Bandages

Wrapped in bandages from head to toe, a bloody figure lurks by the side of an isolated stretch of highway in Oregon’s Cannon Beach.

I can still remember the first time I heard about the scary figure with the bloody bandages. It was back in 1960 and I knew the kid that had the first terrifying encounter with The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach.

There is an old road, that leads off an old section of Highway 101 that had been bypassed when a new section was added. This stretch of road was a popular place for local kids to go with their girlfriends.

One night, two of the local kids, a boy and a girl, were driving up there on that stretch of road. The boy parked his old chevy pickup by the side of the road and was making out with his girlfriend when they started to hear strange noises. All of a sudden, they felt the vehicle lean back and rock from side to side, as if something was moving around in the back of the truck. They turned to look out the rear window and found themselves staring into a bandaged face.

There was a man crouched in the back of the truck, covered from head-to-toe in bandages that were stained with blood. Only his wierd looking eyes showed through eyeholes in the bandages. For a second, they just stared at him, frozen in terror. Then the bandaged figure started beating on the rear window and banging on the roof of the truck like a madman. The boy was scared out of his wits and the girl started screaming hysterically.

The boy started his engine, got it in gear and tore out of there as fast as he could. His girlfriend covered her eyes and kept screaming in terror. They could still hear the terrifying sound of the bandaged man pounding on the back window of the truck. Then there was a tremendous crash and the sound of breaking glass. Frightened out of their wits, they just kept on driving, speeding down the highway, not daring to look back.

Finally, they reached town and pulled into a service station. Once the truck had stopped and they had both managed to calm down, they looked behind them. The bandaged figure was nowhere to be seen. The boy got out and checked the back of the truck. The rear window was smashed, the roof was dented, but the back of the truck was completely empty except for a few stray bandages.

The kid and his family still live in Cannon Beach. I went to school with two of his brothers. Of course, he’s all grown up now and he married the girl he was dating at the time. They told me that, since that night, they have never again ventured out to that isolated stretch of Highway 101, for fear of running into the Bandage Man.

Drivers have long reported seeing the strange and disturbing figure of a man, completely wrapped in bandages, haunting the roads outside the small community of Cannon Beach. They say the sight of him is horrific to behold. His body is mangled and his limbs stick out at odd angles. The bloody bandages are wrapped almost entirely around his face and body and hang loose at the ends. Those who have slowed down or stopped when the figure approached their car have been savagely attacked.

They say he jumps onto vehicles that are passing by on the road. Sometimes he breaks the windows and other times, he crawls across the roof and hangs down, blocking the front window. Each time, they say, the bloody figure clings tightly to the roof of the vehicle as it speeds down the highway and he always vanishes just before they reach town. Those who have come close enough, report that he smells absolutely horrible, as if his flesh is rotting away. The bandage man always leaves behind stray bits of his bloody, foul-smelling bandages.

Legend has it that he is the ghost of a logger who was cut to pieces in a grotesque sawmill accident. They say he was severely injured by the blades of the saw, and died while wrapped in bandages. Locals believe that his ghost returned to exact revenge for his untimely death. Whatever the story, the bandage man is said to be terrifying, violent and destructive, and should be avoided at all costs.

Two years ago, I was with a a group of friends, and we were traveling home from the beach. It was late at night and we saw a man running down the highway with strips of white cloth hanging from his body. His body jerked back and forth in an odd fashion as he ran. We had no idea what we were looking at, and it really freaked us out. We didn’t know if it was a ghost or some crazy escaped mental patient. The funny thing is, none of us knew the legend of The Bandage man at the time. A few months later, my mother was talking about the ghost legends of Oregon and happened to mention The Bandage Man. I was in shock when she began telling the story, because I knew she was describing the hideous apparition I had seen, running down the highway, his bloody bandages fluttering in the breeze.