• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Lucky Escapes

Here's another gender reveal stunt gone horribly wrong. Luckily, in this case nobody died. Still, it did result in a plane crash ...
Gender reveal stunt led to plane crash in Texas

Another gender reveal stunt went horribly wrong and caused the recent plane crash in Texas, according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident report released Friday.

The pilot was flying a plane at a low altitude on September 7 as part of an elaborate gender reveal for a friend, according to the report.

The pilot dumped 350 gallons of pink water from the plane, but the plane was "too low" and immediately stalled. The pilot was not injured in the crash in Turkey, Texas, about 100 miles southeast of Amarillo, The plane's other passenger had minor injuries. The plane was designed to carry only one person, the report said.

This incident was the latest in a string of gender reveal stunts gone awry. ...

SOURCE (With Photo Of Crashed Plane): https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/08/us/gender-reveal-plane-crash-trnd/index.html
 
An arrow escape.

Mobile phones truly can be life savers - especially, it seems, when an arrow is hurtling towards you.
. . . The arrow was allegedly fired after the resident raised his phone to photograph the confrontation - only for the device to become an unlikely shield. . . .
Whenever I'm facing a potentially lethal assault, I always raise my phone to photograph the confrontation. It just makes sense.
 
US domestic abuse victim pretends to order pizza to alert 911

A woman in a domestic violence situation managed to call 911 without the perpetrator realising, by pretending to order a pizza.
Officers in Oregon city, Ohio, praised the caller's quick thinking, which led to the alleged abuser being arrested.

The unnamed woman told local media her mum was being attacked at the time.

This tactic for subtly calling the emergency services has been internet lore for years, but this is a rare confirmed case of it being effective.

Officials have previously warned that the strategy is not guaranteed to work, as dispatchers are not trained to recognise a pizza order as a genuine call for help.

The dispatcher who answered the call, Tim Teneyck, told local news station 13 ABC he initially thought the woman had dialled an incorrect number.

When she insisted she was through to the right person, he realised what was happening - partly because he had seen similar scenarios being shared on social media.

"You see it on Facebook, but it's not something that anybody has ever been trained for," Mr Teneyck said. "Other dispatchers that I've talked to would not have picked up on this. They've told me they wouldn't have picked up on this."

What did the caller say?

Here's a transcript of the conversation.

Mr Teneyck: Oregon 911

Caller: I would like to order a pizza at [address redacted].

Mr Teneyck: You called 911 to order a pizza?

Caller: Uh, yeah. Apartment [redacted].

Mr Teneyck: This is the wrong number to call for a pizza...

Caller: No, no, no. You're not understanding.

Mr Teneyck: I'm getting you now.

Later in the call, the woman found creative ways to answer Mr Teneyck's yes or no questions about how much danger she and her mother were in, and what services they needed.

Mr Teneyck: Is the other guy still there?

Caller: Yep, I need a large pizza.

Mr Teneyck: All right. How about medical, do you need medical?

Caller: No. With pepperoni.

more at link.
 
Woman Rescued From Roof Of Submerged Car

A man has told how he waded into floodwater to rescue a woman who had been trapped on the roof of her submerged car for 12 hours.

Mark Smith, 51, was alerted to her plight by Geoff Handley, who was walking his dog near St Briavels in the Forest of Dean.

The woman, who has not been named, was slipping in and out of consciousness.

Mr Smith and Mr Handley took it in turns to keep her warm until the emergency services arrived.

Mr Smith, from Coleford, Gloucestershire, told Victoria Derbyshire: "I could hear someone shouting for help. She was half in the car and half in the water.

"I just pulled her up and cuddled her to keep warm; it seemed like forever and a day.

"It was a bit worrying, really, I tried to hold her on the car but we kept slipping as the car was totally underwater."

Mr Smith said the 61-year-old woman had climbed on to the roof of her car after driving into the flooded area and getting stuck with no phone signal.

"I thought she was going to die, make no doubt about that," said Mr Handley.


_110973433_mediaitem110973432.jpg
 
I had one a some years back, when I was working for a previous firm.

I was a smoker back then, and had nipped out of the office for a quick cigarette. As I went through the revolving doors at reception, I turned right and right again which lead me into a small alley. I suddenly felt a whoosh go past the back of my head, and then heard a very loud clang from behind. I stopped, turned and looked downwards and there on the pavement was a very large scaffolding bolt (I think that’s what their called)

There is no doubt in my mind that had I been a second slower, the thing would have killed me, as the bolt had fallen from the roof of the 10 story office building.

As I was standing there, contemplating my fate, I noticed a figure standing close by, so looked over and there was this young woman staring at me with open mouth and saucer wide eyes. She told me that she saw the entire thing, and was so sure the bolt would hit and kill me, that she couldn’t get any warning out of her mouth.

I think she was in shock more than me. :D

She was quite attractive however, so I played it cool and come out with something like “I knew the fags would get me in the end” :cool:
 
I had one a some years back, when I was working for a previous firm.

I was a smoker back then, and had nipped out of the office for a quick cigarette. As I went through the revolving doors at reception, I turned right and right again which lead me into a small alley. I suddenly felt a whoosh go past the back of my head, and then heard a very loud clang from behind. I stopped, turned and looked downwards and there on the pavement was a very large scaffolding bolt (I think that’s what their called)

There is no doubt in my mind that had I been a second slower, the thing would have killed me, as the bolt had fallen from the roof of the 10 story office building.

As I was standing there, contemplating my fate, I noticed a figure standing close by, so looked over and there was this young woman staring at me with open mouth and saucer wide eyes. She told me that she saw the entire thing, and was so sure the bolt would hit and kill me, that she couldn’t get any warning out of her mouth.

I think she was in shock more than me. :D

She was quite attractive however, so I played it cool and come out with something like “I knew the fags would get me in the end” :cool:

Probably mentioned before -

The youngest, aged about 4, and I once spotted a big branch crashing down from the top of a tree across a road. We stood and watched it and discussed it briefly, as you do, and then moved off, just as another even bigger branch suddenly fell off another tree behind us and landed exactly where we'd been standing.
 
I've ridden motorbikes for most of my adult life.
I commute in almost all weathers

One wet winter morning, but in day light, I was taking a local back road towards a larger, main artery.

The road had two 90 degree bends, a right, followed by a left, connected by a straight of about 200m.

I was following a green Micra that was going a bit slowly, but knowing the road, I hung back from an overtake. As we rounded the right hander, there was a navy Starlet coming towards us.

In a very graceful motion, the Micra in front of me moved towards the centre line, to avoid a drain cover on the track line.

The Micra driver seemed oblivious to the oncoming car.

The Starlet had little time to react.

The two cars slid past each other in a hail of side mirrors, door trims and side repeaters.

I felt a shower of debris hit me as I instinctively ducked.

The Micra driver, a young lady in her 20s, slammed on her brakes, slid off towards the hedge on her side and sat there, stunned.

I steered through, parked the bike in front and ran back. As I did, the Starlet driver arrived back, incandescent.

He was a young Nigerian bloke who had just had the living shit scared out if him, and was understandably upset.

I managed to intercept him and ascertain that he was unhurt. He sort of came to and calmed down a bit, and I assured him it was not his fault and that I had seen everything.

I told him to hang back while I went to the other driver.

She was by now on her phone, but still clearly in complete shock, and was unable to roll down the window or unlock her door.

She simply sat there, phone to her ear, ugly crying.

I went back to the other driver, gave him my card with mobile number and said I'd be a witness, as I feared the worst, if no one corroborated his story.

Eventually, the other driver managed to open her window, and said she was unhurt. I rang the local cops, and a car arrived, eventually, and I was able to leave.

However as I gave my account to the Garda, he looked at the road, and at the two cars and pointed out, that it was in fact me that had had the luckiest escape.

Had the two cars been an few mm closer and done a head on, I would have had no where to go and ploughed in.

Needless to say, I had something of a delayed shock reaction.
 
Last edited:
This was lucky for me but not so much for others.

Popped out earlier in t'banger.
I'd misplaced something and spent a while looking for it so was late leaving.

This was good because the road was blocked by an accident that had happened 5/10 minutes before, just when I should have been passing that spot.

An awful mess, two cars splattered, emergency services not there yet.

Further along I met the ambulance and when driving back, with a suitable detour, I spotted a fire engine there.

Dunno how bad the injuries were. No doubt I'll hear in time.
 
Woman digs up WWll unexploded bomb in her garden then throws it across the lawn for her dog before she realised what it was.

When Ms Cirillo dug the device up, she initially thought her pet Shih Tzu Cica might want to play with it. She then took it into her kitchen and cleaned it with a Brillo pad in an effort to get a closer look at her discovery.

But when Facebook users suggested it was a bomb, an "absolutely terrified" Ms Cirillo called the police and returned it quickly to the garden before it was taken away by bomb disposal experts who later detonated it on Weymouth beach.

It's quite a small bomb & probably wouldn't do much damage on it's own [apart from possibly killing the woman or dog] - maybe they were dropped en masse in a cluster..

video of detonation at link.

The bomb
 
British man rescued after six days trapped in Bali well

Jacob Roberts, 29, broke his leg after falling into the 4m-deep well in Pecatu village while being chased by a dog, said AFP quoting local authorities.

Witnesses say there was a small amount of water in the well which likely kept him alive.

Mr Roberts' cries for help were eventually heard by a local resident.

The resident had been looking for cattle feed near the area, which was in an isolated part of the village, said news outlet the Bali Sun. He alerted the local authorities.
 
This Oregon worker found his exit road blocked when he attempted to evacuate his workplace during a raging wildfire. After barely making it back to his workplace he worked frantically to shelter in place. Luckily, his workplace is a large concrete dam, and he holed up inside as the wildfire burned the surroundings.
Detroit Dam operator rides out massive Oregon wildfires inside dam, keeping it safe

Mike Pomeroy said as the fire raged around him, he realized the safest place would be inside the dam.

Forty five miles east of Salem along Highway 22, the Detroit Dam, in the Cascade Mountains, holds back some of the North Santiam River. It forms Detroit Lake and controls the amount of water flowing into the river and the valley below.

The dam is run by plant operators who carefully adjust the computers and machines that run turbines in the massive structure and control the water output.

Mike Pomeroy is one of those operators. On the afternoon of Labor Day, he reported to the dam’s control room, called the powerhouse. It's housed in a smaller building near the base of the dam. All alone, Pomeroy was about to begin one of the longest shifts of his life. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/lo...-dam/283-e6e053f2-e5a0-46e4-905d-41c902a5618e
 
This Oregon worker found his exit road blocked when he attempted to evacuate his workplace during a raging wildfire. After barely making it back to his workplace he worked frantically to shelter in place. Luckily, his workplace is a large concrete dam, and he holed up inside as the wildfire burned the surroundings.


FULL STORY: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/lo...-dam/283-e6e053f2-e5a0-46e4-905d-41c902a5618e
Clicking that link yields an 'access denied' message. How ironic.
 
I got hit by a car and knocked off my bike in Manchester. When the driver gave me her business card so that I had her contact details, it turned out she was a doctor employed by the NHS. She apologised for the fact she had just stood there and let the paramedics check me over, explaining that her doctorate was in statistics...

There was a story round here a few years ago about a woman involved in a car accident on the outskirts of town; I think she severed a femoral artery and was in danger of bleeding out there and then. However, the car behind was being driven by one of the hospital's vascular surgeons, who calmly got out, walked up to her, put pressure on the exact spot necessary to stop the bleed, and with the other hand, took out his mobile and dialled the ward to tell them that this woman needed surgery and could they get the theatre ready for him. Definitely fortuitous.
 
Not really related to the subject but I've just came back onto the forum after some time off, opened up this thread and one of the first posts quotes Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Weird thing is, I'm watching Mary Poppins right now AT THIS EXACT SCENE!
Yeah we know, we’ve been keeping an eye on you...
 
An Australian pilot was doing a speed taxiing run with his project plane when he looked down and saw an extremely venomous eastern brown snake ready to strike. He thought really fast and jumped out of the cockpit. The plane was wrecked, but he was OK ...
Pilot Saves Life By Jumping From Speeding (And Perfectly Good) Plane On Takeoff

He had a second to make the call and lived to tell the tale. Here’s what happened.

So you’re taking off…well, technically, conducting a high-speed taxi test…and there’s nothing wrong with the plane, but you realize that unless you jump out of it right now, you’re dead. Could you do it? Would you do it in time? Okay, fair enough, what’s the nature of the threat? It’s scary.

The pilot, Cliff Killeen ... , was high speed-taxiing his Yak when, suddenly, he looked down and saw, by his throttle hand, a brown snake taking a bead on him. Now, you’re thinking, how venomous could an Australian brown snake be? In short, one bite and it’s game over. It is, according to online sources, the second most deadly snake in the world. So jumping from a speeding Yak on a simulated takeoff roll has got to have at least a little better odds than that, right? Killeen wasted no time, he peeled back the canopy, unhooked his harness and bailed.

He was okay. The plane ... wasn’t.

SOURCE: https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/ne...speeding-and-perfectly-good-plane-on-takeoff/
 
This photo shows the road over Red Mountain Pass in the Colorado Rockies (elevation > 11,000 ft.) on a good day. It's even more scary in February, when the pass is covered in deep snow.
RedMtnPass-CO.jpg
Note the lack of guardrails, the cliff-like drop-off downslope, and the mountain river hundreds of feet down in the canyon below.

A driver left the road a few days ago and ended up in that river. Astonishingly, he survived to be trapped in his vehicle. He yelled for help for hours before someone noticed the debris field from where he crashed(?) off the road. The driver was rescued after a long operation involving multiple responding units and evacuated to a hospital.
Driver plunges off Red Mountain Pass hundreds of feet, yells for help before rescue

A driver who plunged over a cliff on Red Mountain Pass into a river was rescued after spending hours yelling for help.

According to the Ouray County Sheriff's Office, Dack Klein, a local Colorado Department of Transportation driver, came across the debris field on Red Mountain Pass and heard the man's cries for help. ...

It's unclear why the driver went off the road, but he plunged over the cliff early Thursday morning. He and his vehicle were laying in the river hundreds of feet below when Klein heard him.

A Ouray firefighter, Adam Kunz, made his way down to the motorist and helped communicate between them and rescue personnel.

Once rescued, the driver was taken to Fellin Park and then transported by Care Flight to Montrose Hospital. The status of his condition was not released.

FULL STORY (With Multiple Photos Of The Rescue Operation):
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/ne...hundreds-of-feet-yells-for-help-before-rescue
 
Back in 2015 i was working on a building project as a gateman, coming up to knocking off time, the groundworkers were rushing to complete the install of some lampposts near the entrance, the holes had been excavated, the sleeves for the posts inserted and wiring fitted, the post was being placed into the hole using an excavator, with the post chained to it boom, a guy was holding the post at the bottom and guiding it into the hole, when the boom lifted the post to an upright position it connected with an 11,000 volt power line, that nobody (!) had noticed previously (after all the processes mentioned earlier). The guy was seriously injured but it was only the fact that the post was in contact with the ground that prevented the man from dying instantly. I was about 20ft away from the incident and the person that called the ambulance, firebrigade and electric company.

http://www.basingstokeobserver.co.uk/companies-fined-280k-after-man-severely-hurt-by-electric-shock
 
Do you know how he's doing now?
 
This could have turned out a lot worse ...

LeftHanging.jpeg
Parachutist suspended from power lines rescued in California

Firefighters responded to a California road to rescue a parachutist who apparently missed his landing zone and became entangled in power lines.

The Riverside County Fire Department said crews were summoned about 11:10 a.m. Monday to an intersection in Lake Elsinore where a man's parachute was stuck on power lines, leaving him suspended about 30 feet off the ground. ...

A utility crew from Southern California Edison was summoned to the scene to shut off the power to the lines and help the man return to solid ground ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...-Fire-Department-Lake-Elsinore/4841622050562/
 
Back
Top