couchtripper

Woman makes cup of tea after being shot in head
An American woman who was shot in the head by her husband not only survived but made herself a cup of tea

Police and doctors hailed the survival of Tammy Sexton, 47, as miraculous after a bullet from a .38-calibre handgun struck her squarely in the forehead, passed through her skull and exited through the back of her head. She is expected to make a full recovery, while her husband shot himself dead after the attack on his wife.

But law enforcement officers in Jackson County, Mississippi, were also astonished that Mrs Sexton offered them tea when they arrived at her home after the shooting.

Sheriff Mike Byrd said: "When the officer got there she said, 'What's going on?' She was holding a rag on her head and talking. She was conscious, but she was confused about what had happened.

"She had made herself some tea and offered the officer something to drink.

"There's no way she should be alive other than a miracle from God. You just don't hear of something like this. Somebody gets shot in the head and they're dead."

He said that her husband had been on probation for domestic violence and officers had been seeking to serve him with a court order demanding he stayed away from his wife and their rural home.

He said the bullet apparently passed through the lobes of the woman's brain without causing major damage. She was rushed to hospital by helicopter where shehas been monitored for three days.

Dr Patrick Pritchard, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said: "There is a space in the brain where a missile could pass without doing any major damage.

"Is it possible? Yes. It would be rare."

from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -head.html

A pilot walked away unhurt after his plane dropped out of the sky - because its landing was cushioned when it fell on a group of portable toilets.

Gary Mayor of the Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna 182 crashed on Friday afternoon in Washington state, after taking off from Thun Field, an airfield southeast of Tacoma. Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says the plane was about 150 feet in the air when the engine gave up the ghost. Troyer told The News Tribune that the pilot tried to turn around to land but didn't quite make it.

The plane hit a fence, flipped over and landed upside down on top of the portable toilets standing in a storage yard. Authorities didn't reveal the pilot's identity.

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'Dead' Baby Found Alive At Funeral Wake

A father has described his shock at finding his 'dead' baby had come back to life when he said goodbye at the wake.

ose Alvarenga's son was born prematurely in Asuncion, Paraguay, weighing just 500 grams (17.6 ounces).

The infant was pronounced dead on Thursday and officials put the tiny body in a box and took it to his parents house four hours later.

Mr Alvarenga said: "I opened it to look at his remains and found that the baby was breathing. I began to cry."

He hurried back to the hospital where his partner was receiving treatment, and nurses put the baby in an incubator.

The infant is understood to be in a stable condition.

The hospital has said it will carry out an investigation into the incident.

"This is a very unusual case," the head of paediatric intensive care, Ernesto Weber, said.

He said the doctor in charge may not have properly checked the baby.

Other staff at the hospital said they had fought to save the infant's life for more than an hour but the pulse may have been too faint to detect.

They normally respond to emergency calls, but these fireman were the ones that needed help when their truck tipped head first into a giant hole.

The crew in Los Angeles had been summoned to help deal with a flood from a burst water pipe in a quiet residential street. But the weight of their large engine caused the sodden ground to collapse, and the vehicle slowly tipped into the muddy water-filled hole. Luckily the two firefighters escaped without injury as the cabin slowly rolled forward.

The captain and engineer had received an emergency call at about 5.20am and saw running water on the street in the Valley Village neighbourhood of San Fernando Valley, fire department spokesman Rich Matheney said. Worried the ground was unstable, the men were backing the 22-ton engine out when its front end fell into the sink-hole. The two then climbed out of the windows as water and mud began to fill the vehicle's interior, Matheney said.

Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Kim Hughes said water in the area was turned off while tow trucks prepared to pull the engine out of the hole. Last weekend another pipe breakage two miles away from this one swept cars down streets, forced people out of their homes and flooded a section of a major road. The broken main was part of the city's original water system, dating to 1914, and was scheduled for repair.

A Russian man survived after downing three bottles of vodka and leaping from a fifth floor balcony - twice. Alexei Roskov says he jumped the second time because he couldn't take his wife's nagging about the first time.

Wife Yekaterina had watched in horror as her drunken hubsand opened the kitchen window of their Moscow apartment, and hurled himself out. Astonishingly Mr Roskov, 22, survived and managed to stagger back upstairs with barely a scratch after the 50ft fall. But while his wife called for an ambulance and began to scold him, he jumped again. Amazed medics treated Mr Roskov for minor cuts and bruises before releasing him.

Mr Roskov says he is now teetotal after giving up drinking, and added: "Now I can say just one thing - I was very lucky. I have no idea why I jumped the first time but when I came back up and I heard my wife screaming angrily at me I thought it was best if I left the room again - out of the window."

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Holy shamolie or something!

It probably is best not to fiddle with switches or controls when riding in the back seat of an air force plane. A man who failed to obey that principle found himself hurtling out of the cockpit, smashing through the Perspex canopy and into space after grabbing the black- and yellow-striped handle between his legs. He had inadvertently pulled the eject lever and found himself blasted 100 metres into the sky on his rocket-powered seat.

The South African air force has confirmed the incident that took place last Wednesday, when the passenger took off for a flight with an experienced pilot from South Africa's Silver Falcons air display team. Investigators are assuming that the passenger tried to steady himself while the pilot was putting the Pilatus PC-7 Mk II through its paces by grabbing the eject lever.

"Much of the information has yet to be tested, but it is confirmed that a civilian passenger unintentionally ejected from a Silver Falcons Pilatus PC-7 Mk II Astra during a general flying sortie out of Langebaanweg air force base this week," a South African air force spokesman said. "The passenger was recovered [by helicopter] unharmed, and returned to Langebaanweg. The aircraft landed safely." The spokesman said the flight had been cleared and all procedures adhered to "prior to the passenger boarding the aircraft", making it unlikely charges would follow.

A retired SAAF instructor pilot said the passenger was extremely lucky to have survived the ejection with barely a scratch. "We train for this and if you don't get it right, and are not in the correct ejection posture, you can sustain severe spinal cord injuries or even worse," he told South Africa's Sunday Times. He discounted the possibility that the seat fired of its own accord, as too many safety features were built into the system. "All it takes is for the firing handle [the rubbery black- and yellow-striped loop] to be pulled up about 2.5cm and you're on your way out."

He said the ejection would have been dramatic. "You get one almighty kick under the backside and then you're gone. The seat separates from the pilot automatically and the chute opens," he said. "This is in case the pilot is incapacitated during the ejection."

Passengers would have been briefed on the ejection sequence and warned that the "loop" between his legs was not to be touched unless the pilot called "Eject, eject, eject" during the flight. Such a briefing is done routinely, even when two qualified pilots are involved in the flight. It is likely the rear cockpit was extensively damaged by the firing of the cartridges and rockets during the ejection.

The Silver Falcons are the SAAF's aerobatic team that perform precision formation and aerobatics displays at airshows around the country. The five pilots are all serving instructors at Central Flying School, Langebaanweg. As one observer said: "What a trip. That guy took off in an Astra, came down in a parachute, and landed back at base in a helicopter. Not bad for a for a single flip."

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Just a few more yards and a helicopter which crashed on the edge of a cliff would have plunged a mile into a canyon killing the three men on board. But they survived the ridge-top crash and were more than grateful that they had come down where they had, rather than toppled over to what would have been certain death.

The crew of an ambulance helicopter which arrived at the scene, on the border of New South Wales. The ambulance helicopter had been on a call to a remote area following erroneous reports that another chopper had crashed in the area. To their amazement, they saw a helicopter right on the edge of the precipice.

The three men, aged in their 30s and 40s, were spotted alive and uninjured near the helicopter which had come down in the Mount Barney National Park. They had to be winched from the crash site and were then taken to a police station to give officers an account of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

The Chopperline flight training company said later that one of its helicopters with three people on board had been involved. 'No-one was injured in the incident,' the company said in a statement. 'Authorities are investigating and we can make no further comment.'

Mr Innes Larkin, co-owner of a nearby mountain lodge, said he heard the helicopter flying around during the morning but thought it was an official aircraft being used by authorities as they planned to burn off surplus vegetation in the area. 'But then it disappeared and then we heard more choppers buzzing,' said Mr Innes. 'I thought that maybe it was the same chopper back again. I didn't hear a crash but heard them buzzing around.'

He said Mount Barney National Park was a beautiful area and popular with bushwalkers and nature-lovers. 'It's spectacular from a helicopter, but not one that crashes. It would have been a tricky rescue.' Martin Hanna, the pilot of the rescue helicopter, said: 'I thought it was quite amazing the helicopter stayed perched where it was. They've landed on rock on the side and walked away almost without a scratch. If they had been another ten yards to the north they would have gone straight down,' he said. 'It wouldn't have taken much for severe injuries or death if they had gone down either side of that ridgeline.'

The pilot of the crashed helicopter told rescuers that they had been conducting some kind of mountain training. 'He thought there was some sort of mechanical problem and all he could do was put it down on the right side,' said Mr Hanna. 'The pilot had done everything right. I was quite amazed. I have never seen anything like that and had people with virtually no injuries.'

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Why the headline says '2ft' from disaster I've no idea... but still, quite a story!

A German man owes his life to a woman who rescued him from 350 miles away – thanks to his camera. The man lost on a frozen stretch of the North Sea was facing almost certain death when he flashed his camera in the hope that someone might be out watching the same beautiful sunset he had set out to witness. Luckily the camera flash off the coast of St. Peter-Ording near the Danish border was witnessed by a female nature lover sitting in front of her computer in the Westerwald region near the Rhine hundreds of miles away in southern Germany.

She was monitoring a camera set up on the beach to record the vivid sunset. Seeing the camera flashes she alerted local police who in turn sent through an emergency call that resulted in a patrol rescuing the man as temperatures plunged to -20c. Police spokeswoman Kristin Stielow said: 'He was walking on the ice, got disoriented and would probably have either fallen through the ice or succumbed to the cold. He was very lucky that this lady was sharing the same natural phenomenon but from the warmth and safety of her own home.'

The man in his 40s was treated for mild exposure after his ordeal. He is planning a visit to the woman he owes his life to when he has recovered.

One moment, Rona Williams was driving along the motorway thinking about her forthcoming day at work as a vet. The next, she was being shunted sideways at 60mph, trapped beneath the front bumper of a tanker whose driver did not even notice she was there. Her terrifying ordeal was captured on film by a passenger in another car on the A1(M) near Leeds and has been viewed millions of times since it was posted on YouTube last week.

The Mail has tracked down 31-year-old Mrs Williams to her home in York, and she revealed her ordeal was just as terrifying as it looked. As her Renault Clio was pushed along, she screamed: 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die.' Mrs Williams had just joined the motorway ten minutes away from her surgery in Garforth when her car was apparently clipped by the lorry and ended up under its bumper. 'I just felt a knock and then I was travelling sideways – twisted 90 degrees clockwise,' she said.

She yanked on her handbrake, sounded her horn and flashed her hazard lights, but to no avail. 'I kept thinking, "Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody has seen me",' she said. 'I tried everything. I was watching other cars, thinking, "Help me, just help me" – but they didn't seem to be doing very much.' Terrified the lorry was going to ram her into the crash barrier, Mrs Williams grabbed her mobile phone from her handbag.

'I wasn't on hands-free, but I figured I wasn't really driving the car,' she said. 'I just screamed at the operator, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die! Can you do something?" 'She tried to calm me down but there wasn't really anything she could do at the end of the phone.'

Mercifully, almost a minute after her ordeal had begun, the lorry driver apparently spotted her. 'Suddenly he was all over the road,' she said. 'Finally he managed to manoeuvre us safely on to the hard shoulder.' After she came to a stop she immediately phoned her husband Rob, 32 – also a vet – to tell him: 'You're not going to believe what's just happened.'

The lorry driver opened her door and asked if she was all right. 'He didn't seem overly concerned,' she said. 'He even asked if I thought he needed to hang around!' Mrs Williams said she politely suggested he did, and within minutes police had arrived and they swapped insurance details.

Mrs Williams says she is now nervous about taking the motorway but is impressed that her Clio survived with only a dented side and damaged tyres The YouTube clip has prompted police to reopen an investigation into the accident and the driver, from Cheshire-based Arclid Transport, has been suspended.

Mrs Williams says she is now nervous about taking the motorway but is impressed that her Clio survived with only a dented side and damaged tyres. 'It must be a tough little car.'

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I'd imagine that would have been a touch scary right enough!

Xiao Wei, 16, was attacked when he fell out with a gang of thugs at an internet cafe he worked at in Mishazi, northeast China, after clocking up a high score on his favourite game, Counter Strike.
He was left with a razor sharp kitchen knife plunged through his left temple and the half-inch tip of the blade emerging from his right temple.

Amazed medics watched him stagger into casualty at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, being held up by his pals. 'We thought it was some sort of student prank until they got closer and he collapsed,' said one.

But surgeons - who took two hours to remove the blade - say Wei is likely to make a full recovery. Neurosurgery deputy director Professor Yan Shijun explained: 'His face was covered in blood, but he was still conscious. I've never seen anything like it in 23 years as a surgeon. The X-rays and CAT scans confirmed that the blade had not hit any main arteries or nerves. But the patient may have post-surgery complications like infections, brain damage or epileptic fits. But he has regained consciousness and is really lucky,' he added.

Pal Huang Shen, 18, says he and Wei were attacked when a local gang tried to force Wei to load some unauthorised software onto the cafe's computers. 'I'd been stabbed in my left arm, and when they had gone, I found Wei was lying on the ground with a knife in his head,' he recalled. Police are now examining surveillance camera footage of the attack.

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Arctic Survey team escape disaster after ice cracks under their tent

This is the dramatic moment a British team of scientists had a miraculous escape during an Arctic surveying expedition - when a huge ice crack opened - beneath their tents.

The three member Catlin Arctic Survey is at the North Pole doing an annual survey to assess the effects of climate change - and has narrowly avoided calamity.

The team members Ann Daniels, Martin Hartley and Charlie Paton were camping on the ice pan when it started to break up.


Don't look down: The giant crack opened beneath the tents of a British team of scientists during an Arctic surveying expedition

Charlie Paton said: 'We heard a crack, a few bangs and then suddenly the ice started to break apart.

'It all happened very quickly and was unlike anything I've experienced before.'

His colleague Ann Daniels added: 'It happened during breakfast so the tent was full of equipment and our sledges were outside.

'We had to decide quickly which side of the crack we were going to try and stay on and quickly rescue all of the kit to ensure no lasting damage was sustained.'

Luckily nothing was broken in the incident,although the explorers were left a little shaken.

Martin Hartley explained: 'We're at least a week away from resupplying so it would have been disastrous to lose anything at this stage of the expedition.

'In fact the thought of being left without a tent in this extreme environment makes me shiver more than I already am.'

A spokesman for the expedition added: 'This is just another example of the chaotic ice conditions the team has faced since the start of the expedition.

'But they are determined to continue their journey north, collecting the seawater samples vital to scientists understanding of the impact increasing atmospheric CO2 may be having on our oceans.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... -tent.html