Man Loses Fight With Hometown Tyson Doctors Reattach His Ear After Passerby Bites It Off During ‘Scrappy’ Squabble

It took surgeons 3-1/2 hours to reattach a big chunk of Todd Lowary’s ear, bitten off and spat into the gravel by a passerby who challenged him to a fight.

Lowary said he was trimming hedges at his parents’ home Thursday morning when a man walked by.

Pausing for a moment, Lowary tried to be neighborly. “I see him walk around town a lot. So I just said, ‘Hi, you out for a walk?”’

Lowary said the man responded grumpily that he was not walking, and a discussion between the two ensued. It ended with a challenge that Lowary step out of the yard.

Lowary, 34, accepted the challenge.

“He was an older guy. Probably 10 years older than me,” Lowary said. “He slugged me and I started hitting back. It turned into a scrappy deal.”

Both men soon were on the ground and Lowary was in a choke hold. “I wanted him to quit. I started saying, ‘OK. OK.’ And about that time I thought, ‘I hope he doesn’t bite my ear.’ As soon as I thought it, he did it,” Lowary said.

Rising to his feet, Lowary felt for his ear and found nothing there. In a panic, he cursed the fellow and asked, ‘Did you swallow my ear?”

The man cursed him back and took off.

“About an inch or more was gone. A mouthful - like Tyson did with Evander Holyfield,” Lowary said.

After finding his ear in the gravel, Lowary wrapped his head with a T-shirt, got into his car and placed the ear in his lap for the drive to St. Anthony Hospital.

On the way, he spotted his mother and brother driving along the road.

Panicked, Lowary got out and told his family what had happened. When he got back in the car, he couldn’t find his ear.

His family searched the area, but found nothing.

At the hospital, doctors urged the family to keep searching.

“Mom went outside and just prayed that she’d find the ear, and then she began to search my car again,” Lowary said. She felt down along the seat belt, and there it was.

“And now here I sit in this hospital, hoping my ear will stay on,” Lowary said.

He said he will not press charges against the man, calling his ordeal a lesson.

“I made a wrong choice by walking out on the street and forcing the issue,” he said. “You ought to keep your mouth shut, and trim your own damn bushes.”