`The above photo is courtesy of Kane Quinnell from Australia. It was almost his last. The above lightning stroke was almost certainly a “bolt from the blue” – a relatively rare positive lightning bolt that originates from the top of a distant storm cloud rather than from the negatively charged cloud base. [..]
“[..] I clicked away a few times, and got nothing, and then clicked the button again, and within 0.5 seconds of me pressing the button, I had jumped at least 2 metres in the air, as I heard a tremendously loud crack of thunder, and see this amazingly bright beam of electricity right in front of me. I had then landed, grabbed the camera, and was inside the house within 2 seconds.
I did not realize just how lucky I was until I uploaded the picture to my computer, and saw a leader stroke that must have originated no more than 2 metres from where I was standing next to my car, under my carport. Had the main charge taken the leader near me, rather than the one it did, I would be dead. [..]”‘
`A man plummeted 130 feet from a helicopter Monday but escaped injury because deep snow cushioned his fall.
The 42-year-old was suspended from the helicopter by a rope to make repairs when the knot came undone and he slipped free, police in the Upper Austria town of Hallstatt said in a statement.’
`A 52-year-old rocket enthusiast suffered minor injuries when a motor exploded as he packed powder into the casing, blowing his garage door off its hinges in Oceanside, authorities said Saturday.
Firefighters were called to the man’s home in the 3700 block of Nectarine Circle at 7:38 p.m. Friday, Oceanside fire battalion Chief Peter Lawrence said.
They found a trash can smoldering, the garage door split in half and smoke filling the cul-de-sac where the home is located, Lawrence said. [..]
Firefighters suggested Reiner find a safer hobby. Reiner told them that “God has a plan for me and apparently it was not supposed to end tonight,” Lawrence said.’
`A Shawano probation and parole agent who was fired in 2004 for accessing Internet pornography and other inappropriate sites for hours a day over at least five months has his job back – with a raise.
He also will receive a year of back pay. [..]
The department must also pay any medical expenses for DeLeon that would have been covered by the state’s insurance plan during his yearlong absence, the arbitrator ruled. The order prohibits DeLeon from using the Internet.’
`Investigators want to know how a male inmate wound up in a female holding cell with 13 women.
It happened at the Cumberland County courthouse, where inmates were waiting to go before the judge. Deputies say Michael Harris was behind bars with the women for hours before anyone found out. They’re looking into whether anything sexual happened between them.’
`A family on South Australia’s west coast has discovered a rare specimen of whale vomit on the beach that is tipped to be worth over $1 million.
The specimen, known scientifically as ambergris, is sought after by perfume companies and worth about per gram.
The sample found on a beach near Streaky Bay weighs 14.75 kilograms.’
`Retired Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov received a special World Citizen Award at a UN meeting in New York on Thursday. Petrov was honored as the “Man Who Averted Nuclear War”. [..]
Petrov was highly aware that Cold War tensions were acute, as USSR fighters had shot down a Korean airliner on Sept. 1. But he was completely shocked when the warning siren began to wail and two lights on his desk console began flashing MISSILE ATTACK and START. “Start” was the instruction to launch, irreversibly, all 5,000 or so Soviet missiles and obliterate America.
A new, unproven Soviet satellite system had picked up a flash in Montana near a Minuteman II silo. Then another — five, all told.
Petrov recalls his legs were “like cotton,” as they say in Russian. He stared at the huge electronic wall map of the United States in terror and disbelief. As his staff gawked upward at him from the floor, he had the thought, “Who would order an attack with only five missiles? That big an idiot has not been born yet, not even in the U.S.”’
`A woman who had been blind for 25 years awoke in hospital after suffering a heart attack and found that she could see again.
Since 1979, Joyce Urch had lived in a world of shadows and near-darkness, but was astonished to find her sight restored when she came round after being resuscitated. [..]
She said: “When I first came round I just opened my eyes and shouted, ‘I can see, I can see.’ When I looked in the mirror I said, ‘Oh.’ I said to [her husband] Eric, ‘You’ve got older haven’t you?’ But I thought, ‘I’m old myself, my husband must be too.”
‘Last September, the 23rd to be exact, I got a speeding ticket. 47 m.p.h. in a 30 m.p.h. zone, in an area well known for busting speeders. Yesterday, I went to court for it. I won, and by saying that I won, I mean I won. This isn’t plead down to a lesser charge, cited for equipment failure, or something else. This is winning, as in ‘dismissed without prejudice,’ which is what it says on the findings sheet given to me when it was all said and done. No fine, no points, just a little time spent and six bucks for parking at the courthouse.
Want to know how? Read on�’
`A man searching for change head first in a Sydney stormwater drain is lucky to be alive after being hit by a 4WD.
The man, 35, suffered a broken pelvis and possible internal injuries as his legs protruded from the drain in Pelican Street at 11.40am yesterday. [..]
Police say he had removed a cover from the drain and was trying to retrieve change when he was hit by a Ford Territory turning into the street from Oxford Street.’
`An 11-year-old boy had a lingering headache two days after a pickup truck ran over his head. “All I remember about it was that when the truck ran over my head, I could hear my bones crack,” Cameron Schuette said Tuesday.
Cameron, a 5th-grader and his 13-year-old brother Tyler were helping their grandfather chop and load wood on Sunday. The boys were sitting on the tailgate of their grandfather’s truck when he began backing down his gravel driveway and Cameron either fell or jumped off. [..]
“He didn’t look too worse for wear,” Shurley said. “He was just saying he had a headache.”‘
‘There goes my no claim bonus.’
(3.5meg Windows Media)
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‘A group of homeless people in Holland who withdrew more than £70,000 from a faulty cash machine are believed to be on a Spanish beach.
The homeless people had been given special state social security cash cards which allow them to take out up to £100 a time.
But a computer glitch at a Fortis Bank cash machine in Rotterdam meant they could withdraw an unrestricted amount of cash, newspaper De Volkskrant reported.’
`A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.’
