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A car crash victim who was believed to have been in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but could not let doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying, reports the Daily Mail. "I dreamed myself away," said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. Doctors conducted a series of coma tests before concluding that his consciousness was "extinct". But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally. Mr Houben said: "All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt." His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys. "Medical advances caught up with him," said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world. Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983. He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down. Mr Houben said: "I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth. "I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead." Source
Canadian, who was on sick leave, shown having fun at Chippendales, on trip. Photos on Facebook have cost a Canadian woman her long-term sick leave benefits. Nathalie Blanchard has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, for the last year. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported she was diagnosed with major depression and was receiving monthly sick-leave benefits. But when a Manulife insurance agent discovered pictures of Blanchard having a good time, the payments dried up. Blanchard said she was told by Manulife that the photos of her at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on vacation were evidence that she is no longer depressed. Blanchard told the CBC that on her doctor's advice, she had been trying to have fun. She is fighting to get her benefits reinstated and said her lawyer is exploring what the next step should be. Source
It was a pact that only a true friend would keep. Before one of them was sent to fight in Afghanistan for the British Army, they made a deal: If one of them died, the other had to wear a dress to the funeral. So when Barry Delaney turned up to the graveside funeral of best friend Private Kevin Elliott, he did so wearing a tight fluorescent dress, The Times reports. The green dress was matched with equally bright pink leg warmers and black hiking boots. Family and friends of the soldier, who was in the Army's Black Watch battalion, were believed to have been warned in advance of the pact - and Mr Delaney's intention of fulfilling it. Mr Delaney wept on his knees during the Scottish service for Private Elliott, who was killed while on foot patrol last month. He was aged 24. Fellow soldiers wore their regimental uniforms, while others at the funeral donned T-shirts featuring a large picture of Private Elliott in his combat fatigues. The soldier's father, Sandy Elliott, said it was the saddest day of his life when he heard about his death. "Kevin was a grandson, a brother, a nephew, an uncle and a cousin, but more than anything he was our son," he said. "And although some things he did annoyed us, I can’t remember being anything but proud of him. "The saddest day of our lives was hearing he had died - something no parent wants to hear. "But for 24 years Kevin brought joy to our lives." Source
MELBOURNE, Australia – A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat. He said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur's Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater. When Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face. "I thought I might take a hit or two dragging the dog out from under his grip, but I didn't expect him to actually attack me," Rickard, 49, told The Herald Sun newspaper. "It was a shock at the start because it was a kangaroo, about 5 feet high, they don't go around killing people." Kangaroos rarely attack people but will fight if they feel threatened. Dogs often chase kangaroos, which have been known to lead the pets into water and defend themselves there. Rickard said he ended the attack by elbowing the kangaroo in the throat, adding Rocky was "half-drowned" when he pulled him from the water. Source
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. (AP) -- A 2-year-old in north Mississippi has done something few toddlers can: He helped his mother give birth to his brother. Bobbye Favazza told The Commercial Appeal she went into labor this past Friday and gave birth on the family's living room couch in Olive Branch. She said her toddler, Jeremiha Taylor, got her a towel and caught the baby before firefighters arrived to cut the umbilical cord. Favazza gave birth to a 7-pound, 4-ounce baby boy, Kamron Taylor. She had been scheduled for a cesarian section on Dec. 6. City emergency services supervisor, Greg Mynatt, said the 911 call about Favazza was probably the third this year about a woman in labor, but usually the mother makes it to the hospital before delivery. Source
Zoo-keepers in China say their tigers have grown so tame that they're frightened of the chickens they're supposed to eat. The Chongqing Wild Animal Park has five rare adult white tigers which were originally trained to perform tricks for visitors, reports the Chongqing Morning Post. Keepers have been trying to encourage them to follow their natural instincts by throwing them live chickens - but without success. Feeder Shi Ruqiang said: They're supposed to be wild and scary, but due to their soft lifestyles and human care they have gradually lost their wild nature. "I have been trying to interest them with live chickens but it was quite a funny scene. The tigers were so scared that they wouldn't go near them. "One chicken passed out and the tigers did eventually approach it - but then it woke up again and squawked and they ran for their lives!" Shi says the keepers are now forcing the tigers to stay outside their cages for at least 12 hours a day to toughen them up. And they are planning to introduce a wild tiger to show the domesticated big cats the ropes. "If all else fails, we will simply cut down their rations until they are so hungry that they are forced to hunt for themselves," he added. Source
A Canadian teenager has been rescued after he got trapped on a floating piece of ice - with three polar bears. The 17-year-old had been on a hunting trip with his uncle when he became stuck on the ice pan, reports the Daily Telegraph. He shot one of the bears in self defense and was suffering from hypothermia when he was eventually rescued. It happened after a snowmobile the teen and his 67-year-old uncle were riding broke down on Southampton Island in the northern part of Hudson Bay. As they walked toward the tiny community of Coral Harbour - 11 miles away - to get help, they became separated. A large chunk of ice broke off, setting the teen adrift. While the teenager was lost in the wilderness he encountered three polar bears, an adult and two older cubs, on the same large ice pan. Ed Zebedee, director of the Government of Nunavut's protection services branch, said: "He did have to shoot the polar bear to protect himself. "There were two other bears on the ice pan but they stayed away from him so he didn't shoot at them at all." The uncle was picked up by searchers on snowmobiles and the teenager was spotted by a search plane later that day. It dropped him a container of chocolate bars. The following day, two search-and-rescue technicians parachuted to a larger ice floe a short distance away to mount their successful rescue attempt. Source
A 1500-tonne boulder came within metres of crushing a sleeping family of four after breaking free from a large overhanging rock face on Black Friday. Jenny and Michael Day were asleep in their Wyberba home near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt in southern Queensland when they were jolted awake by an "almighty crash" about 3am. "We thought a jet had crashed at first. It was just such a loud noise accompanied by a sort of squealing," Mrs Day told the Courier-Mail. They had to wait until daylight to discover the offending object – and could barely believe what they saw. "My husband rushed back inside with his camera and showed me the pictures he took," Mrs Day said. "I said, 'Holy crap'!" The enormous boulder had broken off a large rock face overhanging their property and tumbled about 150m. "About 50m more and we would have been gone. It would have completely crushed the house," Mrs Day said. Neighbour Trevor Cooper said in 32 years of living in Wyberba he had never seen a rock of that size come adrift before. "If it had gone another roll, there would've been nothing to stop it. It would've gained momentum again and wiped out the house," Mr Cooper said. Queensland University of Technology geology expert David Murphy said the boulder was a time bomb. "The fracture along which the boulder broke must have originally started some time ago and has slowly spread from the top left to the bottom right until finally breaking completely," Dr Murphy said. "It was simply a matter of time." He said the Days would be well advised to get a geotechnical engineer to inspect the rest of the rock face. Mrs Day said they would just have to live with the rock, planted firmly next to the water tank. "It's not like we can move it," she laughed. Source
HOLLAND, Mich., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Authorities in Michigan said a 79-year-old man suffered cuts, abrasions and burns when he attempted to destroy old fireworks in a backyard fire pit. Ottawa County sheriff's deputies responding to a report of a fire on a roof in the area said they spotted the man near a fire pit late Sunday morning and a huge explosion followed that left the man injured, WWMT-TV, Kalamazoo, Mich., reported Monday. The man told investigators he was trying to destroy fireworks in the pit. Deputies told the Holland (Mich.) Sentinel the Michigan Bomb Squad was called in dispose of the remaining fireworks. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
OZARK, Ark. — A police officer in a small Arkansas town used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl after he said her mother gave him permission to do so. Now the town's mayor is calling for an investigation into whether the Taser use was appropriate. According to a report by Officer Dustin Bradshaw, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, police were called to the Ozark home Nov. 11 because of a domestic disturbance. When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, the report said. Bradshaw's report said the girl screamed, kicked and resisted any time her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed. "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to," Bradshaw wrote. The child was "violently kicking and verbally combative" when Bradshaw tried to take her into custody, and she kicked him in the groin. So he delivered "a very brief drive stun to her back," the report said. The names of the girl and her mother were redacted in the report. Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel said Wednesday that the girl wasn't injured and is now at the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil. But McDaniel said he wants Arkansas State Police — and if they decline, the FBI — to investigate the incident. The state police declined his request Tuesday. "People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation," McDaniel said. Police Chief Jim Noggle said Tasers are a safe way to subdue someone who's a danger to themself or others. No disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw, he said. "We didn't use the Taser to punish the child — just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else," Noggle said. If the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg, Noggle said. He said a touch of the stun gun — "less than a second" — stopped the girl from being unruly, and she was handcuffed, he said. "She got up immediately and they put her in the patrol car," McDaniel said. Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile in the incident. The girl's father, Anthony Medlock, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his daughter has emotional problems, but that she didn't have a weapon and shouldn't have been Tasered. "My daughter does not deserve to be tased and be treated like an animal," said Medlock, who is divorced from the girl's mother and does not have custody. Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser, said it's up to individual law enforcement agencies to decide when Taser use is appropriate. In some cases, a Taser "presents the safer response to resistance compared with the alternatives such as fists, kicks, baton strikes, bean bag guns, chemical agents, or canine response," Tuttle said in a statement. The police chief, who has been Tasered twice himself during training sessions, said his department has never had to Taser a child or elderly person before, but that in some instances, that could be necessary to ensure safety. "We don't want to do things like this," Noggle said. "This is something we have to do. We're required to maintain order and keep the peace." Source
