Steve Hofmeyr - SA's first man without a brain

Neuroscientists at Groote Schuur, Cape Town’s premier academic hospital, today admitted that they were baffled about how alleged author, singer and self-styled Afrikaner saviour Steve Hofmeyr had existed for more than 50 years without a brain. Hofmeyr was airlifted to the pioneering medical centre – the scene of the world’s first heart transplant – after tweeting: “Sorry to offend but in my books Blacks were the architects of apartheid. Go figure.”

“Frankly, we were concerned for his safety. The psychiatric and medical staff here agreed unanimously that it was impossible for anyone to be quite that stupid, and so we had him medically boarded for his own good,” said the hospital’s chief psychiatrist, Dr Freudian Slurp. On arrival at Groote Schuur, Hofmeyr was rushed to the radiology department where his brain was scanned using magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr Fatus Cranius. “The scans showed the chamber but it was completely empty. It is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” he added. “What’s remarkable is that Mr Hofmeyr is able to lead a relatively functional life. He can eat and sleep and clearly warbles a tune, but sadly nothing he says will ever make sense.”

The reason for the disappearing brain? “We surmise that Hofmeyr was born with some kind of neural matter, but he has a unique anomaly in that part of his digestive system is intricately connected by a small tube that runs along his spinal cord to his brainstem. It appears that hot air from his digestive tract was being forced into his head and started pushing his neural matter back into his stomach, where it was obviously digested and exited via his bowels without his being aware of this,” Cranius explains. “Basically, the hot air filled up his cranium over time and, as the pressure built, started escaping out of his mouth, mimicking speech. This is why he is still able to approximate singing and speech,” the neurospecialist said.

The neurology department of Groote Schuur have dubbed this unique phenomenon “The Steve Hofmeyr Effect”. “We’d like to pay tribute to Mr Hofmeyr, who has enabled this medical discovery,” Cranius told members of the media at a press conference held at the hospital on Sunday October 26 2014.

When asked whether a brain transplant was scheduled for Hofmeyr, Groote Schuur’s surgical experts ruled this out. They said Hofmeyr was functioning “after a fashion” and presented no harm to himself or society, as long as “people don’t take anything Hofmeyr says seriously”. – Sideswipe, South Africa’s finest news source