Lost items: Mom's ashes, prosthetic leg

More than one million people a day ride Los Angeles' trains, buses and subways, and as diverse as they are, so are the items they leave behind.

Everything from the mundane, wallets, cell phones and schoolbooks, to the unexpected, a prosthetic leg, a human jaw bone and immunization records, have been reported lost by travelers.

The items will sometimes end up at a two-room lost and found operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that is set to reopen Wednesday following a $137,000 renovation.

"There's some of everything here," said Lorna Riley, the MTA customer service agent who logs and sorts everything that comes through.

The lost-and-found, located in the former Tilfords Restaurant at Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, holds items for 30 days before offering them up for auction or donating them to charity.

Unclaimed clothes, books and toys have been given to the Midnight Mission, a homeless shelter on Skid Row, and backpacks have been used by law enforcement agencies to train dogs to sniff out drugs and explosives.

Last year, the MTA netted $7,000 from lost-and-found items, in addition to $4,000 in unclaimed cash.

Riley said one man came in looking for his class assignment _ a jaw bone _ that he lost on a bus. Another man couldn't find his prosthetic leg after removing it while he took a catnap on a bus.

And a woman reported missing a suitcase containing her mother's cremated remains.

"Every day is different," Riley said. "You never know what to expect."

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Information from: (Los Angeles) Daily News, http://www.dailynews.com