm hearing cars screech, this beautiful blonde showed up net to me. and she kneeled down beside me and started stroking my hair, I had hair then, nobody comment. And she outs her left hand on my thigh, and she's telling me everything is going to be okay, everything's gonna be fine, you're gonna be okay. and she's looking my dead in my eye, and I just knew that I was gonna be alright, and I'm expecting to be home in time for dinner." He goes on to say that he thought they would just give him a cast and he'd be home in time for dinner, though a few minutes after he got to the hospital, his mom showed up from upstate New York, along with other family, and he realized it was more serious than just needing a cast. The video cuts off there, and I couldn't find a part two, but I'm assuming that they had to amputate part of his leg in order to save him and that's how it went and he ultimately lost the bottom part of his leg. I'm guessing he was still a virgin at the end of that evening as well, but jeez... you just cannot make stuff like this up. Watch him tell it himself here, and stay safe out there Lieutenant Dan.

@terrenceconcannonFor those aksing, this is how lieutenant Dan lost his leg♬ original sound - Tampa Terrence