35 posts tagged “bizarre” (page 2)
Boy Guides Medics After Mom Passes Out
April 25, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ind. -- The family of a Columbus kindergarten student is thankful he paid attention to lessons about whom to call in an emergency.
Jared Lebrun, 6, recently was alone with his pregnant mother at home when she passed out because of pregnancy complications, reported WRTV in Indianapolis.
"She fell down. She fell asleep for a little while," Jared recalled on Thursday.
Jared called 911 on a cell phone and told a dispatcher that something was wrong with his mother. The dispatcher couldn't trace the call, so he asked Jared for the address. Jared wasn't sure he knew it, but he knew how to get it.
"He actually stepped out to the front of his house to make sure he knew the address and he read the address to the dispatcher," said Ed Reuter, of the Bartholomew County emergency operations center.
Two 911 dispatchers kept Jared on the line.
"He knew where he lived, the street and his address. We had problems with understanding the street name from him, but he knew what [subdivision] he lived in," dispatcher Scott Crase said.
Medics arrived and helped Jared's mother, April, who is now doing fine. Emergency workers hailed Jared as a hero.
Jared recalled that while he still was on the phone with the dispatchers, his father -- who was out of town -- called on another phone. Jared had a phone on each ear.
"I told my dad to hold on because I was talking to the ambulance," Jared recalled.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Three zebras from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus briefly escaped from their downtown venue, but were quickly corralled by their trainer and two handlers.
Mali, Giza and Lima spotted an open door at the 1st Mariner Arena on Thursday and dashed onto Hopkins Place, but were rounded up a half block away.
Carrie Coleman, a veterinary technician for the circus, said it was a frightening incident, because the animals were in traffic lanes before returning to the sidewalk.
"They may have thought they were headed home," Coleman said, adding that the zebras were not hurt.
The same three zebras, plus a fourth, made a similar escape in June during the circus' visit to Colorado Springs, Colo.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- An 83-year-old great-grandmother thwarted a would-be purse snatcher with a gas nozzle and an iron grip.
Bernie Garcia said a young man approached her at a gas station as she was buying fuel for her van and asked for money. When she told him she had spent all her spare change on gas, he tried to grab her purse.
"But I had it wrapped around my wrist twice," Garcia said, and he was unable to pull it away.
She fought back, spraying his shirt with some gasoline. Both of them kept hold of the purse, and he pulled her to the ground and dragged her a short distance until another man confronted him.
The second man demanded, "Turn her loose, you something something," Garcia said.
The would-be mugger jumped into a nearby vehicle and fled. But a witness got the license plate number, and minutes later, police stopped the car. It had been reported stolen from Espanola, said Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Aric Wheeler.
Garcia and a witness identified one of the men inside as the attacker. He and two other men in the car were charged with robbery and conspiracy.
"They got caught and I'm so glad," Garcia said.
She said she felt fine after the attack, and police say she declined medical attention at the scene. But when she got home, she said, she felt faint and went to bed and woke up Thursday very sore. Her son, a former firefighter, checked her out and found no broken bones.
"My son said, `Why didn't you just give (the purse) up?'" Garcia said. "`Hell no,' I told him. That was my purse. I was fighting for what was mine."
Wed Feb 27, 2008
by Dave Graham
BERLIN (Reuters) - An elderly German who hid a stolen suit under his clothes was caught because he forgot to take it off the hanger, police said Wednesday.
A sales assistant at a men's outfitter in the western city of Aachen noticed the hanger bulging out when the man told her he had decided against buying anything.
"Only a sign saying 'stop me, I'm a thief!' would have made the thief look more unprofessional," police said in a statement.
By COLLEEN BARRY
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday February 27 2008
MILAN, Italy - Masked thieves drilled a tunnel and broke into a jewelry showroom as employees were preparing for a VIP showing, making off with gold, diamonds and emeralds in a brazen daylight heist, the jeweler said.
The bags of jewels stolen Sunday from Damiani - maker of the diamond bracelet that graced Oscar winner Tilda Swinton's wrist - included gold, platinum, diamonds and emeralds, though apparently no pearls.
The losses are being inventoried and Damiani is not issuing estimates, but the jeweler's chief executive dismissed a $7.52 million figure cited by the Italian media.
The safe normally would have had even more valuable, one-of-a-kind pieces - but a "significant number" were on loan to stars attending the Oscars, including Swinton, or in Tokyo for the opening of a new boutique, Guido Damiani said Wednesday.
"Luckily, many of these pieces were not in the safe," he said in a telephone interview.
The family-run business established 85 years ago by Damiani's grandfather calls itself the jeweler of the stars, with Hollywood stars Isabella Rosellini, Brad Pitt, Gwyenth Paltrow and Sharon Stone among its celebrity promoters.
For the last several years, Damiani has been bejeweling stars for Oscar night, including Sunday.
Employees in the central Milan showroom were preparing for a VIP showing when the thieves entered at around 10 a.m. Sunday, Damiani said.
The thieves, wearing face masks and dark glasses, forced four showroom employees, a caterer and a cleaning woman into a room, where they were bound. One of the Damiani employees was forced to open the safe, but bound with the others during the theft.
No one was harmed and no clients had yet arrived, Damiani said.
"The timing was planned. They knew that there would be people in the building - otherwise they would not have been able to get into the safe - but that it would not be full," Damiani said. "They were in the right place at the right moment. ... But I am confident that they will be found."
Damiani said they had drilled into the basement from a neighboring building with nearly 4-foot-thick walls - so sturdy the cellar had been designated a bomb shelter - gaining cover from renovation work in the adjacent structure. It was unclear how long they had been working.
"We've heard an account from one woman who heard noise in the early mornings, and had even complained to police. It was probably them," Damiani said.
Because they entered from inside the building, the thieves did not pass armed guards posted at the entrance. Newspapers have reported four thieves, but Damiani said the number was still unclear.
"A guard could have gone up at any minute, and one did go up by chance - but seconds after they left," Damiani said. "It could have been a drama, so all the better that no one walked in."
The whole operation took about half an hour. A neighbor who grew suspicious after seeing men load bags - presumably full of jewels - into a van notified police, Damiani said.
No one saw weapons, but Damiani presumes they were present. The jewels are insured by Allianz and Lloyds of London, he said.
The company, which is quoted on the Milan Stock exchange, has seen its shares rise since news of the theft broke. Since opening Monday at $2.80, the stock has risen as high as $3.13.
Raffles lives!
February 27, 2008
PARMA, Ohio (AP) -- A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school.
Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top. The school said the hair was a distraction for other students.
"I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination," she said. "They can't tell me how I can cut his hair."
An administrator at the suburban Cleveland charter school first warned Barile last fall that the haircut wasn't acceptable. The school later sent another warning to her reiterating the ban.
Mohawks violate the school's policy on being properly groomed, school Principal Linda Geyer said. Also, the school district's dress code allows school officials to forbid anything that interferes with the conduct of education.
Ruda's hair became a disruption last week when Ruda arrived freshly shorn, Geyer said. Administrators called Barile on Friday telling her to pick Ruda up from school.
"This was his third infraction," Geyer said Tuesday. "We felt that we were being extremely patient."
Rather than request a hearing to appeal the suspension, Barile said she'll enroll him at another school. Changing the hairstyle is not an option, she said.
"It's something that he really likes," Barile said. "When people hear Mohawk, they think it's long, it's spiked, it's crazy looking, and it's really not."
Punk's not dead.
PARMA!
by Melanie Lee
Mon Feb 25, 2008
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean professor who nicked bras and panties has pleaded guilty to stealing women's underwear from a university dormitory, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.
The 39-year old man -- an associate professor in a Chinese university -- was charged for taking women's underwear from a university hostel's clothes-line last December, the Straits Times reported.
The Singaporean professor, who teaches in China, was in the city-state for his leave when he committed the crime. He was caught by a dormitory security guard who found female undergarments in his haversack.
"I have heard stories before about underwear being stolen, but I never thought it would happen to me," a victim, who was not named, was quoted as saying.
A lawyer for the professor was reported as saying his client suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has been taking women's underwear since he was 14.
The lawyer also said that his client was an honourable and kind person who had no intention of causing annoyance to the underwear owners.
That's right: He only wanted them to feel creeped out and kinda violated.
by Jeremy Lovell
Mon Feb 25, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - A man celebrated his 60th birthday in unexpected style at the weekend when a 50 pence bet on the horses turned him into an instant millionaire.
Fred Craggs, from Yorkshire, was not even aware of his win when he walked into a branch of the William Hill betting agency to see how he had done with his accumulator bet.
When he was informed of his good fortune he was said to have turned rather pale and muttered that he had better go home to tell his wife.
His coup was selecting eight winners running at various courses around the country -- starting with one called "Isn't That Lucky" and finishing with "A Dream Come True" -- at odds of 2,000,000 to one.
"This is the most amazing bet ever placed since betting shops were made legal in 1961," William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said on Monday.
Monday, February 25, 2008
SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) -- Modern technology is steering some drivers the wrong way in northern New Jersey. Truck drivers using GPS devices and online directions to reach an industrial section of Secaucus are reaching only a road block on Fifth Street.
The electronic maps don't show a gate that separates the residential and industrial areas. It's only open for a couple hours weekdays.
Mayor Dennis Elwell says residents started complaining about trucks clogging their street about a year ago as GPS devices increased in popularity. Some drivers have to call police to open the gate when their trucks are too big to turn around.
A spokesman for GPS maker Garmin International says a company has to receive a request or complaint and go through a thorough process before it can add items to map.
Monday, February 25, 2008
BERLIN (AP) -- Police dogs in the western city of Duesseldorf will no longer get their feet dirty when on patrol - the entire dog unit will soon be equipped with blue plastic fiber shoes, a police spokesman said Monday.
"All 20 of our police dogs - German and Belgian shepherds - are currently being trained to walk in these shoes," Andre Hartwich said. "I'm not sure they like it, but they'll have to get used to it."
The unusual footwear is not a fashion statement, Hartwich said, but rather a necessity due to the high rate of paw injuries on duty. Especially in the city's historical old town - famous for both its pubs and drunken revelers - the dogs often step into broken beer bottles.
"Even the street-cleaning doesn't manage to remove all the glass pieces from between the streets' cobble stones," Hartwich said, adding that the dogs frequently get injured by little pieces sticking deep in their paws.
The dogs will start wearing the shoes this spring but only during operations that demand special foot protection. The shoes comes in sizes small, medium and large and were ordered in blue to match the officers uniforms, Hartwich said.
"Now we just have to teach the dogs how to tie their shoes," he joked.
