OK, I have to ask. Was there some abundance of "missing members" lying around the streets? I would think that ANY disconnected member would have qualified as "the one" to recover and get to the hospital!
Needless to say, the officers may have been indulging in some gallows humor, even though the victim was no longer hung.
Try looking on a a few miles of two lane road for a 'missing member' in the dark at night (not well-lit city streets). It could be just as easily missed as run over by a truck.