Least competent humans: Lawyer Larry Feingold, 53, testified at his January trial in New York City that he was merely trying to commit suicide in 2003 when he turned on the gas in his apartment, and that the subsequent blast that devastated three floors of his building caught him by surprise because he didn't know that gas could explode. "I thought gasoline did," he said, under oath, "but I didn't know about gas." And Bromley Preston, 44, filed a claim late last year after he split his head open on the water slide at Lakes Resort at Berry Springs in Australia, even though he admits he tried to go down the 100-foot-high slide on all fours instead of on his back, feet first.
Questionable judgments: From a November 2003 article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, on the fatal transmission of Rocky Mountain spotted fever from two dogs to their owner: "One man in Mississippi contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever when he killed ticks he had removed from his dog by biting them with his teeth. This may seem unusual," the veterinarian/authors wrote, "but we have since encountered other persons who claimed to kill ticks by biting them."A 23-year-old man in Hartland, Maine, was hospitalized in March after apparently attempting to commit suicide by crucifying himself. According to an account in the Portland Press Herald, he built a wooden cross, placed it on the floor and nailed one hand to it. According to the officer, "When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911." The officer said he wasn't sure if the call was for an ambulance or for someone to come help him nail the other hand.
Weird science: News of additional bizarre species was released recently from last year's deep-sea research voyage by scientists from Australia and New Zealand (and reported in News of the Weird in October). The oddest this time was the "deep sea angler fish," because of its sex life. According to Dr. Mark Norman, curator at Museum Victoria in Australia, "The female is the size of a tennis ball. It has big savage teeth" and "a rod lure off the top of its head with a glowing tip to coax in stupid prey." The male "looks like a black jellybean with fins." The mating male bites into the female's side, drinks her blood and gives her sperm. Their flesh eventually fuses together permanently. Said Norman, "They have found females with up to six males attached."
Least competent criminals: A 40-year-old man and his 16-year-old son (carrying a shotgun) were walking home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in March when they decided to rob passing pedestrians of the beer they were carrying. In the ensuing fight, police later said, the beer did not change hands, and the son accidentally shot the father. And according to police in Toledo, Ohio, in March, during the robbery of the Gold Star Market, Joseph Allen Wilson, 18, accidentally shot and killed his 30-year-old accomplice, who was posing as a customer and whom Wilson was "threatening to kill" as part of the clever plan to get the clerk to open the register.
Also, in the last month ... : A speeding pickup truck went out of control, hit a low wall and became airborne, landing on the roof of Fish Bowl's Bar and Grill, where firefighters rescued the driver (Jefferson, W. Va.). And after visitor Dave Alsop stopped his car in the West Midland Safari Park to photograph Sharka the rhinoceros mating, Sharka uncoupled and instead passionately mounted Alsop's small Renault automobile, heavily denting it before Alsop could drive away (Bewdley, England). And a bill was introduced in the Louisiana Legislature to make it illegal for anyone to wear pants that ride below the waistline.
2004 CHUCK SHEPHERD
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