When taking into consideration the unfortunate perils of the illegal sex trade, it should come as no surprise that sometimes a rescue effort is needed to recover a dead body found floating face down in a river. But, when a massive recovery effort only uncovers an inflatable sex toy, we feel like the signs of the times are pointing towards greater things.

That’s what went down last week in eastern China – where eighteen police officers were dispatched to a river just outside the province of Shandong in an attempt to fish out the corpse of a female who had apparently been tossed in.

However, after taking nearly an hour to recover the body, authorities found that it wasn’t the body of a woman at all – it was actually someone’s missing blow-up doll. For the record, it is always wise to put a life jacket on your sex doll when mounting it within ten feet of a river – safety first!

Officials say that the love puppet’s outline and proportions were so much like that of a real woman that they were forced to pursue it. We certainly hope these guys were dealing with one of those expensive, life-like sex dolls with real hair and moving parts and not one that retails for $19.95 in adult superstores and off-highway trucker emporiums.

While police report that their efforts to pull the inflatable doll out of the river made for quite a wild public scene, no one has come forward to lay claims to her.

We are willing to bet that she is being taken very good care of by whoever has the key to the evidence room.

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