WAYWARD LETTERS MAILED IN DOG WASTE BIN
People mailing their letters in Easingwold, Yorkshire, in 2000 inadvertently put them in a red bin for dog waste, thinking it was a mailbox. The confusion arose because a local building firm supplied a red box instead of a green one. “When I found out what it was I was actually quite relieved,” said one local woman. “I’d been posting my responses to lonely hearts adverts there and thought the reason I hadn’t heard anything back was that no one fancied me.”
SHORT-SIGHTED WOMAN PUTS RARE COIN IN PARKING METER
A South African woman who went shopping without her glasses mistakenly put a 100-year-old gold coin worth more than $1,000 into a parking meter near Cape Town. The woman said she also believed she had spent an 1890 sovereign, worth hundreds of dollars, as small change. She inherited the gold coins from her mother, but they became mixed up with loose coins she kept in a container and were accidentally transferred to her purse. Appealing to city authorities to keep a lookout for the valuable sovereigns, she said: “I didn’t realize I had the coins with me when I went shopping, and I didn’t have my glasses. I can’t believe what I have done.”
TRUCKER’S TOILET STOP LEAVES 49 TONS OF MESS
An American truck driver who was caught short while on the road made an unscheduled toilet break and left 49 tons of dirt spread across the highway. The driver tried to pull his vehicle over to the side of US Highway 2 in Washington State to answer the call of nature, little knowing that the side of the road was an embankment. The wheels of the truck promptly slipped down the gradient, spilling his load – tons of river sediment – all over the road.
HIT BY LIGHTNING AFTER SWEARING TO GOD
A Chinese man who swore to God that he didn’t owe money to a neighbour was struck by lightning a minute later. The neighbour said the man, named Xu, owed him $80 but had always denied it. So Xu made an oath swearing his innocence before a crowd in Fuqing City in 2008, only to be hit seconds later by a bolt of lightning in what was seen as an act of judgement.
WOMAN GLUES EYE SHUT AFTER MISTAKING NAIL GLUE FOR EYE DROPS
Reaching into the bathroom cabinet early one morning, her vision blurred by sleep, Paula Griffin grabbed what she thought was a bottle of eye drops. But instead she picked up an almost identical bottle of powerful nail glue and squirted it in her eye. The mishap left her in agony and her eye glued shut for eight hours until doctors at Poole Hospital, Dorset, cut off her lashes and managed to prise the eye open. “As soon as I squeezed it, I knew something was wrong,” she said. “It was really thick and gloopy – not like eye drops at all.”
SMOKER LOSES SIX TEETH WHEN CIGARETTE EXPLODES
An Indonesian man lost six teeth in 2010 when the cigarette he was smoking suddenly exploded in his mouth. Security guard Andi Susanto said the Clas Mild cigarette inexplicably blew up while he was riding his motorcycle. Through bandaged lips, he told local media that he planned to quit smoking in future.
TEEN FLASHES MOTORISTS: HIT BY DISTRACTED DRIVER
A New Zealand teenager who flashed her breasts at passing cars ended up in hospital after a distracted motorist drove into her. Egged on by her friends and fuelled by alcohol, the 18-year-old girl flashed passing motorists from a traffic island in the middle of a four-lane highway in Invercargill. However the prank backfired when one vehicle crashed into her as she tried to run to the side of the road. Luckily the driver had slowed down to see what was going on.
WOMAN SUES AFTER GETTING STUCK IN TOILET BOWL
A woman sued a sports bar and restaurant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, saying she got stuck inside a toilet bowl for 20 minutes after the seat broke. Kathleen Hewko said she was in the bathroom when the handicapped toilet seat she was sitting on cracked and dumped her into the bowl, aggravating an existing hip injury.
RESCUER TRAPPED IN SHAFT AFTER COUPLE FORGET ABOUT HIM
When an elderly couple’s dog fell into a 60-foot ventilation shaft in Budapest in 1998, a passer-by bravely lowered himself down the shaft on a rope. He then proceeded to tie the rope to the dog so that the animal could be pulled to safety. The dog’s owners were so relieved to have their pet back safe and sound that they hurried off home, completely forgetting to throw the rope down to the rescuer. It was another four days before anyone heard his cries for help, and the poor hero ended up in a Hungarian hospital suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.
HUNTER KNOCKED OUT BY FALLING RACCOON
When Brad Davis, of Milledgeville, Georgia, went off on a hunting trip in 1998 with his friend Donnie Lamb, he took the opportunity to train his puppy to pick up the scent of a raccoon, which he had seen climb a nearby tree. Meanwhile Lamb decided to shoot the raccoon out of the tree. He hit it with his first shot but unfortunately Davis was still standing underneath the tree and the 15-pound animal crashed 60 feet onto his head, knocking him out and fracturing three vertebrae. Davis, who ended up wearing a neck brace for several weeks, said: “I heard him shoot, and the next thing I knew, I was seeing lights shining in my eyes.”
MAN GETS PENIS STUCK TO BUS SHELTER
A man in Stravropol, Russia, got his penis frozen fast onto a metal bus shelter in 2003 after urinating in the street on a night when the temperature dropped to minus 30 degrees centigrade. He made the mistake of turning toward the shelter before zipping up his fly. A crowd gathered to watch the man’s predicament but he remained firmly stuck to the shelter until rescue workers arrived with warm water.
WOMAN GETS HEAD STUCK UNDER CUBICLE DOOR AFTER FALLING OFF TOILET
A woman’s 2000 Christmas celebrations lost their sparkle when she got drunk, fell off a seat in a public toilet and got her head stuck under the cubicle door. The woman was trapped in the public toilets in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, for several hours until fire crews rescued her.
TRAINEE HYPNOTIST PUTS HIMSELF IN A TRANCE
A newly trained hypnotist accidentally put himself in a trance for five hours in 2010 while practising in front of a mirror. Helmut Kichmeier, whose stage name is Hannibal Helmurto, was found by his wife staring blankly ahead at their London home. It was only after she phoned his instructor, Dr Ray Roberts, and put the receiver to her husband’s head that he was able to be talked out of the trance. She said her husband looked like a zombie when she first walked into the room. “I tried to ask him what was wrong but he didn’t answer. Then I looked at the sofa behind him and saw a book titled Hypnosis: Medicine of the Mind. It was opened on page 45 and a chapter named hypnotic anaesthesia, and I realized there was something wrong.”
WOMAN’S THREE-FOOT FINGERNAILS BROKEN IN CAR CRASH
A woman with record-breaking three-foot-long fingernails was devastated after all ten were broken off in a car smash in 2009. Grandmother Lee Redmond, who had not cut her nails for 30 years and who once turned down over $100,000 to have them clipped on live TV, lost her claim to fame when they were snapped off in a four-car smash near Salt Lake City, Utah.
GARDENER KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS BY GIANT PUMPKIN
A keen Russian gardener announced his intention to sue a Moscow seed firm after he was knocked unconscious by a 40-pound pumpkin. Nikolay Salakhov bought a small packet of pumpkin seeds in 2002 with the intention of growing them on the terrace of his country house in Pavlov-Posad. The description on the seed packet promised that the vegetables would be no bigger than the size of a pear but Mr Salakhov’s reached epic proportions and when he slammed the door behind him, the vibration caused one of the pumpkins to fall and land on his head, leaving him with concussion.
BIRD-LOVER KNOCKED OUT BY DEAD GOOSE
Anne Osinger, chairperson of a bird protection society in Holland, was taken to hospital with concussion and a broken cheekbone after a dead goose plunged 75 feet from the sky and hit her on the head.
MAN TRAPPED IN OUTHOUSE FOR THREE DAYS
Coolidge Winesett, from Wytheville, Virginia, was trapped in his outhouse for three days in 2000 after it collapsed around him. The floor and part of a wall gave way leaving the 75-y
ear-old sitting helplessly in a five-foot hole, trying to cope with the smell. After finally being rescued, he said: “I tell you what, it was hard to get one breath down there.”
WOMAN HIT BY FALLING MOOSE HEAD IN BAR
A woman sued a New York City bar in 2009 after suffering concussion when she was hit by a stuffed moose head falling off a wall. Internet design consultant Raina Kumra said the blow from the 150-pound head, which had antlers spanning over three feet, caused her “chronic neck pain, anxiety, fatigue, dizziness and other serious and severe personal injuries,” including “embarrassment”.
MAN GETS LEG STUCK IN MELTING ROAD
A man had to be rescued by firefighters after his leg became stuck in a road that had melted in a heatwave. Keen amateur footballer Graham Merrington suffered torn ligaments and a damaged ankle after falling down the hole while crossing the road in Manchester, England, in 2009. He was stuck in the hole for 40 minutes while firefighters cut away the remaining road surface. “I was in a state of shock,” he said afterwards. “You don’t expect to be walking down a road and disappear down a hole.”
TRESPASSER IS DETAINED BY VIRGIN MARY
A teenage boy trespassing at a school in Groton, Connecticut, suffered the ignominy of being detained by the Virgin Mary until police arrived. Stephen Miller, 16, was climbing the roof of the Sacred Heart School in 1995 when he lost his footing and fell, dislodging a 400-pound statue of Mary on the way down. He landed with a thud on the ground moments before the heavy statue came crashing down on his legs, pinning him to the spot for two hours before the authorities arrived.
STRAY THONG BLACKS OUT VILLAGE
The Lincolnshire village of Leadenham was blacked out in 2009 after a thong became entangled in overhead power lines. Heavy rain caused the thong to short circuit the cables, cutting power to homes and businesses in the village.
PELICAN BOMBS FLORIDA BATHER
A woman needed 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida while it was diving for fish. The bird, which died in the collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker’s face as she bathed near St Petersburg in 2008.
ELDERLY WOMAN POSTS FALSE TEETH BY MISTAKE
A harassed British grandmother was in such a hurry to post her Christmas cards in 1998 that she didn’t notice that her new false teeth were wedged between them. The 74-year-old woman walked into the Post Office at Witham, Essex, and announced to stunned staff and customers that she had accidentally posted her teeth. “It’s no joke,” protested the unnamed granny. “I’ve had to put my old ones back in.”
BURGLAR LEAVES FINGER BEHIND
A burglar in Hamburg, Germany, left behind a vital piece of evidence at the scene of the crime – his finger. As he fled after breaking into a leisure centre, a ring on his index finger caught on a metal fence and ripped his finger off. Police found the severed digit on the ground and used it to track him down, but it was too late for the finger to be re-attached.
COP COOKS GUN IN OVEN
Roasting a turkey at home in 1998, Wisconsin police chief Richard Williams forgot that he had left his gun in the oven. As the turkey cooked, the gun went off, sending a bullet through the gas stove and into a banister in the hall. Williams gave himself a one-day, unpaid suspension for violating his department’s firearms policy. He added that the oven was one of his favourite hiding places for his gun.
BOY GETS HAND TRAPPED IN CONDOM MACHINE
To his acute embarrassment, 11-year-old Michael Steiner managed to get his fingers stuck in a condom machine in the toilet of a Braunau, Austria, cinema. After a female employee had tried to remove the hand, a doctor was called but he, too, failed. The boy’s ordeal was eventually ended by the arrival of the local fire brigade who freed him by cutting the condom machine into pieces.
TODDLER RUNS UP $1,500 PHONE BILL
Playing with the family’s phone, one-year-old Joe Williams, from Loddon, Norfolk, pushed the redial button and thereby connected to his great-grandparents on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Unfortunately none of his family spotted that the phone was off the hook with the result that his 25-hour call ran up a bill of $1,575.
KNIFE TRICK HAS MAN IN STITCHES
A Chino Valley, Arizona, man was recovering in 2003 from having a 12- inch steak knife embedded in the back of his head. He had apparently been amusing himself by tossing the knife into the air.
JUMPER RESCUE LEAVES MAN STUCK IN GARBAGE CHUTE
A man who squeezed into a garbage chute in an apartment block in Stockholm, Sweden, to retrieve a favourite sweater that had been thrown out by his wife, had to be rescued by fire crews after getting stuck between floors. The 25-year-old Ecuadorian was so intent on recovering the old jumper – a present from his mother – that he managed to pull himself legs first through the chute’s nine-inch-wide garbage hole on the third floor. But he became stuck after sliding down one floor and was unable to climb up a row of knotted bedsheets thoughtfully lowered into the chute by his guilt-ridden wife. After his rescue, the doors were unlocked to enable him to reclaim his now filthy sweater.
WORKER ACCIDENTALLY NAILS HEAD TO PLANK OF WOOD
A 44-year-old warehouse worker from Oldham, Lancashire, accidentally nailed his head to a 15-foot-long plank of wood. Jimmy McKenzie stood up suddenly without realizing there was a six-inch nail in a piece of wood above his head and was pinned in place for an hour until fire crews managed to separate the plank from his skull.
PRANKSTER GLUES MAN TO TOILET
In 2003, a customer was literally stuck on the toilet at a Home Depot store in Louisville, Kentucky, after a prankster had smeared glue on the seat. Bob Dougherty’s repeated cries for help went unanswered because staff apparently thought it was a hoax. “They left me there, going through all that stress,” he said. “They just let me rot.” Paramedics eventually unbolted the entire commode and carried him out, still attached to the seat.
EASY-TO-OPEN DOOR TRAPS TEENS IN LOFT FOR 27 HOURS
It took 27 hours for four 17-year-olds to discover that they could open a door to the loft in which they were trapped by pulling rather than pushing it. Taking advantage of his mother’s absence on holiday in 2002, Ali Wood invited three friends round to his house in Gillingham, Kent, to help organize a party. The quartet went up to the attic to fetch the food and alcohol they had secretly stashed there but got stuck when they were unable to open the trap door. Their frantic cries for help went unheard, and loft insulation ensured their cell phones could not get a signal. Meanwhile their guests, getting no answer at the front door, simply assumed the party had been cancelled and left. After the four boys finally realized that pulling the trap door was the answer, a red-faced Wood said: “We couldn’t believe we had been stuck there so long when we could have been out in five minutes.”
MAN SHOOTS HIMSELF ON FIRST DATE
On their first date, a former American Air Force fighter pilot decided to demonstrate to a woman how dangerous guns can be – and in doing so, accidentally shot himself in the leg. Kim Barnes and Susan MacDonald were enjoying a meal in Englewood, Colorado, in 2000 when the subject of accidental shootings cropped up in conversation. MacDonald, a hospital technician, was telling him about the gunshot victims she saw at work. Barnes, who had been handling guns since he was a boy, then produced his 9-millimetre pistol with the intention of showing his date how a bullet can be in the chamber even after a clip is detached. He then tried to expel the bullet from the gun, but the mechanism failed to work and the hammer went into the firing position. He attempted to engage a safety device, but the gun fired, hitting him in the left leg. “My finger was nowhere near the trigger,” he protested from his hospital bed. “It was a misfire.”
GIRL’S TATTOO HAS HIDDEN MEANING
In 2003, teenager Charlene Williams asked a tattooist in Poole, Dorset, to ink the word “mum” on her back in Chinese letters. But four years later, after a passing Chinese woman shouted, “Evil, evil, very bad” at her, Charlene discovered that the incompetent tatt
ooist had really written “Friend from hell”. Apparently the tattooist did not know that Chinese letters change their meaning when put together.
SKIER LEFT DANGLING FROM LIFT WITH PANTS DOWN
A hapless skier in the upmarket Colorado ski resort of Vail ended up unintentionally exposing himself to the world following a catalogue of calamities in 2009. The man and a child boarded a ski lift expecting a swift ride up the mountain but because the chairlift’s seat was not in the correct position, as the man got on, he slipped through a gap between the chair and the seat back. His ski boot and ski then got lodged in the lift, preventing him from falling. But as he slid, his pants and underwear became caught and were pulled down, exposing him to tourists at the crowded resort. After he had been left red-cheeked, hanging helplessly upside down, 20 feet above the ground for some 15 minutes, resort staff were able to reverse the lift and free him – but not before a number of people had taken pictures of the dangling figure and posted them on the Internet.
MAN IMPALES BOTTOM ON PLUNGER
The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books) Page 50