Lucky B*stard

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Miraculous escape for driver as car falls 20ft into sinkhole at traffic lights during storm
24th July 2010

He's thanking his lucky stars that he was pulled out alive. Yet, miraculously, the driver of this SUV only suffered minor cuts and bruises when his vehicle plummeted 20ft into a sinkhole as he approached traffic lights. Lance Treankler was driving his black Cadillac Escalade during torrential rains in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, yesterday, when the road opened up beneath him. 'The road just went out from under me,' Mr Treankler said. 'When I landed, my head snapped back. I went unconscious for a few seconds. When I looked up, I saw water run over me.'

Mr Treankler was rescued by a passer-by, 46-year-old Mark Pawlik, who was walking along when he saw the vehicle disappear and a traffic light land on its roof. Mr Pawlik said: 'The Escalade just went "wham". Everything went down. The power line went like "pow" and then I think it was sewer water was just pouring into the hole.'

The 20-foot-deep, 40-foot-wide sinkhole formed when a manhole collapsed, and will require several weeks to repair, a city spokesman said. Wisconsin's governor declared a state of emergency yesterday after storms flooded homes and opened sinkholes in Milwaukee and closed the city's main airport.

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Pensioner smashes his car through two brick walls and into a living room... and walks away with slight bruising
30th July 2010

A pensioner escaped with bruises after driving his car over a garden, through a brick garden wall - and into a living room. The 67-year-old man escaped with bruises after his silver Kia Rio left the road and travelled through a garden wall, and then a brick wall into an empty house. Firefighters were called to the accident on the A67 near Yarm, Cleveland to cut the pensioner free from the wreckage. An ambulance then took him to James Cook University Hospital where he was treated for head injuries.

An officer from the Cleveland Police Crash Investigations Unit, said: 'Luckily the house, which has a "to let" sign, was empty at the time.' A colleague, who did not want to be named, said that previously another car had demolished two large pillars outside another house on the development. He said: 'The driver has survived and is being treated in hospital. The road goes from a national speed limit of 60mph to 40mph on this bend. To go through a wall and then go through a wall into a house, he's very lucky. For reasons still be determined he hasn't taken the bend.' He was asked if speed was a key factor in the crash, but declined to comment.

Local resident, Christine Torr, said: 'It's been an accident waiting to happen. These houses should never have been built so close to a major road.' Another local who didn't want to be named said: 'To see a car that has gone through a wall and through another wall right into a house is horrendous. It's so lucky no one was in otherwise they could have been killed. Some people just rent these properties so that might have been why there was no one in.'

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Dramatic escape from Russian wildfires
3 Aug 2010

Russian volunteers, who had been fighting the wildfires in southern Russia, escape a forest fire as the flames close in on their car. The four unidentified men from the town of Viska in central Russia had gone to help local residents protect their homes from the blaze. More than 300,000 acres have burned in recent days after a record heat wave and severe drought.

July has been the hottest month in Moscow in 130 years of recorded history. Fields and forests have dried up, and much of this year's wheat harvest has been ruined. At least 34 people have died in the past week days from the forest fires, Russian officials said. Fires in the Voronezh, Nizhny Novogorod and Moscow regions alone have destroyed more than 1,000 houses and left more than 2,000 people homeless, according to the country's Emergencies Ministry.

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Chinese people escape train before it falls into river

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American Footballer In Dramatic Road Accident
Police in the US have released video showing American footballer Josh Koeppel picking himself up after being thrown from his motorcycle in a dramatic road accident.

oooooff.......

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Man survives after 400ft jump by landing on car
A man who jumped more than 400ft after leaping off a New York apartment block survived after crashing feet first into a parked car.
Paul Thompson
2 Sep 2010

Thomas Magill, 22, is said to be in a stable condition after the jump, suffering only two broken legs and a bruised lung. He only suffered two broken legs and a bruised lung from the fall. Eye witnesses said he was still conscious screaming "my leg, my leg" as he lay slumped on the back seat of the car.

Mr Magill, an aspiring actor and singer, had leapt from the 39th floor of the building on New York's Upper West side in the US. He fell more than 400ft and reached speeds of up to 126mph before crashing into a red Dodge Charger sports car parked alongside the building. Residents of the building told police they saw a body whizz past their window before others on the ground heard a thud as he slammed into the car.

"He came down feetfirst at like 100 mph," said witness Andrew Petrocelli, who added that the landing was "like a stunt man. That's a miracle if I've ever seen one. He should be a goner. He had his hands up in the air, like flailing." Construction worker Guy McCormack,40, said the car belonged to his wife. "I can't believe this. My car saved his life," said McCormack who was working nearby. He retrieved a set of crystal rosary beads from the car saying divine intervention had played a part in Mr Magill's survival.

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Air show crash drama:
Pilot's amazing escape as stunt glider smashes into runway as 15,000 fans look on
14th September 2010

This is the moment when a stunt glider slammed into a runway in front of 15,000 horrified fans at an airshow. Amazingly pilot Mike Newman, 35, crawled out of the wreckage of the high performance Swift S-1 aircraft after the cockpit broke up on impact. The former racing driver suffered three broken vertebrae in the accident, but doctors expect him to make a full recovery.

Mr Newman crashed while performing for the Swift Aerobatic Display Team at the Royal Air Forces Association airshow at Shoreham, West Sussex. Amateur photographer Rob Yuill, 62, of Hornchurch, Essex, who took the amazing sequence of pictures, said: 'He had a very lucky escape indeed. The glider was supposed to perform an aerobatic display with two powered aircraft - but it was a very overcast day with low cloud. The gilder only performed for a couple of minutes before being released from its tow line. Then it flew downwind and turned to make its final approach to land.'

'As he turned, I realised the glider was at the wrong angle as its nose went down. He had lost air speed and headed straight into the ground. It was not far off vertical when it hit the runway. The nose section just crumpled. It was an awful thing to see. There was an silence from the crowd as people took in what had happened around 400 ft in front of them. I felt a real sense of relief when the pilot crawled away. I had feared the worst because it was such an awful crash. Two ambulances and a couple of fire engines were on the scene very quickly and he was taken away on a stretcher.'

Mr Newman who was the UK unlimited aerobatic gliding champion in 2008 and 2009 was taken to Worthing Hospital after the accident, which took place on August 23. He has since been transferred to a hospital closer to his home in Egham, Surrey, and is said to be "'on the mend'. Mr Newman, an operations manager for an automatic door manufacturer, is having to lie on his back for the next three weeks to help his spine heal naturally. Swift Aerobatic Display team spokesman Guy Westgate said: 'Mike is in good spirits and the whole team wish him a speedy recovery.' Mr Newman, a gliding instructor and aerobatic coach, has been flying since 1996.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the British Gliding Association have begun an investigation into the crash. Air show organiser Don Bean said: 'We are very sorry about the pilot being hurt - but it is fortunate the accident was not much more serious.'

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Huge pieces of space rocket land in Chinese village
Quite recently, in a village far, far away… massive sections of a space rocket crashed to Earth.

Locals from a Chinese hamlet in Suichuan County in Jiangxi heard two terrifying explosions in the middle of the night on Friday. At first they thought it was an earthquake, but daylight revealed that in fact massive chunks of metal from the lunar probe Chang II’s fuel rocket had landed nearby.

The probe was fired into the heavens on the back of a Long March 3C rocket – and the villagers must be counting their lucky stars that no one was hurt when some of it fell to Earth. Blistering from the scorching heat the rocket had to withstand during take-off can clearly be seen. The probe was launched on a reconnaissance mission ahead of an unmanned lunar landing the Chinese are planning for 2012. They are hoping to put astronauts on the moon’s surface in 2017.

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130-year-old engine crashes through garden wall .. at top speed of 5mph
19th October 2010

It may be a world away from the world of boy racers and performance cars, yet despite going at only 8mph, there was only going to be one outcome when this steam engine collided with a garden wall. The driver of the 130-year-old runaway traction engine lost control on a steep hill in Ford, Gloucestershire, and the vintage vehicle bounced off a parked car before smashing into the wall. None of the three people on board were hurt in the low-speed smash but firefighters feared an explosion and rushed to empty the engine of its steam.

Neighbour David Sandy, 60, said: 'I was finishing my breakfast when I was alerted by a huge ball of steam rising up out the front of my house. The engine appears to have gone down the hill and skidded on the cats eyes - sending it across the road. It then hit the end of a neighbour's car and crashed into the wall. If it hadn't have hit that wall, it could have crashed into a house. It was such a sad sight to see the engine, which had obviously been lovingly restored, lying shattered. My neighbour had just spent the summer repairing his wall too!'

The traction engine, bearing the name 'S Kavanagh, road contractor, Surrey', was towing a caravan when it crashed on Saturday at 9.30am. Neighbours believed it was travelling from the nearby Toddington Steam Fair. Traction steam engines - often called road locomotives - became popular in Britain from the 1850s. The metal-wheeled vehicles were used to tow heavy equipment and usually travel at around 3-4mph.

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Car in Melbourne flies into bedroom
A car in Melbourne, Australia, crashed into the bedroom of a suburban house leaving the owner thanking his lucky stars that he was in another room using his computer, just before the vehicle burst onto the scene.

In many ways, Demitrios Bisbelis owes his existence to insomnia - he left his bedroom to surf the internet because he couldn’t sleep. He said: 'My bed's been disintegrated. It's completely shattered. I'm sure I wouldn't have made it had I been in bed at that time.'

According to police, the car became airborne and smashed into Mr Bisbelis’s bed after it hit a curb. The driver and passenger in the car escaped with minor injuries and have been questioned by the authorities.

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Homes Flattened In Salford Gas Explosion
November 02, 2010

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Not one fatality... amazing really

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Miracle escape after toddler falls seven storeys from apartment block, bounces off café awning and is CAUGHT by passerby
3rd November 2010

An 18-month-old boy had a miraculous escape when he fell from a seventh-floor apartment and survived without so much as a scratch. The toddler was playing by a window with an older sibling in the Paris block before he tumbled. Luckily his fallen was broken by a cafe awning which bounced him into the arms of a passerby who leapt forward to catch him. The off-duty doctor quickly checked over the youngster and found no injuries although the baby was taken to hospital for tests. His parents, who were not in the apartment at the time, were last night still in police custody.

The boy's fortunes were even more miraculous than it first appeared. According to reports, the cafe, in the north-eastern part of the city, had been closed for the All Saints bank holiday on Monday, an occasion that would usually see the awning closed. However there was a jam in the mechanism which meant it had been left out from the day before.

A man living in a building opposite from the apartment told France Info he saw the toddler playing by the window with a girl a few years older. The doctor who caught the boy, named by French press as Philippe Benseniot, was walking by with his wife and son when the boy spotted him falling. He said: 'I was there at the right time. My son happened to look up and he saw that a little boy was on the balcony and had somehow got through the railing and was playing on the very edge of a vertical drop into the street. I just had the time to get across the street and place myself. I said to myself: "whatever happens, I mustn't miss him". 'He didn't have a scratch. He cried for a few moments and then calmed down and fell asleep.'

Neighbours on the seventh floor then prevented the little boy's sister from falling after him after speaking with her through the locked front door. 'I said, "Where is your brother?" and she said: "He's fallen",' said witness Samia Benmoussa. 'I panicked until I discovered what had happened. It was a real miracle.'

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yowser!

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Family covered in 25 litres of white paint after crashing car
Four family members had a lucky escape after crashing into another car - but they did end up being smothered in almost 25 litres of white emulsion paint.

The two adults and two children were driving through KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa with a giant 25litre tub of paint in the back when the smash happened, sending the emulsion everywhere. It is believed that the tub, which had been placed on the back seat, was catapulted forward during the crash, covering the inside of the car and its occupants.

The shocked family emerges from the crash (Picture: SWNS) The shocked family emerges from the crash (Picture: SWNS)

Despite the smash, the two adults and two children were able to clamber out of their newly-repainted car, looking at each other in shock. As they stood by the side of the road, several pedestrians and drivers stopped to stare at the family, causing a large traffic jam build up behind them. Some passers-by offered to help out - although unless they happened to have a handy 25litre tub of white spirit with them, there probably wasn't much they could do.

The family and the driver of the other car - which, fortunately, was already painted white - were not hurt. However, it is thought that their blue Fiat car, which had its bonnet crumpled by the crash, is likely to be a white off.

The family were said to be overcome with emulsion.

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Cuts Protester Dives Off Romanian Parliament Balcony
Philip Thomas,
December 23, 2010

An engineer has made a dramatic protest against austerity measures in Romania - by leaping head-first from a balcony at the nation's parliament. Adrian Sobaru dived from a seven-metre (23ft) balcony into the debating chamber ahead of a no-confidence vote in the government. He suffered fractures to his face but was not seriously injured. Although politicians were sitting and standing underneath the balcony when he jumped, no one else was hurt.

Romanian prime minister Emil Boc - who had just greeted politicians ahead of the no-confidence debate - looked startled after Mr Sobaru's headlong dive and rushed over to him. Mr Sobaru was wearing a T-shirt carrying the slogan: "You've pierced us. You've killed our children's future. Freedom." The first phrase appeared to be a reference to a comment by President Traian Basescu upon winning the 2009 election - "I've pierced them", a line from a Romanian movie.

Mr Sobaru - who was identified by the country's television station as one of its engineers - was carried out of the chamber on a stretcher shouting "freedom". Authorities said he would undergo surgery and psychological counselling. The parliamentary session was postponed.

Romania recently slashed public sector wages by a quarter as part of its efforts to climb out of recession. It also raised sales taxes from 19% to 24%. Many Romanians are angered by government cuts. Mr Boc called the incident "a tragedy that shocked me" and appealed for calm "in these tough times".

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Apparently he did this because he has a child with autism who has had all benefits stopped because of government cuts. I'm not sure how trying to kill himself was going to help... but I'm glad he survived, and with hardly any serious injury!