The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  SAILOR RESCUED SEVEN TIMES ON CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF BRITAIN

  Stuart Hill earned the nickname “Captain Calamity” in 2001 after his failed attempt to sail single-handed around the British coast resulted in five lifeboat launches and two rescue helicopter callouts. His problems began when the launch of his 15-foot-long converted dinghy, Maximum Exposure, was delayed for a month because he suffered an allergic reaction to resin he was using to treat the hull. Finally in May he set sail into the River Stour near his home in Manningtree, Essex, only for a friend to have to chase after him because he had forgotten an important item of equipment. Only minutes after leaving, he damaged his vessel by colliding with another boat. Six days and 100 miles later, he had to be towed ashore off Norfolk because his mast, which had been taken from a sailboard, had split. After a three-week delay he set off once more into high winds and what coastguards described as “the worst weather forecast possible”. Consequently he managed just three miles in three days before a lifeboat and helicopter went to his aid. Numerous members of the public contacted coastguards over the ensuing days to report that he was in danger of sinking in a boat that was likened to “a glorified sailboard”. A member of the Great Yarmouth coastguard said: “This type of craft is totally unsuitable for what he wanted to do. Even if you were Francis Drake, you would have trouble in a craft like that.” But Hill pressed on regardless. At one point he was spotted drifting in circles 22 miles out to sea in busy shipping lanes and when he moved closer to shore, the Lowestoft lifeboat had to put to sea to warn him that he was in danger of running aground. He also blundered over to a target intended for a practice bombing run by RAF jet fighters. A member of the Cromer lifeboat crew said: “My coxswain described it as like putting someone blindfold in the middle of the M1 and telling everyone else to miss them.” Against all the odds, Hill reached the Shetland Isles by August but there his luck ran out when the boat he had declared “unsinkable” turned over in a storm. He was rescued yet again but all he had left were the clothes he was wearing. Ironically his original plan had been to raise money for charity but his ill-fated voyage cost the rescue services an estimated $75,000. To complete his misery, his wife of 33 years telephoned him during his journey to say she was leaving him and selling their house. “She could have waited until I got back,” he said, “but then again it was all taking much longer than planned.”

  BUS DRIVER GETS TICKET FOR PARKING AT STOP

  A Manchester bus driver received a parking ticket in 2003 . . . while picking up passengers at a bus stop. Chris O’Mahoney pulled his No. 77 single-decker into a bay marked “Buses Only”, next to a bus stop, but within seconds a zealous warden had swooped with a ticket, barking: “You can’t stop here.” After the city council agreed to scrap the fine and ordered the warden to be retrained, O’Mahoney said: “You have to park to let passengers on – you can’t do it while the bus is moving. All my passengers queuing to get on were gobsmacked when the warden dashed over. He said the area was restricted. When I asked, restricted to whom, he replied: ‘Buses.’ I thought he must be blind.”

  HELPFUL HUSBAND SENDS CAR THROUGH SHOP WINDOW

  In trying to remove the ignition key from the dashboard of his wife’s car, a Polish pensioner accidentally started the vehicle up and sent it flying through the window of a Rybnik butcher’s shop, causing $13,000 damage. Rudolf Wydra, 71, doesn’t have a licence and can’t drive. His wife Felicja moaned: “I’ve been driving for 30 years and I’ve never had an accident – until this disaster.”

  WOMAN IS STUCK TO TOILET DURING FLIGHT

  An American woman travelling on a Scandinavian airline in 2002 made the mistake of flushing the toilet while she was still sitting on it. Clearing its contents by powerful suction, the toilet immediately formed a perfect air-tight seal with her butt, leaving her vacuum-stuck to it for the duration of the flight.

  GIRL THROWN OFF BUS FOR BEING TOO SEXY

  A 20-year-old girl was thrown off a bus in Germany in 2007 because the driver thought she was too sexy. The girl said: “He opened the door and shouted, ‘Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can’t concentrate on the traffic.’”

  DRIVER LOSES BORROWED CAR IN FROZEN RIVER

  A search for his lost dog ended in farce for Nathan Seely who, by virtue of a catalogue of errors, could only watch as the car he was driving disappeared beneath the surface of a frozen river. His first mistake was to drive the Buick onto the frozen surface of Black River, in Port Huron, Michigan. His second mistake was to lock his keys inside the car. His third was to leave the engine running, as a result of which he looked on in despair as the heat from the engine slowly melted the ice beneath the car, eventually sending it plunging into the water. To make matters worse, the car wasn’t even his – it was on loan from a garage while his own vehicle was in for repairs. It is not known whether he ever found his dog.

  POLICE HELP MOTORIST OFF ROUNDABOUT

  Police officers rescued a confused woman driver from a busy roundabout in Braunschweig, Germany, in 2009 after fellow motorists said she had completed at least 50 circuits in a bid to find an exit. Sixty-two-year-old Andrea Zimmer said: “I was breaking in a new car to see how it does in traffic and I couldn’t seem to get to one of the exits. But I have to admit I got a very good feel for my new car and its handling. I think I can safely say it takes roundabouts pretty well.”

  WHEELCHAIR USER CHARGED WITH DRINK DRIVING

  A man found asleep in a motorized wheelchair on a road in Queensland, Australia, in 2008 was charged with drink driving. The 64-year-old was spotted slumped in the stationary chair on an exit lane near Cairns, with cars swerving to avoid him. A breathalyzer test showed him to be more than six times the legal driving limit.

  PILOT HITS COW AS HE MAKES EMERGENCY LANDING

  The pilot of a vintage two-seater Tiger Moth plane hit a cow when he was forced to make an emergency landing in a Devon field in 2008. Rob Wotton had just taken off from Dunkeswell airfield, Honiton, when the 43-year-old airplane suffered engine trouble and he decided to land in a nearby field. There were a number of cows in the field but one animal was separate from the rest of the herd on the other side of the pasture. However, as Wotton touched down, the startled cow decided to run across to join the group and was clipped by the plane. “She went rolling away as I hit her, but she seemed unhurt and got up OK,” said the relieved pilot.

  DRIVERS USE BLOW-UP DOLLS TO OVERCOME LANE RULES

  Motorists in Auckland, New Zealand, have turned to inflatable passengers to beat the city’s transit lane rules, which stipulate that vehicles must have at least three occupants to drive in certain lanes. Auckland traffic safety managers say that some drivers have used blow-up dolls or shop mannequins as their third passenger while others have tried to meet the criteria by dressing dogs up as children.

  MAN RUNS OVER WIFE . . . TWICE

  An 84-year-old driver managed to run over his wife twice in a matter of seconds. Alex Ranson felt a bump as he reversed out of the garage in County Durham but thought it was a rock rather than his wife Olive. So he reversed again, accidentally hitting her a second time. The shock of seeing what he had done caused him to suffer a heart attack and end up in the same hospital where his wife was taken with a broken leg.

  PASSENGER HAD SEVERED SEAL HEAD IN LUGGAGE

  A man was arrested at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, in 2004 for trying to board a flight to Denver while carrying the severed head of a seal. When security officers made the gruesome find in a small canvas cooler, the man said that he was a biology professor who had found a dead seal on the beach and had cut off its head to take home for educational purposes. Airport authorities eventually allowed him to board the plane – but without the seal’s head.

  BRITISH AIRWAYS UPGRADES CORPSE TO FIRST CLASS

  Passengers in the first-class section of a British Airways flight from Delhi to London Heathrow in 2007 were startled to see the crew placing the body of a dead woman in a seat and strap
ping her in. The Indian woman had died in economy class but had been moved to first class because there was more room.

  DRIVER BLAMES CRASH ON PTERODACTYL

  When police asked a 29-year-old man from Wenatchee, Washington State, what had caused him to drive his car into a street lamp in 2007, his one-word reply was “pterodactyl”. A police spokesman said: “A breathalyzer test showed only a minimal amount of alcohol but the fact remains that there have been no sightings of the giant winged reptile for the past 65 million years.”

  POLISH BULLDERS BUNGLE TRAIN TUNNEL

  Engineers in Poland were left embarrassed after building a railway tunnel that was too small for trains to pass through. The costly blunder was only discovered when inspectors measured the completed tunnel in Warsaw and realized the roof was so low that no trains would get under it. Rail bosses said the mix-up occurred because workers who were laying new tracks failed to liaise with the team that was building the tunnel. It was not the only misfortune to hit the Polish transport system in recent times. In 2007, the Polish road authority produced detailed plans for two sections of a major motorway that would have missed each other by five miles – each coming to a dead end in the middle of countryside.

  PASSENGERS TOLD TO GET OUT OF PLANE AND PUSH

  Passengers on a flight in China in 2008 were asked to get out and push when their plane broke down shortly after landing. The Shandong Airlines flight had arrived safely at Zhengzhou from Guilin but broke down before it could taxi to the passenger terminal. Airport staff were summoned to push the plane, but when it refused to budge, some of the 69 passengers on board were also asked to help. It took them nearly two hours to shove the 20-ton airplane half a mile to a side lane.

  SKYDIVER LANDS ON ARMY BAND

  Parachutist Scott Hallock, one of two skydivers taking part in a change of command ceremony at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 2008, missed his target and landed on the last two rows of the Army Band instead. Several musicians were injured in the collision and a number of their instruments destroyed. One of the musicians said: “You can’t really hear anything when someone’s overhead. Then at the last minute, you could hear some rustling. That’s what I heard – ‘Oh, shit,’ and then crash!”

  IRISH POLICE SOUGHT ELUSIVE MR LICENCE

  In 2007, Irish police finally solved the case of the country’s most reckless driver. According to their records he was a Pole named Prawo Jazdy who had clocked up 50 separate traffic offences but had always managed to escape with a ticket by giving a different home address each time. Their quest to bring the elusive Mr Jazdy to justice ended only when a bilingual officer pointed out that the name on the speeding fines and parking tickets, Prawo Jazdy, means “driving licence” in Polish.

  WOMAN IS SHOT IN THE LEG BY HER OWN STOVE

  A woman needed hospital treatment in 2008 after being shot in the leg by her own stove. Cory Davis, 56, of Sekiu, Washington State, had just stoked her cast-iron stove when something inside it exploded, hitting her on the inside of her left calf. At first she thought it was a piece of flying coal but then realized it was part of a .22-gauge shotgun shell that had been accidentally placed in the stove along with some newspaper. She said a case of ammunition had spilled out in her home the previous month and one shell must have landed inside the newspaper she used to light the stove. “It was just bad luck,” she mused. “How many people get shot by your stove?”

  VICAR HOSPITALIZED WITH POTATO UP HIS BUTT

  A vicar had to undergo surgery in a Sheffield, England, hospital in 2008 to remove a potato that was wedged up his butt. Denying that the accident was the result of a sex game, the clergyman claimed the potato became stuck up his bottom after he fell backward onto the vegetable while hanging curtains naked in the kitchen. “It’s not for me to question his story,” remarked one of the nurses who treated him.

  NAKED MAN RESCUED FROM PORTABLE POTTY

  Rescue crews in Philadelphia had to cut apart a portable toilet to rescue a man who had become stuck naked inside the potty. Police had no idea why the 31-year-old had no clothes on or how he had come to immerse himself in the potty but they said he had been drinking.

  DOG POUNCES AFTER MAN MISTAKES PENIS FOR CHICKEN’S NECK

  Mistaking his penis for a chicken’s neck, an elderly Romanian man hacked it off and could only watch in agony as his dog ate it. Sixty-seven-year-old Constantin Mocanu had rushed out into the yard in his underwear in 2004 to kill the noisy chicken that had been keeping him awake at night.

  WOMAN STABS HERSELF IN FOOT DURING GOOD LUCK CEREMONY

  A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a three-foot-long sword while performing a religious ritual at an Indiana cemetery. The Wiccan ceremony involves the driving of swords into the ground during a full moon but in 2008 Katherine Gunther inadvertently put the sword into her left foot instead. Asked why she was performing the ritual in the first place, she said it was to give thanks for a recent run of good luck.

  PENSIONER TRAPPED UNDER SOFA SURVIVES ON WHISKY

  A pensioner who became trapped under his own sofa for two and a half days survived the ordeal by drinking a conveniently placed bottle of whisky. Joe Galliott was ensnared by his sofa at his home in Yeovil, Somerset, when he tripped over a phone cord during a power cut. As he landed on the sofa, it flipped over, pinning him to the floor. Although unable to move, he was fortunate enough to have knocked a bottle of whisky within reach as he fell. The 65-year-old was finally rescued from his sofa hell when his grandson came to visit.

  WOMAN CATCHES BELLY BUTTON RING IN NOSE

  A 22-year-old woman from Sydney, Australia, called the emergency services in 2008 after getting her belly button ring caught in her nostril when she fell out of bed in the middle of the night.

  COP MISTAKES REVOLVER FOR LIGHTER

  An off-duty police officer in Newark, New Jersey, had a pistol-shaped cigarette lighter, which he had been using all night while drinking in a local bar. After many hours and drinks, he apparently mistook his revolver for the lighter and when he went to light his cigarette, he shot and killed John Fazzola, who was seated five stools away at the bar.

  LIGHTNING EXITS FROM WOMAN’S BOTTOM

  A Croatian woman suffered a severely burned anus in 2006 after a lightning strike that entered her body through her mouth departed through her bottom. The lightning struck Natasha Timarovic as she was cleaning her teeth with her mouth to the tap, sending the current surging through her body, but because she was wearing rubber-soled shoes, the lightning bolt was unable to earth through her feet and instead it shot out of her rectum. “It was incredibly painful,” she said. “I felt it pass through my torso and then I don’t remember much at all.”

  MAN LOSES BOTH LEGS IN SAME PLACE

  Lying on railroad tracks in Littleville, Alabama in 1994, Terry Mills was hit by a train and lost his left leg. The incident occurred just a few feet from the spot where, in 1986, he had been hit by another train and had lost his right leg.

  WORKMAN NAILS TESTICLE TO ROOF

  An unfortunate slip at a crucial moment caused an Austrian workman to nail his own testicle to the roof of a house with a nail gun. After August Voegl from Jennersdorf shot the four-inch nail into his left testicle, it required the services of emergency medics to separate him from the roof.

  TEENAGER IS IMPALED BY DEER ANT

  Having accidentally locked himself out of his grandmother’s home in Carter Lake, Iowa, 16-year-old Todd Reynolds gained entry by climbing through a window, only to fall and impale himself on a set of deer antlers. The antlers stabbed him in the back, narrowly missing his spine. His grandmother said she had saved the antlers from a deer that her car had crashed into some years previously.

  MAN SHOOTS TOILET WHILE HITCHING UP PANTS

  While hitching up his pants after using the toilet at a Centreville, Utah, restaurant in 2009, a man managed to shoot the lavatory bowl, smashing it to pieces. The man’s handgun fell out of a holster and hit the tile floor, going off as it did so.

>   CAFÉ USED BOMB AS TABLE LEG

  Eight people were injured in 2002 when a Second World War bomb exploded in a Montenegro café where it had been used as a table leg.

  HOLIDAY JINX ENDS IN THREE TRIPS TO HOSPITAL

  A Hampshire man ended up in a New Zealand hospital three times in two days on what was supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime. Roy Dennis was visiting his son Edward in Auckland when his unlucky streak began. First he needed emergency surgery after breaking an ankle while skydiving and was released from hospital in a wheelchair. Undeterred, he continued with his holiday but the next day on a visit to an aquarium he was bitten by a poisonous puffer fish and needed a tetanus injection. Twenty-four hours later, Edward took his father to an adventure park where staff kindly put the wheelchair-bound 60-year-old in a special car to enjoy a tour of the facilities. However he and the chair somehow fell out and he careered into a window, breaking his nose. Back home in England, Roy sighed: “We wanted to make it a memorable trip and it was – for all the wrong reasons.”