In August, 12 men were arrested near Szczecin in northern Poland as they were digging up a road because they had heard a rumor that it was built with a large stockpile of police-confiscated hashish. The hashish had been sold to a chemical plant to be incinerated into ash for road construction. Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee jumped from the Middle of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 a.m. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and pulled his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the frigid waters of the Tacoma Narrows and Puget Sound and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say," said Bingham, "Is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's severed foot was never located. In rural Carbon County, PA, a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms from the rear deck of a home owned Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim and, despite of the estimated 35 shots the group fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter drainage pipe some 100 feet away from Mr. Michaels deck. Determined to terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the entire 5 gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no avail. Not one to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a submarine," according to witness Joseph McFadden, 31. Mr. Michaels was launched directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends, onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "Followed by a loud thud." Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries. "It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said, "Like when they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I'd do it again if I was sure I wouldn't get hurt." "A 34 year old Tauranga man, deliberately drove his two year old mitsubishi mirage car into his neighbour's swimming pool over the weekend. His car apparently had a leak, that let rain in, somewhere around the driver's door and he had spent several weekends trying to find it. He was quoted as saying "I saw my son finding a leak in his bicycle tire the other day, by dunking it in a bucket of water to look for bubbles - I thought I'd try the same...of course, I'd had a few beers when I made that decision". When asked if he found the leak he replied "Actually, I think I did, because I saw a stream of bubbles rising from a well defined spot near the driver's door, but I couldn't think of a way to mark it without getting soaked..." BUFFALO, N.Y. - A blind man who'd had a few drinks talked his brother and a friend into helping him drive a car and he went three kilometres before ramming a telephone pole. "They were like the Three Stooges," Lieutenant Robert Whalen said. "Here's this blind guy driving the car, another one not doing a very good job of guiding the wheel and a guy in the back seat giving directions." None of the three was seriously injured and police say the blind man, Montgomery Ford, 31, has been charged with being an unlicensed driver. He had been drinking Monday with his brother, Kevin, 25, and Donald McNair, 30, when he talked them into helping him drive. |
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