Eagles fan gets stolen leg back
The disabled Birds diehard got a lap dance that almost cost him a leg.
SONNY FORRIEST Jr., still wearing his trademark "Ridin' Dirty" Eagles jersey from the night before, sat in his Ogontz home Monday, reflecting on how his 57th birthday party in a Lincoln Financial Field parking lot turned surreal when a woman stole his prosthetic left leg.
Forriest, a Vietnam-era veteran, smiled wearily after a sleepless night and cradled the leg, which police had returned to him at 3 a.m. after a SEPTA cleaning crew found it on a Broad Street Line subway train at Fern Rock.
Forriest said he spent Sunday doing his Eagles home-game thing, sitting in his motorized wheelchair, serenading tailgaters by singing along to classic soul tracks on his boom box, when a young woman ran up and plopped herself into his lap.
That was not unusual, Forriest said, because when he's delivering his sensual rendition of the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," he's a babe magnet.
Like his dad, Sonny Forriest Sr., he spent years touring as a guitarist with Philly soul bands, and he still has the chops to prove it.
Hours before game time, Forriest said, he was jamming on guitar with his longtime pal Tony Cartwright on bass when "a beautiful girl ran up. Her name was Ashley. I pulled my leg off and said, 'You're so pretty, I give you my leg.' She laughed. I set it on my chair. We danced."
But hours later, during the Eagles' 27-0 demolition of the Giants, another girl gave Forriest a spontaneous lap dance - and she was no Ashley.
"She came out of nowhere and jumped into my lap," Forriest said. "She was inebriated, really toasted. She was a brunette. She was knockout-gorgeous.
"She started wiggling that butt on my junk," he said, and smiled. "But her wiggling broke my mic. Some of these girls aren't wrapped too tight, man, especially when they get toasted.
"All of a sudden, she grabbed my leg, ran off and disappeared. No respect for an older person or a disabled person."
Forriest got home at 1:30 a.m. with the help of his godsons Aaron and Ethan Simmons. The police called to tell him they had the leg at the 24th and Wolf station.
"Officer [Christine] Valentine helped me walk in," Forriest said. "This lady was strong. I told her, 'Good things come in small packages.' " He finally got home with his leg at 5:30 a.m.
Forriest does not want to see the perp behind bars.
"I want her to apologize and I want to see her work at a veterans hospital, among people who have lost an arm or a leg," Forriest said.
"These young kids drink too much," he said. "Go ahead and get a brain instead of a beer bottle. Don't be like the Scarecrow in 'The Wizard of Oz.' "
Forriest said that when the news about his stolen leg went viral on social media, people who had witnessed Ashley's innocent dance with him mistakenly assumed she was the culprit.
"Ashley called me and said people were saying she stole it, which is not true," Forriest said gallantly. "It made her really upset."
- Staff writer Morgan Zalot
contributed to this report.