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Endurance In Extremity (Tales Of Stubborn Survival Or Persistence)

The report is a bit short but I have no idea how she managed to get by:

Woman lives without portion of skull for months



Midvale, Utah-AP -- A Utah woman says an insurance snag left her without a portion of her skull for months.

Briana Lane went almost four months with nearly half of her skull sitting in a hospital freezer following surgery to save her life after a car accident. The hospital didn't initially consider the second surgery an emergency and paperwork between it and Medicaid got held up. Lane says the months she spent living at home without a portion of her skull were excruciating. Her skull finally was replaced on April 30th. Lane says she had contacted a T-V station, and all of a sudden she was in line for the surgery.
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http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=1856994
 
Dog survives five weeks in desert hole

The Associated Press
Last Updated 5:30 am PDT Wednesday, May 19, 2004

TEMECULA, Calif. (AP) - A family who left their dog for dead after a desert hiking accident five weeks ago has been reunited with the pooch after a Riverside County hiker and his brother heard it barking and pulled it from a 30-foot-deep pit.

Stephen Schwartz, 17, was hiking with his brother, father and two cousins on April 18 near the ghost town of Panamint City on the western edge of Death Valley National Park when their dog, Shadow, fell into the pit.

The Schwartzs heard 10-year-old Shadow whimpering and tried to use an aluminum ladder from a nearby ranger station to reach the dog. But the ladder fell out of reach and eventually, Shadow stopped responding to their calls.

Thinking the dog was dead, the Schwartzs placed an improvised wooden cross over the pit, said a prayer and returned home to Trona, a tiny town in far northern San Bernardino County.

But Shadow was very much alive, surviving on water at the bottom of the hole.

On Sunday, Temecula resident Scott Mertz and his brother, Darren Mertz, of Ridgecrest, were searching for the source of a spring near Panamint City.

They stumbled on a deep, 4-foot-wide pit with a ladder inside and a strange cross-like design over it. Stopping to rest, the brothers tossed rocks into the pit and dared each other to climb inside. Then they heard barking.

"We looked at each other and my brother said, 'Is that coming from the hole?'" Scott Mertz, 36, said. "We were just horrified that there was a dog down there."

His brother, Darren, said: "We weren't going to leave without the dog."

Using an old hose from a nearby water storage tank, Darren, 34, lowered his brother into the hole until he could reach the ladder and climb down to the dog. Scott managed to grab a frightened and skinny Shadow and his brother hauled them back up.

The Mertz brothers called the number on Shadow's tags and told the Schwartzs their beloved pet had been found 35 days after they left it for dead.

"This tops the list - I never felt so happy before," Stephen Schwartz said Tuesday. "I prayed that I would see her again and it happened."

The cocker spaniel-beagle mix appears to be in good health despite losing 5 pounds, he said.

"Last night, she came up to me and started begging for food like she always did," Schwartz said.
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http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/9347092p-10271794c.html
 
Toilet power

Posted on Thu, Jun. 03, 2004

Against a tornado, she wins

Conway Springs woman clings to toilet and survives being carried away by storm

BY TIM POTTER

The Wichita Eagle


With storms approaching Saturday night, Diane Neises' mother called to alert her. "Oh, Mom, it's not doing anything," Neises said. It wasn't even raining outside her manufactured home just south of Conway Springs.

But when Neises, 46, looked out her window later, she saw a funnel cloud a half-mile away.

Neises (pronounced "NICE-us") said Wednesday that she had seen funnel clouds before. But this was by far the biggest -- a gray monster of a tornado. And the monster churned toward her, chewing up a neighbor's house as she watched.

She thought about getting into her pickup and trying to outrun the twister. She was alone; her husband, Steve, was at a friend's.

Instead, she remembers, she headed into a windowless bathroom, dropped to the floor and locked her arms around the most secure fixture around -- the toilet.

She held on as the computer in the next room exploded in the tornado's fury.

She held on as water lines snapped, shooting up water beneath her.

She felt herself being lifted.

While gripping the toilet, something hit the back of her head, apparently leaving her unconscious.

No one knows for sure, but Neises thinks the tornado must have hurled her a half-mile, to the other side of a hedgerow. That's where two storm chasers found her.

It was around 8:30 p.m. Bill Kunze and Travis Scates, two storm-chasing friends from Hutchinson, had been following the twisters on back roads. They were excited. They already had five tornadoes on video.

By coincidence, the two ended up on a road near Neises' home. It took them 10 minutes to go a half-mile. They had to ease around downed power lines in the growing darkness.

But what they saw next took away the giddiness of the adventure.

At first, they thought it was an animal, staggering.

As they got closer, they could see it was woman. Her shirt was torn. She was covered in blood.

It was Neises, and she was stumbling in a direction away from rescuers moving into the area.

The two put a quilt around her and put her in a back seat of their pickup. They asked her questions, but she was incoherent. They got her to a rescue crew.

The first thing Neises remembers is an ambulance crew member asking whether she understood that she had been through a tornado.

She ended up in Wichita at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus. Her injuries included cuts on her head that had to be closed with staples, three broken ribs, eye injuries, bruises and more stitched-up cuts, dotting her body.

She had to have her hair clipped off in places. The twister wove in shreds of wheat, from a nearby field, and other debris, causing impenetrable tangles.

Her four-bedroom, two-bathroom home and everything inside it is gone. That has become her most painful injury, she said Wednesday as she rested at a relative's home in Clearwater.

She is reluctant to visit the destroyed home site. "I don't know that I could handle it emotionally," she said.

Although the structure was covered by insurance, the contents were not. She lost things like her grandson's dirt bike and her wedding pictures.

She worries how she will replace the possessions.

"I'm 46. Where do you start?" she said in a tearful, shaky voice.

Then her voice evened out. "Somehow, we'll do it."

Saturday's tornadoes destroyed a dozen Sumner County homes. But apparently no one was as seriously injured as Neises.

She feels lucky to be alive. And lucky that her 5-year-old grandson was not with her when the monster descended. The boy's father was going to bring him over that night before plans changed.

Other little miracles happened. All her dogs and cats, except a kitten that is missing, survived the storm. They ended up in spaces under foundation rubble.

Neises doesn't know the toilet's fate. She calls it her porcelain god.

For a few terrifying moments Saturday night, her porcelain god became her ange
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http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/8824778.htm
 
Not sure if it quite fits in here but.......

92yo man survives 272 snake bites

From correspondents in New Dehli
June 15, 2004


A 92-year-old man living in a Himalayan village in India has survived 272 snake bites by following a simple tip - never eat salt, a report said.

Amar Singh, whose home is deep in the remote Narag valley in India's mountainous Himachal Pradesh state, loves the creatures and despite being bitten never hits or kills them, the United News of India said.

Instead, he picks up the hissing snakes and deposits them in their jungle homes. Singh received his survival tip more than 50 years ago from a traditional healer of snake bites, the report said.
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http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9849231%5E13762,00.html
 
Man Removes Bullet From His Own Neck

POSTED: 8:31 pm EDT June 5, 2004
UPDATED: 8:42 pm EDT June 5, 2004

HAVERHILL, Mass. -- A Haverhill man who was shot in the neck removed the bullet himself with tweezers before going to a hospital.

Police said 26-year-old Gregory Davis was drunk when he was walking home early Thursday morning.

Shortly after he stopped to talk to some people, a blue minivan approached him, the side door opened and Davis was shot in the neck.

Police said he walked to a gas station to call his girlfriend, who took him home and urged him to go to a hospital for treatment.

Instead, he removed the bullet himself before heading to Merrimack Valley Hospital with bullet in hand.

The bullet was handed over to police, who are investigating. Davis is recovering.
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http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/3386353/detail.html
 
Dog Falls 60 Feet and Survives

Updated: Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2004 - 2:39 PM

GREAT FALLS, Va. - Despite falling 50 to 60 feet off a cliff, Topac the pit bull is doing just fine now.

Topac was walking with is owner on Sunday, an 18-year-old Arlington woman, at Great Falls Park when he slipped out of his collar and tumbled over a cliff and into a rocky area along the Potomac River.

Fairfax County Animal Control and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue used a fire rescue boat to retrieve Topac. An Animal Control Officer injured his leg during the rescue.

Topac was taken to a nearby animal hospital, where he was checked out then released to his owner.
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http://www.wtop.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=217694
 
Holiday boaters rescue kitty who went to sea

A sad, soggy ball of fur finds salvation from the Gulf of Mexico when eagle-eyed boaters stop to give him a lift - and a new life.

By EILEEN SCHULTE, Times Staff Writer
Published July 9, 2004



A group of friends on a scalloping trip were cruising in Homosassa Bay more than 3 miles into the Gulf of Mexico when one of them spotted something the color of a plastic Publix shopping bag in the distance.

"Dog in the water!" shouted Bob Kline to Bob Burkenstock, who was steering the 17-foot Scout Current Drift at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Kline's wife, Maggie Rogers, said she thought maybe it was a piece of sea kelp or a turtle. But it was hard to tell because the boat was going 35 mph.

Amid heavy traffic that day, Burkenstock turned the boat around to take a closer look.

"There was a 9-inch-long kitten doing the paddle and screaming at the top of his lungs," said Rogers, the director of finances at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. "We scooped him up and he sat on the boat with me for eight hours."

The question: How in the world did a kitten get 3 miles out to sea?

Was he an unwanted pet tossed overboard to die? Did he fall off someone's boat?

As long as he wasn't shark bait.

Several fishing guides said they had never heard of people using live pets as bait. Some were appalled at the possibility.

"My opinion is somebody that sick should be put on a hook himself," said Wade Osborne, owner of Afishionado Guide Services and owner of three cats. "My opinion is he could have fallen off a sailboat."

Indeed, there were at least 40 boats in the area when the Current Drift passed between Mile Marker 22 and 24, where the kitten was spotted.

For the rest of the day, Rogers held the kitten in her lap trying to comfort him while the others went scalloping.

"He was exhausted and stressed," Rogers said. "His heart rate was high."

When anyone approached, he cowered and ran for cover behind Rogers' back.

But he never cried.

"I said to Bob, "Maybe he had screamed himself hoarse,"' Rogers said.

The boaters took the apricot-colored kitty back to a cabin where they were spending the holiday weekend and gave him a room of his own.

He was terrified, especially of the sound of running water. For two days, he would not eat or drink.

When the Rogers got home to St. Petersburg, he took up residence in their shower stall - a dry one. On Tuesday, they took the kitten to their vet, Dr. Kevin Rose of the St. Pete Beach Veterinary Clinic.

Aside from having worms, the 10-week-old kitten, all 1 pound, six ounces of him, is in good health.

He was adopted by Rogers' sister-in-law.

His name?

Nemo, of course.
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http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/09/Northpinellas/Holiday_boaters_rescu.shtml
 
Australian children in sea ordeal

Three children have been found on a remote island in northern Australia, six days after their dinghy sank in choppy seas.
The children, aged between 10 and 15, swam to safety, and survived on coconut milk and shellfish.

But their parents and a younger brother are missing in the Torres Straits. "We have considerable concerns for their welfare," the authorities said.

The family set off from Badu Island to attend a birthday party on 6 July.

The trip to Thursday Island usually takes just a few hours.

Weak

But the boat's engine failed and the dinghy capsized.

The children - girls aged 10 and 15 and their 11-year-old brother - said their father told them to swim to a small island while he and their mother stayed with the little boy.

They swam to a series of rocky outcrops, each separated by wide open stretches of sea.

"They kept looking back and they could see their mum and dad in the water until a good distance away and then when they looked back they couldn't see them anymore," their aunt said, quoted by the AFP news agency.

"They started swimming on Friday, according to the older sister... and finally they reached the smaller island yesterday [Monday] morning with their last strength," Wendy Phineasa said.

"Then they saw their uncle in a dinghy coming towards them and they started waving and shouting with all their might and heart and they were seen.

"They were all shivering and really weak, and they just ran to him and hugged him and started crying."

The authorities are looking for the father, Naseli Nona, his wife Lisa and their three-year-old son.

"We are hoping they have made it to a rocky outcrop or island," said Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokesman Ben Mitchell.
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BBCi News 13/07/04
 
Plunges 12 floors - & lives

BY KERRY BURKE and TONY SCLAFANI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

A frenzied fight between two women in an upper East Side luxury condo ended when one of them leaped from the 12th-story balcony with bite marks on her body, cops said.

The 30-year-old woman survived, despite jumping feetfirst off the E. 89th St. building and hitting two scaffolds on her way down, cops and witnesses said.

Otilla Cordero, who was conscious after the plunge, suffered a fractured skull, chin and shin and was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital in stable condition, cops said.

"When I looked up, I saw her body falling from the sky," said a witness who didn't want his name used. "She was still alive when EMS [Emergency Medical Service] put her in the ambulance. Her arms were still moving."

The drama unfolded about 5 p.m. at The Monarch, a 45-story building at Third Ave., when the tussle between Cordero and her 30-year-old friend spilled into the hallway, prompting neighbors to call building security.

Neighbors said the two were lovers in the midst of a breakup, and were biting and clawing at each other.

"She had threatened to jump if her lover left, and then she did," said Jeff Moss, 40, a personal trainer.

When cops came upstairs and Cordero's partner opened the door, Cordero went running for the balcony, a building worker told the Daily News.

Wearing black pants and a blouse, she landed on a sixth-story scaffold, then rolled off and fell onto a second-story scaffold, where she landed on coils of rubber cables that broke her fall, the worker said.

Firefighters, who already were on the scene because of an unfounded report of a fire, saw the plunge, then rescued her from the scaffold.

Edward Savran, a lawyer who lives in the apartment, denied the women were romantically linked and said Cordero's fall was an accident.

"One is my girlfriend and [Cordero] came to study with her," he said. "It was just a shoving match. People are making a big deal about nothing. It's unfortunate that she fell."

Originally published on July 14, 2004
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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/212123p-182635c.html
 
Crash pilot flies in search of lost plane
31 July 2004
By JOHN KEAST

Miraculous survivor Howard Jamieson was back in the air yesterday searching for the plane he crash-landed in the sea off Temuka on Thursday night.

Jamieson, limping and wearing a neck brace, had cheated death when forced to ditch his Cessna 185, JK FNX, into sea off the South Canterbury coast en route from Timaru to Ashburton.

"I'm shattered, mate, I really am," said Jamieson, 40, of Ashburton, as he limped into a hangar at Timaru's Richard Pearse Airport with two friends. He said the engine of his plane stopped just over the coast, "but I don't want to say any more about it at this stage".

Jamieson, an experienced pilot, managed to get a lifejacket out from under the plane's seat and grab a piece of plywood flooring to help him get the 200m to 300m to shore.

On dry land, he managed to flag down a motorist somewhere between the Seadown fertiliser works and the Clandeboye dairy factory, advise police of the accident, and be taken to Ashburton Hospital for observation.

He was released yesterday morning and was flown back to Timaru to join an aerial search for the missing plane.

Jamieson told police the plane was afloat and in one piece when he left it but there was no sign of it yesterday.

Senior Sergeant Mal Schwartfeger, of the Timaru police, said air traffic control talked to Jamieson before the accident.

Police were notified at 6.54pm.

"He's a very lucky guy," Schwartfeger said.

There was speculation yesterday that the Cessna may have experienced fuel problems because a Timaru pilot had carburettor icing problems in the air over South Canterbury.

Ashburton police said Jamieson did all he could to get the engine re-started and turned the plane to the wind before it went down.

Police are not involved in the search for the aircraft.

South Canterbury Aero Club instructor Brian Marston said it was a miracle Jamieson survived the crash and got ashore in failing light on a tricky coastline.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2987846a11,00.html
 
Climber trapped with dead woman

A climber from Gloucestershire survived three nights on Mont Blanc after becoming trapped with a German climber who later died.

Edward Allen, 49, from Fairford, became stranded with the woman, 25, near the summit in a snow storm on Sunday.

The temperature fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius and the woman died of hypothermia on Tuesday after rescuers failed to reach the pair.

Mr Allen was rescued on Wednesday after spending a day with the body.

Mr Allen said: "There was nothing I could do to save her, the winds were so ferocious, they battered the life out of her.

"The temperature was already minus 20, then with the wind chill factor it was double that and it just took her away."

[...]

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/3601752.stm

Published: 2004/08/26 12:55:47 GMT

© BBC MMIV
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I'll never ever be able to appreciate or understand the exact awfulness of what happened at Beslan.

This boy's tale of survival there is amazing:

Beslan boy recalls hostage horror

The boy turns to the camera in terror as the masked man flashes a white-gloved hand at the detonator under his foot.

The image of 10-year-old Georgy Farniyev was seen all over the world when a video shot by the hostage-takers inside the school in Beslan was released.

He could easily have been among the more than 300 who died - but miraculously he survived.

The woman and girl visible at his left in the video are both believed to be dead.

"They said: 'Sit down and if you make any noise, we will kill 20 children,'" Georgy told BBC correspondent Andrew Burroughs.

Body bags

Georgy left the siege with cuts to his leg and arm. His injuries require further treatment but are not thought to be serious.

His mother told British newspaper The Sun how hours of sifting through body-bags ended with a call from a hospital, saying a boy matching Georgy's description had been found alive.
"It was the worst imaginable torture each time I looked inside the bags containing the remains of children, the ones with the most space inside," she said.

"Each time I thought I was about to see the face of my dead son - and each time I felt the most incredible relief before moving down the line to do it again," she said.

Burst pipe

It is not entirely clear how Georgy emerged alive from the siege, avoiding the gunfight between rebels and Russian commandos and the bomb blasts that brought the school's roof down.

He told The Sun he was barely five metres from the first mine detonated inside the building on Friday.

"The explosion was very close to me and I still don't understand why I wasn't killed. I sat up and was just dazed while everyone else seemed to be screaming."

He says he asked one of his captors if he could get water to drink, then made his way to a room with a burst pipe.

Behind him, another explosion shook the building - thought to be from mines wired to the basketball hoops inside the school gymnasium.

'I was going to live'

He returned to a scene of carnage.

"There were body parts - arms and legs - everywhere and wounded people screaming for help as the gunmen carried on firing at them.

"In the middle of it all was a dead woman who had been blown into two parts by one of the bombs.

"Everyone in the area where I had been sitting was dead from the explosions."

Shrapnel was lodged in his arm and he removed it before going to hide, he told the Associated Press.

Amid the chaos, a pair of hands hoisted him out - it was a Russian soldier.

"I couldn't believe it - I was going to live," he said.

A phrase crops up several times in his account. He repeated it like a mantra throughout the ordeal: "Stay as quiet as a mouse... as quiet as a mouse."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3641388.stm

Published: 2004/09/09 13:31:23 GMT

© BBC MMIV
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Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- Aron Ralston

this is the story of the climber who amputated his right arm after it was caught between a boulder and a canyon wall for six days. i watched an interview with him last night. why does it still bother me that he pulled out his camera and took pictures of the bloody rocks after his amputation? why would someone do that? it doesn't make sense. it almost seems that he was thinking, okay, this is really bad, but if i live i'm going to make some big bucks. oh, i'm so evil...
 
PD: I merged this with the previous discussion - I think what was evil was the story about people trying to retreive his arm so they could sell it on eBay. Personally if I was sitting around for days with nothing much to do I'd probably make a photographic record of the whole thing. Its the most traumatic thing you are likely to do in your life so you might as well get some pictures (he probably also wasn't thinking too clearly at the time). Me I'd have taken breaks in the hacking to get a few snaps of 'work in progress'.
 
emperor,
thanks for the merge. :)
i can totally understand taking pictures through the six days, but i don't understand taking them after he's free and bleeding. i'm sure he wasn't thinking clearly, which makes it even stranger. he's finally free, but he takes photos. maybe he had to rest and gather strength before he could depart. i'm just trying to put it together in my head. i suppose it's one of those stranger than fiction things. :)
 
Thats it really - in such extreme situations you have no idea what might go through your head. He might have come out the other side and been feeling rather detached and thought "well why not?".
 
and yet...
i can't help thinking about a documentary erroll morris did several years ago about a town in florida where many of the residents were missing body parts. they would cut, chop, or shoot off their own hands, arms, feet, in order to sue, collect insurance, etc.

another documentary out just last year was about people who actually cut off their own legs and arms as a weird obsession. can't remember the name of it.
 
Me I'd have taken breaks in the hacking to get a few snaps of 'work in progress'.
Click to expand...
Yup, I'd do that too.

Taking pictures is a way of not only recording, but of creating a significance about an incident. News photographers do it all the time - how interested would we be in stories without pictures?

I think the climber did a grand job in saving his own life.

The Beslan boy, poor lad, things'll get worse for him now, not better. Last thing he needs is the world's attention. He needs his ma and a couple of mates to play footy with.

Many concentration camp survivors had problems with guilt about being the ones to come out of those places when others didn't, and lots committed suicide years or even decades later.
The same may happen to the Beslan ones. :(
 
Guatemalan girl lived on water for 16 days

20.09.2004 11.48 pm


A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl survived 16 days alone in the jungle consuming only water after her drunk father forgot her. Hunters found the girl in a remote area about 120km west of Guatemala City.

Her father left her stranded after a night of hard drinking in nearby Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa.

The girl, bruised, scratched and suffering from malnutrition, was receiving medical care.
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3593122&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
 
Girl, 7, Survives 2 Weeks in Guatemalan Jungle

Mon Sep 20, 2004 07:48 PM ET



GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A seven-year-old girl survived without food for two weeks in the Guatemalan jungle after her drunk father lost her while in a bar, emergency workers said on Monday.

Clara Ramirez told doctors she survived by drinking only river water before she was found on Sept. 17 by iguana hunters who spotted her beneath a makeshift leaf shelter she had built in the roots of a tree.

Nurse Norma Coco says Ramirez had scratches on her body and was severely dehydrated when she was admitted to a local hospital.

"I've never seen another case like this, she was so thin when she came in," she told Reuters by telephone.

The girl became lost after wandering into the jungle on Sept. 2 while her father Jose Ramirez was drinking in Santa Lucia Cotzulmalguapa, 56 miles southwest of Guatemala City.

Local fireman Edgar Gomez said workers from local coffee plantations frequently lost their children.

"The parents come from their plantations to shop with their children, get drunk and lose them. The children get lost looking for the path back to the plantation," he said.

-----------------
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6285191
 
Dogged effort: Pet, hit by car, finds way to hospital

Posted: Sept. 23, 2004




If dogs can reason, this one had the right idea.

Tokio, an 8-month-old boxer, had just been hit on S. 16th St. by a car that sped away.

Rather than hide somewhere and lick his wounds, he limped through the doors of St. Francis Hospital - that's St. Francis as in friend to all animals, but also St. Francis as in we mostly treat humans here.

And he collapsed in front of the registration desk, a few feet from the saint's statue.

I'm not trying to let the hit-and-run driver off the guilt hook, but things could not have worked out better for Tokio this week. And the employees who jumped in to help are still buzzing about the whole bizarre episode.

"The dog had to make it through two sets of doors to get to registration. That's what I couldn't believe," said Michael Gunville, a computer tech at the hospital.

Gunville was outside the hospital Tuesday morning when he saw the white dog struck by a southbound car at 16th and Ohio.

"I heard a thud and a yelp. I turned and saw this dog rolling down the street. It must have rolled six or seven times," he said. He noticed the dog's owner, a woman, running up Ohio Ave. and then trying to catch up to the injured dog as it ducked initially behind a tavern.

Gunville hurried into the hospital to put his stuff in his office, and by the time he was heading back outside to see if the dog or the woman needed help, the animal had entered the hospital and was lying on the carpet.

Tokio had made his own way into the building, probably following people through the open electric doors facing Ohio Ave. His owner, Panhia Her, who lives near the hospital, showed up a little while later after checking her voice mail and finding a message from St. Francis: "We have your dog in the lobby." She said Tokio got loose when she opened the gate to take out the trash.

Jo Dee Luedtke works at the registration desk. She was the first to notice the dog inside the hospital. He was bleeding and gagging.

Fortunately for Tokio, Luedtke and her husband have nursed sick dogs back to health at their home and placed them with owners. She quickly pulled on surgical gloves and began examining the dog's bloody face and the inside of its mouth.

Stephanie Santi, who also works in registration, got some towels to wipe away the blood and keep it from getting on the carpet. By now, Her and the father of Her's children were in the lobby. Her was crying and, as she put it, freaking out.

"I was crying right along with her," Santi said.

Sue Selker, a nurse and manager of women's health services, found Tokio by following the drops of blood on the floor. She knelt down and began monitoring the dog's heart rate and respiration, which was becoming labored. Fearing that Tokio was going into shock, she called for blankets that were put over him.

"He did not look good at all," said emergency room nurse Sherry Wiesner.

A crowd was forming. (Full disclosure: My wife works at St. Francis and was in that crowd.) Before the dog's owners showed up, everyone was shouting out suggestions. Someone offered to drive the dog to an animal hospital. Selker heard someone else say, "I have a credit card. Let's take him to a vet."

Santi called the Humane Society and was put in touch instead with Milwaukee's Domestic Animal Control Commission. They sent someone right over. It was quite the scene as Tokio was hoisted onto a dog-sized stretcher, carried to Her's car and rushed to Tuckaway Veterinary Clinic, 5341 S. 27th St.

The diagnosis: Bruises and cuts, but no broken bones or internal injuries. And Tokio had indeed gone into shock. He went home the same day with some pain pills.

Veterinarian Eric Holder said he found it "odd" that an injured dog would check itself into a hospital, or so it seemed anyway. Workers from St. Francis kept calling the clinic to see how Tokio was doing.

Her, who said her two kids named the dog but didn't want it spelled just like the city, was less surprised. "Sometimes that dog, I just wonder about him. He is pretty smart."

I wondered if anyone at St. Francis checked the dog's tags for verification of health insurance before they helped him out.

"We didn't ask for any," joked nurse Selker. "I think we get points for that."
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http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep04/261279.asp
 
The Garudian are presenting 3 extracts from Aron Ralston's new book over the next three days.

Extract 1:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1313404,00.html

[edit:

Extract 2:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1314110,00.html

Extract 3:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1315001,00.html ]

The book:

Between a Rock and a Hard Place
by Aron Ralston (2004)
PB:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743495802/
HB:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743263537/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743492811/
 
Toddler Wanders Miles Across Desert

Mon Oct 4,10:40 AM ET

Oddly Enough - Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A 20-month-old boy wandered for 5 1/2 miles through the scorching desert of southeast Iran before his parents followed his footprints and found him sitting in an open irrigation channel, police said on Sunday.


Errant toddler Ali Esfandiarpour had been playing at home in a small village near the town of Sirjan when his parents realized he was missing on Tuesday afternoon. He was tracked down late that night.

"His family, relatives, and other villagers started walking out into the desert to look for him," said Abdolhossein Moghaddas, a police officer from the southeastern province of Kerman.

"Police and villagers followed his footsteps with torches until they found the boy sitting in an open channel used for irrigation. The boy started crying when he saw his parents," he added.

Esfandiarpour appeared unscathed by his trek.
Click to expand...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20041004/od_nm/baby_dc
 
Deer's 25-mile bumper road trip

A deer survived a 25-mile ride in the bumper of a car after it was hit by a motorist travelling to work.

The muntjac deer remained unnoticed by the driver who thought he had hit a stone and continued on his way.

Only when he reached Sainsbury's distribution centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, did his colleagues point out the animal was stuck in his Rover.

Vets examined the deer but found no injuries apart from cuts and bruises and released it back into the wild.

'Superficial cuts'

Fire and RSPCA officers were called to the car park to free the deer before it was taken to the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in Potters Bar.

Virginia Fisher, from the RVC, said: "She did not need emergency care, she was very, very lucky, I don't know how she managed to survive.

"One horn was bleeding as a result of a graze and she had superficial cuts and bruises, that's all."

A spokeswoman for Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said the driver of the Rover did not want to be interviewed, but is thought to have hit the deer in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, last Wednesday morning.

"He thought he'd driven over a stone and didn't think anything of it, it was only when he got to work some colleagues pointed it out," she said.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/3723508.stm

Published: 2004/10/07 13:53:04 GMT
© BBC MMIV
Click to expand...

and this is the photo of said Muntjac in bumper...

:eek:
 
Deer's 25-mile bumper road trip

A deer survived a 25-mile ride in the bumper of a car after it was hit by a motorist travelling to work.

The muntjac deer remained unnoticed by the driver who thought he had hit a stone and continued on his way.

Only when he reached Sainsbury's distribution centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, did his colleagues point out the animal was stuck in his Rover.

Vets examined the deer but found no injuries apart from cuts and bruises and released it back into the wild.

'Superficial cuts'

Fire and RSPCA officers were called to the car park to free the deer before it was taken to the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in Potters Bar.

Virginia Fisher, from the RVC, said: "She did not need emergency care, she was very, very lucky, I don't know how she managed to survive.

"One horn was bleeding as a result of a graze and she had superficial cuts and bruises, that's all."

A spokeswoman for Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said the driver of the Rover did not want to be interviewed, but is thought to have hit the deer in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, last Wednesday morning.

"He thought he'd driven over a stone and didn't think anything of it, it was only when he got to work some colleagues pointed it out," she said.

The RSPCA told BBC News Online a very similar accident involving a muntjac deer and a Rover car happened in Essex two years ago.

The deer also survived in that case as well.

Kevin Jones, communications manager at MG Rover, said: "We work hard to protect the driver and spend time on pedestrian safety. We are delighted that we can help save deer as well."

------------
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/3723508.stm

Published: 2004/10/07 16:20:45 GMT

© BBC MMIV
Click to expand...
 
An impressive tale mixed with rather supernatural claims:

Wash. Teen Found Alive 8 Days After Wreck

2 hours, 59 minutes ago

U.S. National - AP

SEATTLE - After eight days, Laura Hatch's family had almost given the 17-year-old up for dead, and sheriff's deputies had all but written her off as a runaway. Then she was found, badly hurt and severely dehydrated, but alive and conscious, in the back seat of a crumpled car, 200 feet down a ravine.

A volunteer searcher who said she had had several vivid dreams of a wooded area found the wrecked car in the trees Sunday.

Hatch, who remained hospitalized Monday in serious condition, was last seen at a party on Oct. 2. When she did not show up by the next day, her family filed a missing person's report.

The initial search was slowed because there had been underage drinking at the party, and the young people who attended would not say where it had been held, sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said.

On Oct. 6, detectives learned the party had been in a neighborhood east of Lake Washington and searched along her likely route home, Urquhart said. But prospects dimmed as the days passed.

"We had already given her up and let her be dead in our hearts," her mother, Jean Hatch, told KOMO-TV.

Urquhart noted that in 24 years with the department, he had never known of a person to survive eight days without food or water. He said an investigation into the accident was under way.

During the search, a statewide bulletin was released and advisories were sent to local police agencies. But Urquhart said family and friends indicated "the most likely scenario was that she was a runaway."

Hatch's parents organized a volunteer search on Saturday, and that night Sha Nohr, a church member and mother of a friend of Hatch's, said she had dreams of a wooded area and heard the message, "Keep going, keep going."

On Sunday morning, Nohr and her daughter drove to the area where the crash occurred, praying along the way. "I just thought, `Let her speak out to us,'" Nohr told The Seattle Times.

Nohr said something drew her to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier and more than 100 feet down a steep, densely vegetated embankment where she barely managed to discern the wrecked Toyota Camry in some trees.

She called to her daughter, who flagged down a passing motorist. The man helped Nohr get closer to the car as aid was summoned.

"I told her that people were looking for her and they loved her," Nohr recalled, "and she said, `I think I might be late for curfew.'"

Hatch was being treated at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for dehydration, a blood clot on the brain, and broken bones in her face, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson said.

"She's a little bit confused. That's really standard course for what she's been through," Gregg-Hanson said. "I think everybody thinks it's an amazing story that she's doing as well as she is."

A call Monday to the family home in Redmond was answered by one of Hatch's sisters, who declined comment.

"We were afraid that we weren't going to find her, we weren't going to get her back," Hatch's other sister, Amy, told KING-TV in Seattle. "This is the best thing that could happen because there were a million awful scenarios."
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...19&e=4&u=/ap/20041011/ap_on_re_us/found_alive

Monday, October 11, 2004 - Page updated at 12:24 A.M.

Redmond teenager survives 8 days stuck in car wreck

By Natalie Singer
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
KING-TV

The King County Sheriff's Office thought Laura Hatch was a runaway.

A Redmond teenager, missing for eight days, was found alive yesterday at the bottom of a woodsy ravine by a member of her church who said a vision led her to the girl.

Laura Hatch, 17, was found in the back seat of her smashed car, about 150 feet below Northeast Union Hill Road in Redmond, according to the King County Sheriff's Office. She was last seen in Redmond on Oct. 2. Family and friends had been searching for her since then.

Hatch was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where she was being treated for severe dehydration, a possible blood clot near her brain, broken ribs, a broken leg and facial injuries, according to her sister, Amy Hatch.

"We were afraid that we weren't going to find her, we weren't going to get her back," Amy Hatch told KING-TV.

"This is the best thing that could happen, because there were a million awful scenarios."

It appeared Hatch was trapped in her car without food or water for eight days, said John Urquhart, King County Sheriff's spokesman.

While he has heard of people surviving that long without water, Urquhart said, he couldn't recall any similar cases in King County.

From the beginning, police thought Hatch likely was a runaway because there was no reason to suspect foul play in her disappearance.

"There was no police search," Urquhart said, adding that Hatch was last seen at a party. "We felt she was most likely a runaway. Obviously, there was another reason."

Her parents, Jean and Todd Hatch, hired a private investigator and on Saturday organized a search involving 200 volunteers, including near where the car was found yesterday.

Since her disappearance, friends suggested that Laura Hatch might have been troubled or upset by something, but Amy Hatch said her sister showed no such signs. Her sister is an attractive, popular girl with lots of friends, Amy Hatch said.

Last night, more than 100 friends and acquaintances from Creekside Covenant Church cheered and sang at a celebratory prayer service that had been scheduled as a vigil before Hatch was found.

Church member Sha Nohr, whose daughter is friends with Laura Hatch, told the congregation how a vision led her to the lost teen.

Nohr said her teenage daughter, distraught over her missing friend, showed Nohr a photo of Hatch on Saturday and asked what they could do to find her. Nohr said she told her daughter all they could do was pray.

That night, Nohr, who belongs to an online prayer group for women, said she had several vivid dreams of a wooded area.

In the dreams, she said, she heard the message "Keep going. Keep going."

Yesterday morning, Nohr said, she woke up and felt an urgency to look for Hatch. She asked her daughter to go along.

They drove to the Union Hill area and pulled over. Nohr said she got out, but "it just didn't feel right."

So the two drove farther and stopped again in about the 20200 block of Northeast Union Hill Road. All the while, Nohr said, she prayed. "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us.' "

At one spot, Nohr said she felt something draw her down a steep embankment. Her daughter waited up on the road while Nohr scrambled over a concrete barrier and inched her way more than 100 feet down through thick vegetation.

At the bottom, Nohr said, she saw nothing at first. She was about to leave, thinking she was wrong, when through the trees, she said, she saw what looked like a car.

It was Hatch's, crumpled so badly that it looked like "modern art," said Randy Phillips, the family's pastor.

Nohr said she called up to her daughter to get help. Her daughter stopped a passing motorist because she didn't know the name of the road they were on.

A man climbed down to help Nohr get close to Hatch, who was in the back seat.

"I told her that people were looking for her and they loved her," Nohr recalled. "And she said, 'I think I might be late for curfew.' "

While emergency crews were on the way, Nohr said, she used her cellphone to call Hatch's father, Todd Hatch.

Loved ones yesterday called the ending a miracle and spent several hours at Washington Cathedral in Redmond giving thanks.

After praying and celebrating, friends wrote messages to Hatch and her family on colored strips of paper that were then linked into a prayer chain.

"God works in powerful ways," said Stacey Behee, a church member who organized the vigil-turned-celebration. She said the congregation held several prayer vigils last week for Hatch.

As the week wore on, they never lost hope, said Anji Smith, another church member. "People just kept believing," she said. "And it worked."
Click to expand...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002059533_missinggirl11m.html

Similar report but not quite as extensive:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-10-11-found-alive_x.htm
 
Man Survives After Shooting Nail Into His Chest


Oct 20, 10:48 AM (ET)

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man building a shed accidentally fired a nail into a major artery near his heart on Wednesday but survived after emergency surgery, medical officials said.

The 3-inch nail had lodged in the 35-year-old man's aorta, the body's main artery leading from the heart, said a spokeswoman for John Flynn Hospital on the Gold Coast in the tropical northern state of Queensland.

She said the man was saved after a 12-minute helicopter flight to hospital for emergency surgery and would certainly have died if treatment had been delayed any longer. She said he was in a stable condition in the intensive care ward.

"I've spoken to the cardio-thoracic surgeon and basically he just took the nail out...he doesn't even know how he did it yet," the spokeswoman said, referring to the mystery over how the victim fired the nail into his chest.

The man, whose name has not been released, was using a nailgun to build a shed on his property at Canungra, about 70 km (45 miles) south of Brisbane, when the accident occurred, an ambulance official said.

The man, with the nail embedded in his chest, drove about 400 meters (1,312 feet) back to his home and became unconscious while his wife called for help. Few other details were available.

The hospital and ambulance service said they had never heard of any similar cases before
Click to expand...

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20..._RTRIDST_0_ODD-LIFE-AUSTRALIA-NAILGUN-DC.html
 
An amazing story with some added pathos:

Man Survives Being Pinned Between 10-Ton Train, Loading Dock

Rescue Worker Realizes Pinned Victim Is Father

POSTED: 7:14 am EDT October 20, 2004
UPDATED: 7:35 am EDT October 20, 2004

A man is recovering Wednesday after the middle part of his body was trapped and crushed between a 10-ton train and a concrete loading dock in Orlando, according to Local 6 News.

Firefighters said the man was directing a freight train late Tuesday as it backed into an Orlando lumber yard when he became caught and was pulled between the train and dock.

The victim's body was crushed into less than a foot of space.

"He, somehow as the train was backing, got into between and pulled down the line, he was basically twisted and rolled down standing up." Orlando fire Chief Gregory Hoggatt said.

One of the first responders was shocked to learn the man pinned was his father, Local 6 News reported.

Firefighters had to calm the men down after the discovery.

"Trust us, you know what we do, we'll take care of you and your father," Hoggatt said.

Rescue workers freed the man Tuesday night and the trapped man is expected to recover.

Train operators are investigating the cause of the incident, Local 6 News reported.


------------------------
Copyright 2004 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com.
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A fantastiic story!!

Hunting Terrier Survives Montana Adventure

Oct 25, 1:04 PM (ET)

BEVIL OAKS, Texas (AP) - A tiny dog from East Texas is back home after surviving a big adventure in the Montana backcountry.

Esther, a 10-month-old terrier mix, went missing for five days and nights after jumping out of her owner's truck to chase a herd of elk.

She disappeared last week on the last day of Leonard "Bo" Tiemann's vacation with his wife.

He and a friend spent six hours searching for the puppy, but the couple eventually decided they couldn't further delay their 2,000-mile drive home.

Before leaving, Tiemann took off his coat and tied it to a tree near where Esther was last seen. He asked his friend to check every day to see if she'd returned, hoping she'd be drawn by his scent.

Tiemann heard nothing for days and was convinced Esther had frozen to death on the snow-covered mountains or fallen prey to a hungry animal.

But a Montana pilot who was hunting moose in the backcountry spotted a coyote on the hunt on Oct. 18. Looking closer, he saw Esther running for her life. The pilot shot the coyote and rescued Esther.

After feeding the thin and dirty dog his sandwich, he took her back to Lincoln, Mont., where word had spread that Esther was missing.

The pilot stopped at a convenience store, where a woman recognized Esther and called the Tiemann's friend.

Esther's journey still wasn't over, however.

Her trip home to Bevil Oaks, about 15 miles northwest of Beaumont, took her through four airports in Missoula, Mont., Salt Lake City, Dallas and Jefferson County.

The Tiemanns said they're thrilled to have their dog back. They even hosted a homecoming party in her honor, serving barbecued bear meat.

"I know she's just a dog, but people get attached," Tiemann said in Monday's edition of The Beaumont Enterprise.
Click to expand...

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041025/D85UJ4A80.html

Apart form the bit about bear meat anyway ;)
 
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