Amazing escape for mother and daughter after lorry carrying 3,000 chickens flips over and crushes their car
20th September 2011
With a car squashed to almost half its size under a toppled lorry, this looks like an accident no one could survive. But when police arrived, they found the Peugeot driver and her mother not only alive but with barely a scratch between them. Somehow the pair had managed to lie as flat as possible and fit themselves into the tiny space left after the 32-ton lorry crushed their car.
The daughter had been driving on the inside lane when she noticed the lorry, carrying a load of 3,000 chickens, start to wobble. She grabbed her mother and pulled her down just as the vehicle hit them. They were inside, curled up together, when the emergency services arrived.
Traffic sergeant Andy Quigley was one of the first on the scene at the A64 in York on Monday. He described it as the most incredible escape he had seen in 16 years as a traffic policeman. ‘They are very lucky indeed,’ he said. ‘When we got the call that a lorry had overturned on a car, we fully anticipated we would be dealing with a fatal accident.’ Both women and the driver of the lorry were taken to hospital where they were treated for cuts, bruises and shock.
Efforts to clear the scene of wreckage were hampered because the lorry was carrying thousands of chickens, some of which lay dead and dying on the road and verge, and in cages still on the vehicle. RSPCA officers were called to assist in dealing with the birds.
Miracle of woman who had a LIVE grenade lodged in her face - and survived... after brave doctors cut it out
Leon Watson
28th September 2011
In Mexico, they call her the 'Miracle Woman' - and it's easy to see why. Put simply, what happened to Karla Flores is incredible by any standards.
It all started one day when the mother-of-three, from Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa, was selling seafood on the street. She heard a bang and something hit, knocking her down. Karla felt a burning sensation in her face and when she raised her hand to it there was blood. Then she lost consciousness.
When Karla woke up in Culiacán General Hospital she thought a stone or rock must have got lodged in her face. The 32-year-old said: 'The doctor asked me what happened. I told him that I thought a stone hit me. Then they started to look and discovered that it was some kind of projectile, but they didn't know what it was.'
The x-ray and the tomography showed a weird object stuck between the superior and inferior jawbones. Then they realised - it wasn't a stone, it was a live grenade. Apparently, the grenade was fired with a grenade launcher - the noise that Karla heard - but it didn't explode when it hit her face. It just got embedded.
Immediately the hospital was put on alert - because the deadly explosive could go off at any moment and kill everyone within 32ft. Barely able to breathe, Karla was isolated and the hospital's patients and staff evacuated. But the clock was ticking and something still had to be done with Karla. Most of the doctors didn't want to operate her.
Finally, the hospital head, Dr Gaxiola Meza, asked for volunteers. Four brave people came forward: Two anesthesiologists, Felipe Ortiz y Cristina Soto, the nurse Rodrigo Arredondo and Dr Lidia Soto. Along with two explosive experts from the Mexican army, they took Karla to an open field to operate on her.
They took all the surgical equipment with them, including light sources. That way, in case they made a mistake, nobody else would die. Karla, under only local anesthesia, was given a tracheotomy so she could breathe and four hours later, around midnight, it was done. The device was extracted from her head by a doctor wearing no armour and guided by military experts.
The patient lost half of her teeth, her face is deformed by the giant scar and, according to the doctors, she has at least three years of operations ahead. But she is alive.
Police are investigating but no arrests have been made.
'Miraculous' escape of woman driver whose car was dragged underneath lorry for hundreds of yards in bizarre motorway crash
Stephanie Darrall
3rd October 2011
Rescue workers said a woman was 'lucky to be alive' after her car was pinned under a lorry and dragged hundreds of yards down a motorway. The blue Renault Clio collided with a lorry on the northbound carriageway of the M6 in Staffordshire, between junctions 15 and 16. Emergency crews found the car wedged under the lorry's trailer and said it may have travelled a 'few hundred yards' down the carriageway.
Despite being trapped in the flattened car, the woman in her 20s was pulled out of the wreckage by firefighters. Amazingly, she escaped with minor scratches and did not even need hospital treatment after the incident on Friday morning.
West Midlands Ambulance crews said she had a 'miraculous escape'. A spokesman said: 'This was a serious collision but amazingly the young lady walked away uninjured. She did not even need to be taken to hospital she is lucky to be alive. The crash could have been so much worse, it is a minor miracle that no one was injured - not even the other driver.
'Considering the damage to the vehicle and the circumstances of the crash, the woman is extremely fortunate not to have suffered more serious injuries. The pictures show you just how bad the crash was. It was a very miraculous escape.'
The base of a crane, weighing a massive 146 tonnes, fell off the back of a flatbed truck en route to the Airbus base near Hamburg early Thursday morning. The accident caused considerable damage to the road and destroying the vehicle escorting it, but no-one was injured. The accident took place at 1:54 am in the Finkenwerder area of the northern German city. The road has now been completely blocked off and an assessment is underway to determine how the incident happened.
“It is possible that the safety straps securing the load in place were not functioning correctly,” a police spokesman from the Hamburg police told The Local. “Other possible theories we are looking into are tiredness, which may have caused the driver to overshoot a corner.”
The driver of the transporter vehicle was reportedly turning the truck slowly when the flatbed area reared, causing the giant crane foot to slide off onto the road, which suffered massive surface damage. The equipment also fell onto the car accompanying it. The driver “was incredibly lucky,” said police spokesman said. “He escaped completely unhurt.”
Clearance of the accident scene is underway, and three cranes are being used to lift the damaged equipment. The crane foot will be taken by a new truck to the Airbus base, where it will be thoroughly examined before being used again.
Police say this pickup truck became wedged on the Sixth Street railroad bridge over the Savannah River near Augusta, Ga., after its driver apparently tried to drive across the river to South Carolina (The Augusta Chronicle/Zuma Press)
A cargo ship has smashed through a US bridge after being too tall to go under it, leaving a 300ft gap in the structure. The vessel took a large amount of asphalt and metal with it which was left on the ship's bow as it destroyed two sections of the bridge.
At the time, four cars were on the structure, that normally carries about 2,800 vehicles a day. There were also 20 workers on the 300ft-long Delta Mariner that was transporting rocket equipment. But no one was hurt in the incident in Benton, Kentucky.
Emergency services and officials rushed to the scene to assess the damage on the Eggner Ferry Bridge. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said: "We are grateful that this wreck caused no injuries or loss of life. Since that bridge carries 2,800 cars every day, we were very fortunate that no one was on the span at that time. We'll turn our attention to a full inspection of the bridge and determine what steps we can take next to speed up the replacement of that important artery."
Swede rescued after months in snow-covered car
Agence France-Presse
February 18, 2012
STOCKHOLM — A man was pulled alive from a snowed-in car on a deserted forest road in northern Sweden where he had been stranded and without food for at least two months in freezing temperatures, police said Saturday.
"We received word yesterday (Friday) that a person had been found in a snow-covered car deep in the woods, more than 1.5 kilometres from the main road," Ebbe Nyberg, a duty officer in the northern Vaesterbotten county, told AFP.
A man on a snowscooter had noticed the top of the car on the deserted and snowfilled forest road, not far from the northern town of Umeaa, just south of the Arctic Circle, and after clearing off some of the snow had peered inside. "He saw movement and realized there was probably a person in there and called the police," Nyberg said, adding that rescue services and an ambulance that had been belted to drive on the snow had rushed to the scene.
They were amazed at what they found: A man in his mid-40s huddled inside in a sleeping bag "in really bad shape," starving and barely able to move or speak. Nyberg said it was unclear exactly how long the man, who is from the central Swedish town of Oerebro, had been stuck, but pointed out that the car must have been driven to the deserted spot "before it began snowing in the autumn."
"He says himself he has been without food since December, so we think he must have got there around then, or perhaps earlier, in November," he said, pointing out that temperatures in the area have recently plunged as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. It's just amazing he's alive!"
The man, who had not been reported missing and who has yet to say how he got stuck, appeared to have survived on nothing but snow since mid-December. After his rescue, he was rushed to the Norrlands University Hospital, said Nyberg, who could provide no details on his condition.
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