T-Boned

This object had been lodged in the forearm of Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, U.S., until it was surgically removed last month. The car accident 51 years ago that caused the injury was so severe it was first reported as a fatality, and resulted in a broken hip that drew attention away from his arm. "We see all kinds of foreign objects like nails or pellets, but usually not this large, usually not a turn signal from a 1963 T- Bird," says hand surgeon Timothy Lang. Asked what he may do with it, Lampitt replied that he may turn it into a keychain.

Posted with Blogsy

Koala clutch

A koala in Queensland, Australia, had a wild ride last week. He was struck by a car near Maryborough, but clung to the undercarriage until he was noticed in Gympie – a distance of 54.5 mile (88km) down a busy highway at speeds of up to 68mph (110km/h)! "It is absolutely amazing that he has such minor injuries and he survived," says veterinarian Claude Lacasse of the Australia Zoo, where the koala is on pain relievers until he recovers and can be released back into the wild. Almost as lucky as this animal in 2010, his only complaint is that he broke a nail...

 

Posted with Blogsy

Lego legacy

On February 13, 1997, container ship Tokio Express was hit by a rogue wave off the coast of Cornwall, England, shortly after it left for New York. The ship listed sharply and 62 containers slid overboard about 20 miles off Land's End. The one container that apparently split open contained a total of 4,756,940 Lego pieces, of which an estimated 3,178,807 were light enough to have become flotsam. In the eyes of those who have been cleaning the litter off the beaches for the last 17 years, this was an ecological disaster. But for tourists and treasure hunters, the Legos – which includes daisies and dragons – are collectors' items. Ironically, many of the miniature toys that the shipment contained were nautically themed: divers, pirates and cutlasses, red and yellow spear guns (13,000 units), life preservers (26,600), pairs of flippers (418,000), scuba gear (97,500), brown ship rigging nets (26,400), and the much rarer black octopuses (4,200), as depicted above. Cornish beachcomber Tracey Williams divulges, "These days the holy grail is an octopus or a dragon."

 

Posted with Blogsy

In a twist

In a case that merited mention in The New England Journal of Medicine, a 48-year-old Italian man sustained some major injuries in a motorcycle accident. He had broken his ribs, punctured his lungs, and ruptured spleen. But the strange thing was that his heart – along with the pulmonary artery and aorta – twisted 90° to the right. The buildup of air in the pleural cavity rather then the twisting of his body in the accident caused the dextrocardia, as it is called, which then reversed itself. Doctors Andrea Colli and Enrico Petranzan of the University of Padua write, "A total of 24 hours after pleural drainage, the patient's heart moved leftward, back into its original position, with complete anatomical and physiological recovery of the great vessels and other areas. A follow-up echocardiogram and CT scan did not show the presence of any relevant anatomical disruption of the heart, vessel tears, heart-valve dysfunction, or impairment of cardiac contractility caused by the previous rotation of the heart."

Posted with Blogsy

Accidental elk

Swedish professionals skier Jesper Modin was driving home to Östersund when his vision was compromised by the sun as he rounded a hill. He collided with a large elk and describes, "It smashed into the windscreen and went tumbling over the roof. I was completely covered in glass and the elk's innards." What he didn't realize until hours later – after the car had been towed and he reached in to retrieve some belongings – was that the elk had been pregnant and those innards included a full-term calf. Amazingly, the baby elk had survived the impact and was alive on the floorboards of the backseat. But after wildlife authorities arrived on the scene, they decided to euthanize it. Unlike newborn sharks, newborn elk will not survive without the help of the mother.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Luckless duck

"You're sitting there waiting for a bird to come in. Never did see him. All of the sudden the window just explodes. I don't know if he was diving or what happened when I got him," describes Ron Weber about piloting his single-engine plane into Fort Myers, Florida, U.S., on Saturday. He was about 1,000' (305 m) off the ground, traveling at 170 mph (274 km/h), when a bird hit the windshield. A camera on board caught the incident (VIDEO HERE), after which Weber had the presence of mind to bring the plane down safely at Page Field Airport. The cockpit was full of shattered glass, which had cut his forehead, but there was no dead bird to be found. Its species could be known, however, with the analysis of the snarge it left behind…

Posted with Blogsy

Pork and beans

New Castle, Pennsylvania, Monday, February 13, 2012, 11:30AM
Firefighters responded to 817 E. Lutton St., dispatching 3 trucks and an ambulance to a reported fire. They were summoned by retired butcher Cash Koszela, who had seen flames when he opened the door of his backyard smokehouse to lower the 300° temperature. Koszela, who has been smoking sausage for 30 to 35 years in the 20 sq. ft. tin-lined structure, was using applewood to smoke about 200 lbs. of kielbasa when the operation overheated. Firefighters dismantled the shed in the course of controlling the blaze, which they determined to be a grease fire, and successfully removed the meat (photo here). “It’s done, and it doesn’t appear to be burned,” said Koszela, who plans to rebuild. Remarked assistant fire chief David Joseph, “This is definitely the best-smelling fire we’ve seen in a long time.”

Chicago, Illinois, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 8:20AM
Police and firefighters responded to McFetridge Drive between Museum Campus Drive and Lake Shore Drive after receiving reports of a suspicious package, according to Police News Affairs Officer Robert Perez (photo here). The area around the Field Museum was closed off while emergency responders used a robot to inspect the suspicious container located near the Soldier Field parking garage (video here). The scene was cleared and the area was reopened in about 2 hours after authorities removed what they determined to be a container of beans.

Crushed

It takes a minute for the mind to make sense of this photograph, which 1st appeared to me to be an abstract image, but the accompanying news report reveals that the 40' orange shipping container fell 200' to the ship's deck and killed longshoreman Steven Nicholas Saggiani, 47, at the Port of Long Beach, California, on Thursday. Crushing accidents are all too common, even excluding traffic accidents, as this list of recent fatalities indicates:

• 5/22/08 A 49-year-old man died after he was pinned beneath a metal bin filled with rocks in Anaheim, California.
• 3/9/09 Larry Cantrell, 61, was crushed by the compactor of his side-loading recycling truck in Eugene, Oregon.
• 8/20/11 Tuan Phan, 49, was crushed by a circular knitting machine in Garden Grove, California.
• 1/28/11 Delmas Ramsey, 20, was killed inside a cement crusher he was attempting to unclog in Clermont, Florida.
• 5/23/11 Pat Marino, 73, was crushed to death by a 3,500lb winch in Winthrop, Massachusetts.
• 6/27/11 Kyle Helton, 22, was crushed by part of a petroleum pipeline in Lufkin, Texas.
• 6/23/11 Allen Rommell, 48, was killed while welding an industrial tank in White Lake, Michigan.
• 8/30/11 Henry LaFlore, 58, had his head crushed by a press in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• 12/6/11 An unidentified man was killed when a 3,000lb tortilla maker fell from a forklift as it was being moved in Palm Springs, Florida.
• 12/7/11 Annette Lujan, 48, was crushed to death by an elevator* at Cal State in Long Beach, California, where she was a student.
• 12/14/11 Suzanne Hart, 41, was crushed by the elevator in the 28-story office building where she worked in New York.
• 12/20/11 Annette Goode, 53, was killed by falling bales of paper while sweeping at a recycling plant in Dayton, Ohio.
• 1/10/12 Brady Perkins, 47, was crushed by a press machine as he worked at a sign-making company in St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1/16/12 Lucio Valderrabano, 40, was killed by a 700lb bale of hay at a mushroom processing plant in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

To end on a happier note, 40-year-old David Beers, owner of Eaton Mountain Ski Area in Skowhegan, Maine, was run over by his 18.000lb snow-grooming machine (photo here) last month and survived with only a dislocated ankle and a broken jaw.

*I've done a 2-part post about elevators here and here.

2 deaths, 2 dogs

Barney
Kayaker Rory O'Conner was fishing off Sarasota, Florida, on Saturday when a dog swam up to him (video here) at least 1/2 mile away from beach access. "He was really really scared and he was shivering at first I thought he was cold but then I could tell he was really scared. He had to swim pretty far and he was pretty beat up. His paw was bleeding and he had a bunch of scrapes." O'Conner quickly brought the dog to shore and his sister rushed him to the vet. A microchip held contact information for his owners, the Chens (photo here), so the vet called their house to let them know the dog had been found. Unfortunately, just moments earlier, Wellington Chen had just been told by police that his wife of 26 years had been struck and killed by a 22-year-old drunk driver. Donna Chen (1st image), 53-year-old mother of 2, was walking Barney on the sidewalk of a busy state road. When she was hit from behind, the dog fled the scene, running away from traffic and ending up in the Gulf of Mexico. "I think Barney coming back to us was a total miracle," said the bereft Dr. Chen.

Oly
On Wednesday of last week, a hungry and exhausted Welsh corgi showed up at the Alpine Motel in Cooke City, Montana, though his family was no longer there. "When I first saw the dog, it was sitting in front of their room staring at the door," said proprietor Robert Weinstein. Oly's owners Dave and Kerry Corcoran Gaillard had taken him along when they went backcountry skiing 4 days earlier, but only Kerry had returned. After shouting to his wife to head for the trees, 44-year-old Dave Gaillard (2nd image) and the dog had been swept up and buried by an avalanche. The search and rescue team recovered Dave's body, but team member Bill Whittle was able to drive the surviving pet (video here) back to Bozeman - where Dave's daughter Marguerite, 11, was putting photos of Oly on poster board as a memorial. His stepdaughter 15-year-old Silver Brelsford (3rd image, with Oly, video here) said, "She found out when she was halfway done with that that Ole was still alive." Dave's Dad called Oly's survival "beyond belief. It truly is a miracle.” Dave's widow told reporters, “I was excited, but it amplified the loss of Dave a little bit. You automatically wish it could be Dave.” And Silver said, "It didn’t completely ease the pain, but it helped a tiny bit.”

Barn find breaks record

"Sold!" A very famous, but unrestored, race car was sold for an unprecedented $1,341,000 (£843,000/€982,000) at auction on Thursday at Bonhams: “This is a fantastic result for the Austin-Healey and a world record for any car of this make at auction. Everyone is delighted. The auction went on for about 10 minutes and there was a tense, excited and hushed atmosphere in the room as 4 bidders competed for the car. We had bidders in the room and over the phone, but the car finally went to a private buyer who was in the room.” While I can't help thinking that the money would be better spent for humanitarian purposes, I am a sucker for stories about historical cars brought to light (for instance, this Rolls-Royce and this Bugatti). In this case, the 1953 Austin-Healey 100 Special Test Car has reposed untouched in an English barn for 42 years (1st image, the original engine). What makes it so special? It was at the center of motorsport’s deadliest accident, the 1955 Le Mans disaster that claimed dozens of lives (2nd image, more photos and a video here). A series of events had caused the British driver of this Austin-Healey, Lance Macklin (1919-2002), to brake, and the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR behind him, driven by Frenchman Pierre Levegh (1905-1955), to go airborne and break apart. Levegh was thrown from the car and killed on impact, 120 spectators were injured but survived, and 83 unfortunate race fans who were in the path of the flying debris were killed - many of them beheaded. The Austin-Healey was impounded by French authorities after the accident, but released blame-free back to the Donald

Healey Motor Co. 18 months later. The race car was repaired and put back into service, competing until the 1960s. It was acquired in 1969 and sold - still bearing its racing team road registration NOJ 393 (4th image), but not its number 26 (3rd image, as it looked in 1955) - to the current owner. Says Bonhams, the car has "racing history embodied within its structure as indelibly and unmistakably as a human fingerprint."

Inflation

Criminal

In 2010, an unnamed woman decided she wanted to surgically enhance her posterior. She paid $700 for the cosmetic treatment, but began feeling sick a few hours afterward. The injection sites were bleeding and oozing, and the patient became very ill and rushed herself to Tampa General Hospital, where she was treated for infection and pneumonia. "The victim sustained extensive disfigurement to her buttocks and scarring, had to undergo several blood transfusions and multiple surgeries...followed with home nursing care for several weeks," reads an e-mail from Jennifer Hirst, Deputy Press Secretary for Florida's Department of Health. Consequently, Oneal Ron Morris (1st image) was arrested earlier this month in Miami Gardens, Florida, and charged with causing bodily injury and practicing healthcare without a license. Morris, a 30-year-old MTF transsexual, did not in fact have medical credentials, despite performing many cosmetic procedures. The substances Morris injected into the buttocks of this female client to improve their shape and appearance included - according to initial laboratory analysis - superglue, mineral oil, cement, and Fix-a-Flat.

CORRECTION: I originally misidentified the person in the 1st photograph as Oneal Ron Morris's unnamed victim. It is in fact Morris. Here is the photo of another victim who has come forward. Thanks to L. Lynn Zieber for bringing the mistake to my attention.

Accidental

Steven McCormack (2nd image), a 48-year-old truck driver in Opotiki, New Zealand, had no intention of enhancing his rear end in May of this year. He was at work at Waiotahi Contractors, standing on the rigging between his truck and trailer when he slipped off. He landed on a brass valve and the nozzle pierced his left buttock. Unfortunately, that nozzle was connected to a hose intended to inject compressed air into the truck's brakes. The air rushed into McCormack's body at 100 pounds per square inch. He started screaming, and later described, "I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot. I was blowing up like a football...it felt like I had the bends - like in diving. I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon" (listen to him tell the story here). His body was twice the normal size in a matter of minutes. Fellow workers came to his aid: his boss Robbie Petersen cut the air supply, he and 2 other men lifted McCormack with the nozzle still embedded and laid him in the recovery position, and they packed ice around his neck to ease the swelling. Half an hour later an ambulance arrived, and the paramedics removed the nozzle and rushed him to Whakatane Hospital. Doctors inserted a chest tube to drain fluid from his lungs and cleared the wound in his buttock using what felt to him like a drill. The air separated his fat from his muscles filling his abdomen and chest, the space around his heart and lungs, and even behind his eyelids. It had not broken the skin, so it was allowed to escape "the usual way gas passes from the body."

Raptor attacks (click image)

Eagle

Haliaeetus leucogaster*

Owl

Strix occidentalis occidentalis

Eagle-Owl

Bubo bubo

*This species identification is my best guess, but may be incorrect.

Underwater answers

Earlier in the month, it was reported that a well-preserved body had been discovered in Lake Tahoe. A sport diver descending to a sunken boat offshore from Rubicon Point, California, spotted the body in a rock crevice and contacted authorities. The El Dorado County Sheriff's Department used a remote operated vehicle to locate it, grasp it with a mechanical claw, and bring it to the surface. Because of the temperature (a constant 35 degrees) and pressure of the water at that depth (265'), the remains did not decay.

Dental records were used to identify the body. As suspected, the remains - still in scuba gear - were those of 44-year-old Reno resident Donald Christopher Windecker, last seen at a depth of 130' and descending with his breathing regulator out of his mouth. He had begun to experience difficulty with his equipment on the ascent. His friend and diving companion tried to help but, running out of air, was forced to surface and report him missing on that day in July 1994. The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office will determine the cause of Windecker's death 17 years ago. "His remains are in amazing physical condition. We'll be able to do a thorough autopsy. He may have had a heart attack or a stroke or maybe just ran out of air. Hopefully we'll determine what happened," said Sgt. Jim Byers.

Just beyond the ledge where Windecker's body was found, the lake plunges to a depth of 1,645'. The area is infamous for swallowing up victims, and its frigid waters preserve the remains of 4 more missing divers...

Viable

An accident report has just been released by the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). From that and the eyewitness accounts, here's what transpired at 3:35pm on Nov. 19, 2010:

A Cessna aircraft approaching Birmingham Airport in thick fog struck a 50' flight-guiding antenna. The plane made a hard landing near the runway and caught fire. A man playing golf nearby described, "As it was coming to land it was on fire and as as it approached the runway it looked like it was leaning to one side slightly. Then, once it hit the runway there were sort of flames alongside the runway then it broke into a big fireball." First responders were on the scene within 3 minutes and extinguished the flames. There were no passengers on board. The captain was trapped in his seat and forced to use his fire extinguisher and oxygen mask. Suffering serious injuries to his chest, abdomen, and pelvis, he was treated at the scene and flown to the hospital. He had been helped to extricate himself by the pilot of the helicopter, who was commended for his presence of mind: “The Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance pilot bravely entered the burning wreckage, using his aviation and technical knowledge to locate and cut the fuel supply to the engine." The co-pilot, suffering back pain and flash burns, was able to extricate himself and was transported by ambulance.

Here's what makes this accident - which closed the airport for hours - especially notable: the pilot and co-pilot had just collected a donor liver at Belfast Aldergrove Airport and were transporting it to Birmingham. The organ came through unscathed. It was successfully recovered from the Cessna, taken under police escort to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and successfully transplanted into a patient on the "super urgent" list. Transplant surgeon Simon Bramhall explained, "Patients on this list only have a matter of days to survive, so in this particular instance it was crucially important that the donor liver was used and has functioned successfully." The hospital released a statement that the patient was stable after a 4-hour operation, and praised the crew and rescuers: "The transplant team would like to thank the pilot of the light aircraft and his colleague for their bravery. Our thoughts are with the individuals and their families. The team would also like to thank the quick-thinking of the fire and rescue teams at the scene who saved the organ."

Sources: Belfast Telegraph, Birmingham Mail, Guardian, SkyNews, Star, Telegraph

Impaled this month

Dez Heal, American schoolboy, age 13

The teenager and his friend Nicholas Blencow were pretending to be ninjas in their Lynchburg, Virginia, neighborhood when something went terribly wrong. He had been carrying a bamboo pole as his "weapon" and decided to put it in the back of his shirt. Nicholas reasons, "I guess when he jumped, the stick must have went forward. And when he hit the ground, the stick went in his neck." Resisting the urge to yank it out, a pale, blue-lipped Dez ran home with the lengthy pole protruding from the front and back of his neck (click on the cropped image for the article and graphic video). Dad remained calm and called 911, and his son was transported to the hospital as the possibilities rushed through his mind. "I'm thinking that I might pass out, maybe during the surgery when they pull it out, it's going to start gushing and they may not be able to save me. I'm hoping that it hasn't hit anything important," recounts Dez. Luckily, the artery had not been ruptured. Removal of the spear took surgeons 5 hours and left the boy vowing not to play so roughly.

Line Nersnaes, Norwegian civil servant, age 50

One moment she was sitting at her desk on the 11th floor of a government building in Oslo, and the next moment a deafening explosion shattered the wooden window next to her. Unaware that a car bomb had been detonated below, Line and her fellow employees headed for the door. She describes, "Everyone needed a couple of seconds to orientate ourselves, everybody who survived understood immediately that we had to get out of the building as fast as possible. We walked down the stairs, there was shattered broken glass everywhere, the building was destroyed." Having encountered her boss Knut Fosli in the hallway, they made the difficult descent together. Once they had reached street level, Line complained of a terrible headache, Knut looked at her. "You’ve got something sticking out of your head," he said. That something was a 12" spike of wood that had been driven through her head by the splintered window frame (click on the cropped image for the article and graphic photos). The giant splinter was removed at the hospital and had not caused any major damage, so she was stitched up and released. Line was back at work 5 days later. "I feel I’ve had some luck in all this bad luck, I’m very lucky to be alive."

A neat trick in Victorville

Here are the events as they unfolded in Victorville, California, on Thursday:

The driver of a minivan was heading north on Village Drive and stopped short to turn left on Rancho Road. A motorcyclist was following behind him and didn’t have time to brake. He crashed into the van, shattering the rear window. Witnesses called 911 to report the accident at 3:46pm, but were unable to tell authorities where the victims were. Because he lived only a couple of blocks away, the driver of the minivan proceeded to his house and pulled into the driveway, shouting to his wife that he’d just been rear-ended and needed to get back to the scene. The callers were afraid that the motorcycle rider had become trapped beneath the vehicle. “That’s when it started to sound ominous,” said a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office.
When the driver of the minivan returned to the scene, witnesses and emergency personnel were searching a nearby hillside for the biker's body. But the van now had a passenger. "I hit the rear end of the vehicle, flew through the window, and into the back seat," explained motorcyclist Alonzo Ray (watch video here). Although news accounts report that the minivan driver was unaware that the man who had crashed into his van was now sitting in it, Ray claims that the man didn't stop because he was driving without a license. Nevertheless, no charges were filed and neither man required immediate medical attention. (Ray asked only for an icepack for his hand, and it turns out he had broken his thumb.) “We’re calling this one a non-injury collision with a twist.”

Note that these images are just for illustrative purposes and were not taken at the scene.

Survivor

A tragic coincidence has occurred in the life of Fort Wayne, Indiana, high school basketball star Austin Hatch (1st image). Here are the circumstances:

September 2003 At the age of 8, Austin was flying with his family to their summer home on Walloon Lake in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. His father, physician Stephen Hatch, was piloting the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza. With conditions of poor visibility, Dr. Hatch diverted to Fort Wayne International Airport, which had a more sophisticated instrument landing system. Several miles short of the runway, he clipped a power pole and went down. The plane hit the ground, flipped on its top, and burst into flames near the Charlevoix Municipal Airport (2nd image). Dr. Hatch survived with burns and his son Austin escaped with minor injuries, but Austin's mother Julie, 38, his 11-year old sister Lindsay, and his 5-year old brother Ian (photos here) were killed. "Steve reached over to his son who was sitting in front with him and tossed him out the window to save his life," said David Bojrab, Dr. Hatch's close friend and business partner.

June 2011 Now age 16, Austin was returning from the same summer home in another single-engine plane piloted by his father. For as yet unknown reasons, the plane crashed into a residential garage on Friday evening. The accident (3rd image) - which left Austin with a fractured skull, broken bones, punctured lungs, a bruised brain, and deep facial cuts - killed his father, 46, and stepmother Kim. "They're all gone. He's the only one left. What's the chance of that happening? A million to one, if that. It's just unbelievable...But he's just a strong guy, a strong kid. That's what saving him right now," said Austin's basketball coach Dan Kline. Doctors hope to bring Austin out of his drug-induced coma today.

Dangerous dessert

It happened Saturday night, this past weekend. A party of 4 (1 man and 3 women) was burned by bananas foster (1st image, the dessert being served at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans, where it was invented). They had finished their meals at Ozona Blue Grilling Co. in Palm Harbor, Florida, at approximately 9pm. Their server approached the table and set their flaming dessert alight, but apparently used too much rum and set off an accidental explosion. The burning alcohol splashed onto the diners. Another patron (an off-duty firefighter) and restaurant workers provided first aid until paramedics arrived. Two of the women, ages 25 and 56, were burned severely enough to be flown by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital. The younger woman, who received 1st- and 2nd-degree burns when her dress caught fire, remains hospitalized. "It's going to be a long time for her to heal," said a fire department spokeswoman.

I have been to Brennan's as a child, but we did not order their signature dessert, nor have I had it since. I have, however, shared a much less dangerous dish with my sister while dining at the revolving restaurant at the top of Seattle's Space Needle. When water is added to dry ice beneath their lunar orbiter dessert, it causes a fog to blanket the table (video here)! Safer than flames by far, and just as spectacular.

Bad luck on boats

On May 25th, Bruce Rudeforth of Broome, Kimberley, Australia, was on a fishing trip with friends. He was baiting up his hook for barramundi when a 2.5m saltwater crocodile leapt into his dinghy and clamped its jaws around his upper chest (1st image, with apologies to squeamish readers). The victim (2nd image, being treated on scene by his brother-in-law) describes, "Out of the corner of my eye, this thing came at me. It bit into my shoulder and I stood up and gave it one in the throat with my free elbow. I presume that's what made it let go. It was a bit touch-and-go as to whether it went back into the water or came into the dinghy with us. Things were a bit tense." Even after the crocodile slid back into the water, Rudeforth and his fishing mate had to beat it with an oar to drive it off. With the puncture wounds from the animal's teeth stitched up, Rudeforth found no reason to cut short the week-long fishing trip, a planned vacation away from his practice...as a dentist.

In early June, Mark Wilkinson of Birmingham, U.K., took his newly acquired cabin cruiser out for its 1st spin. Unfortunately, the 16' second-hand vessel sank stern-first after he returned from a successful fishing trip in Lyme Bay. Due to a 6" hole in the fiberglass hull, the boat began taking on water faster than the bilge pump could pump it out. Witnesses described a big guy desperately holding on to the wheel before abandoning ship and clinging to the hull, which was still afloat due to an air pocket in the cabin. Wilkinson was rescued by the harbor master of West Bay, Dorset, and his boat had to be towed after its maiden voyage. He admits, "It's all a bit embarrassing and I got pretty fed up with people asking me if I had hit an iceberg." Why the teasing? The name of the boat was Titanic II.

Accident in 1882

I met my friend Sue through Sally, who works at the cemetery in town. Sue often walks her dogs there in the morning and noticed a strange marker (pictured):

"IN
MEMORY
OF
ROBERT -
HANNAH
WARBURTON
AND THERE
TWO CHILDREN
PETER, BESSIE
WHO DROWNED
IN FIDDLER
POND MAY
21 - 1882"

Sally explained that the family died accidentally, and Sue loaned me a history of the town, which confirms the details: "A resident who came from England, Robert Warburton, along with his wife and 2 children, drove a horse and wagon to Eustis one day in 1882. Either on the way or coming back the horse, thirsty for refreshment, ran to a small lake, Fiddler's Pond, just north of Mount Dora. But the horse slipped on the bank, plunged into the water, pulled the wagon after him, and the entire family drowned. This event is memorialized in one of the oldest monuments in Pine Forest Cemetery." Sue took me to see the stone several months ago (along with the nesting owls), but it was too overcast for a good photograph. Sally kindly e-mailed this one to me yesterday. And always on the lookout for weird news parallels, I had made a note of a passing bicyclist in Fort Worth, Texas, who stopped to rescue a drowning woman and her 7-year-old daughter from the Trinity River last summer.