Massive autobahn pile-up in Bavaria
12 Mar 10
thelocal.de
Police in Bavaria reported that up to 170 vehicles were involved in a massive accident on the A8 motorway on Friday morning, as a spring snowstorm and thick fog created dangerous road conditions throughout the southern state.
The cars and trucks were unable to avoid the pile-up, which spanned a one-kilometre stretch of the motorway near Augsburg around 7 am, police said. Major delays were expected as authorities shut down both directions of the autobahn for clean-up. The closure means those heading into the state’s capital of Munich on that road will have to find an alternate route.
One eyewitness said the scene was “absolute chaos” and looked like a junkyard. “We had very bad visibility, ice was not the main cause of the accidents,” a police officer said. Police reported that about 80 people were hurt in the accident, 17 of whom were transported to nearby hospitals for severe injuries. Almost 200 rescuers were on hand and set up heated tents to conduct medical exams and treat the wounded.
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Only 17 people being severely injured is amazing for such a big mess.
My terror at being shunted sideways along motorway at 60mph by 'oblivious' tanker driver
By James Tozer
22nd March 2010
One moment, Rona Williams was driving along the motorway thinking about her forthcoming day at work as a vet. The next, she was being shunted sideways at 60mph, trapped beneath the front bumper of a tanker whose driver did not even notice she was there. Her terrifying ordeal was captured on film by a passenger in another car on the A1(M) near Leeds and has been viewed millions of times since it was posted on YouTube last week.
The Mail has tracked down 31-year-old Mrs Williams to her home in York, and she revealed her ordeal was just as terrifying as it looked. As her Renault Clio was pushed along, she screamed: 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die.' Mrs Williams had just joined the motorway ten minutes away from her surgery in Garforth when her car was apparently clipped by the lorry and ended up under its bumper. 'I just felt a knock and then I was travelling sideways – twisted 90 degrees clockwise,' she said.
She yanked on her handbrake, sounded her horn and flashed her hazard lights, but to no avail. 'I kept thinking, "Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody has seen me",' she said. 'I tried everything. I was watching other cars, thinking, "Help me, just help me" – but they didn't seem to be doing very much.' Terrified the lorry was going to ram her into the crash barrier, Mrs Williams grabbed her mobile phone from her handbag.
'I wasn't on hands-free, but I figured I wasn't really driving the car,' she said. 'I just screamed at the operator, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die! Can you do something?" 'She tried to calm me down but there wasn't really anything she could do at the end of the phone.'
Mercifully, almost a minute after her ordeal had begun, the lorry driver apparently spotted her. 'Suddenly he was all over the road,' she said. 'Finally he managed to manoeuvre us safely on to the hard shoulder.' After she came to a stop she immediately phoned her husband Rob, 32 – also a vet – to tell him: 'You're not going to believe what's just happened.'
The lorry driver opened her door and asked if she was all right. 'He didn't seem overly concerned,' she said. 'He even asked if I thought he needed to hang around!' Mrs Williams said she politely suggested he did, and within minutes police had arrived and they swapped insurance details.
Mrs Williams says she is now nervous about taking the motorway but is impressed that her Clio survived with only a dented side and damaged tyres The YouTube clip has prompted police to reopen an investigation into the accident and the driver, from Cheshire-based Arclid Transport, has been suspended.
Mrs Williams says she is now nervous about taking the motorway but is impressed that her Clio survived with only a dented side and damaged tyres. 'It must be a tough little car.'
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I'd imagine that would have been a touch scary right enough!
Teenager survives 10-inch knife through skull after computer row A teenager gave medics a surprise when he walked into casualty with a 10-inch knife stuck right through in his skull - after a row over computer games.
Xiao Wei, 16, was attacked when he fell out with a gang of thugs at an internet cafe he worked at in Mishazi, northeast China, after clocking up a high score on his favourite game, Counter Strike.
He was left with a razor sharp kitchen knife plunged through his left temple and the half-inch tip of the blade emerging from his right temple.
Amazed medics watched him stagger into casualty at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, being held up by his pals. 'We thought it was some sort of student prank until they got closer and he collapsed,' said one.
But surgeons - who took two hours to remove the blade - say Wei is likely to make a full recovery. Neurosurgery deputy director Professor Yan Shijun explained: 'His face was covered in blood, but he was still conscious. I've never seen anything like it in 23 years as a surgeon. The X-rays and CAT scans confirmed that the blade had not hit any main arteries or nerves. But the patient may have post-surgery complications like infections, brain damage or epileptic fits. But he has regained consciousness and is really lucky,' he added.
Pal Huang Shen, 18, says he and Wei were attacked when a local gang tried to force Wei to load some unauthorised software onto the cafe's computers. 'I'd been stabbed in my left arm, and when they had gone, I found Wei was lying on the ground with a knife in his head,' he recalled. Police are now examining surveillance camera footage of the attack.
Arctic Survey team escape disaster after ice cracks under their tent
This is the dramatic moment a British team of scientists had a miraculous escape during an Arctic surveying expedition - when a huge ice crack opened - beneath their tents.
The three member Catlin Arctic Survey is at the North Pole doing an annual survey to assess the effects of climate change - and has narrowly avoided calamity.
The team members Ann Daniels, Martin Hartley and Charlie Paton were camping on the ice pan when it started to break up.
Don't look down: The giant crack opened beneath the tents of a British team of scientists during an Arctic surveying expedition
Charlie Paton said: 'We heard a crack, a few bangs and then suddenly the ice started to break apart.
'It all happened very quickly and was unlike anything I've experienced before.'
His colleague Ann Daniels added: 'It happened during breakfast so the tent was full of equipment and our sledges were outside.
'We had to decide quickly which side of the crack we were going to try and stay on and quickly rescue all of the kit to ensure no lasting damage was sustained.'
Luckily nothing was broken in the incident,although the explorers were left a little shaken.
Martin Hartley explained: 'We're at least a week away from resupplying so it would have been disastrous to lose anything at this stage of the expedition.
'In fact the thought of being left without a tent in this extreme environment makes me shiver more than I already am.'
A spokesman for the expedition added: 'This is just another example of the chaotic ice conditions the team has faced since the start of the expedition.
'But they are determined to continue their journey north, collecting the seawater samples vital to scientists understanding of the impact increasing atmospheric CO2 may be having on our oceans.'
HIS horrific picture shows a SIX-YEAR-OLD Chinese lad dangling by his EARS eight storeys above a bustling street. Passers-by were stunned when they heard little Ming Ming's terrified screams and looked up to see him hanging by his head. The only thing stopping the lad from plunging to his death was the fact his head was wedged between two window bars.
Horrified neighbours in Yichang, Hubei Province, could only watch as emergency services raced to the scene. They eventually arrived and managed to use a hydraulic pressure expander to force the bars apart and pull Ming Ming back into his apartment.
The story that was with this pic said that the driver flew 30ft over a river and landed in this barge... but it looks more like it landed on the barge from the pierside to me.
Fire shoots from Jim Head's Funny Car after an explosion in a semifinal against Jeff Arend in the NHRA Summer Nationals drag races at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas. Both drivers were unharmed in the explosion
Yacht trip turns into a modern-day Moby Dick as southern right whale lands on deck with couple
21st July 2010
A couple out on a quiet boating trip off the coast of South Africa got the shock of their lives when they were suddenly joined on deck by a 40-ton southern right whale. Yacht skipper Ralph Mothes, 59, is seen in this amazing photograph dwarfed by the whale as it breaches right next to his yacht Intrepid. A split-second after the picture was taken the 30ft-long whale slammed into the deck, snapping the steel mast like a twig and crushing the coach roof and side rigging. Southern rights, an endangered species, can grow up to 50ft long and weigh 60 tons, so this one was probably a youngster.
Mr Mothes and his girlfriend and business partner Paloma Werner, 50, took cover as the whale thrashed about on deck before slipping back into the water. Today the pair were thankful that they were aboard a steel-hulled training yacht, which didn't suffer any structural damage. A fibreglass vessel would have been destroyed. The incident happened at Hermanus, a popular destination around 80 miles east of Cape Town.
Recalling their close call with the forces of nature, Miss Werner said: 'It really was quite incredible but very scary. The whale was about the same size as the boat. We'd spotted it about 100 metres away and thought that was the end of it. Then suddenly it was right up beside us. I assumed it would go underneath the boat but instead it sprang out of the sea. We were very lucky to get through it, as the sheer weight of the thing was huge. There were bits of skin and blubber left behind, and the mast was wrecked. It brought down the rigging too. Thank goodness the hull was made of steel and not fibreglass or we could have been ruined.' The shaken couple, who are experienced seafarers with the Cape Town Sailing Academy, used their engine to get back to shore in Table Bay.
There were reports that the whale had been harassed by pleasure craft before it leapt onto the Intrepid. An inflatable craft had been seen driving close to the animal moments before the incident. But experts say the young whale was more likely inexperienced with human contact and didn't know the yacht, which had its engine turned off, was there. Meredith Thornton, scientist and manager of the Cape Town Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, said: 'Whales don't see much by way of their eyes but by sound in the water.'
Miss Werner said she first saw the whale when it was about 100m away. It breached once and, before they knew it, the whale was a mere 10m from their yacht. 'There was hardly any wind, so we couldn't get out of the way,' she said. 'We didn't have time to take any evasive action.' Witnesses said the whale had been seen hitting it's tail on the water, and many thought it was being aggressive. But Ms Thorton said the whale was probably 'lob-tailing' in order to communicate with other whales. She added: 'If a whale wanted to be aggressive it would side-swipe the boat with its tail.'
After the incident, Mothes and Werner surveyed the damage to their yacht. Miss Werner said: 'The first thing we did was make sure there was no water downstairs. We didn't know if the whale was coming back. They managed to turn the engine on and made it back to the marina without assistance. Ms Thornton said the whale was probably not badly injured, adding: 'It's definitely very badly bruised, but probably did not break anything. It's definitely feeling it today.'
Huge chunk of ice falls thousands of feet from plane and smashes into couple's flat
22nd July 2010
A couple had a shock after a huge block of ice crashed through their roof as they slept. Vince Foote and his wife were asleep when the ice, believed to have fallen from an aircraft, smashed a 2ft hole just before 2am. Tiles and debris were scattered 30ft due to the impact at Summerdale Court in Chichester, West Sussex, officials at West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said.
Mr Foote said: 'I thought at first it was thunder and I got up to investigate. I tried to open the spare bedroom door and it wouldn't move. When I forced it open, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There was an enormous hole in both the roof and bedroom ceiling and there were great chunks of ice everywhere. My wife and I are in a state of shock, but we also feel like we've had a lucky escape. The ice smashed through the room our grandchildren sleep in when they visit, which is a terrifying thought. It is such a freak incident, but it could have been so much worse. Tiles and roof debris have been scattered nearly 30ft so I don't want to imagine the force with which it hit.'
Pete Windsor, of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, said: 'This is one of the strangest incidents we've been called to. We are just relieved that nobody was hurt and that we were able to offer them some assistance. They have had a miraculous escape really.'
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said a build-up of ice usually occurs on the seals of the exterior pipes, where water is pumped into the aircraft. Water seeps out and ice begins to form at high altitude and continues to grow in size until the plane descends into warmer air. Rarely, chunks of ice fall to the ground but more often dissipate in the atmosphere, the spokesman said. He said: 'These incidents are rare. There are about 25 to 30 reported every year, which is not a vast amount when you consider there are three million flight movements over the UK annually.'
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