If you're into ghost stories, this one seems fairly tame. In 1891, a passenger train derailed on a bridge near Statesville, North Carolina, killing approximately thirty people. The story claims that on the anniversary of the wreck, the sound of the crash and screaming passengers can be heard. A number of people come to the bridge for a chance to prove the legend each year. But this year, the story took an even more tragic turn when one of the "ghost hunters" was killed... by a train. You can read the details here.
Beer drinkers in Canada were calling it alcohol abuse when almost 8,500 gallons of beer and foam exploded out of a fermentation tank. Apparently a small crack had formed in the vat at the Okanagan Springs Brewery in Vernon, British Columbia. The pressurized metal silo was blown apart, causing structural damage and tearing an aluminum door off its hinges. Thousands of litres of beer foam poured across the parking lot and onto the road. Thankfully, no one was injured in the explosion, and rain has since washed most of the beer into the sewers.
Police in North Vernon, Indiana say it is obvious this man had a death wish. That may not be so uncommon for men his age and perhaps in his profession, but he accomplished it in a very disturbing fashion. I've followed the events in The North Vernon Plain Dealer & Sun, but I do find it somewhat unnerving that the story is making the rounds through many newspapers in central and southern Indiana, as I fear widespread dissemination of the story may open the door to copycats. UPDATE: Meth, unsuprisingly, played a role. Greensburg Daily News
Unrelated bonus mugshot from the same paper of Nikkiah C. Weddle, a loving mother, that just appears slothful. I feel that her having smoked marijuana three weeks earlier will play a heavy role in her defense, since we've all smoked a joint that we took almost a full month to recover from.
A Romanian would-be burglar was quite literally caught with his pants-down when he tried to sneak into a closed supermarket through a small window, became stuck, then somehow managed to wriggle out of his trousers while trying to free himself. Which was how he was found, 11 hours later (Sky News).
An 81 year-old Australian took a wrong turn when driving to collect the morning paper, ending up on a major highway. Nine hours and four hundred miles later, he finally stopped and asked for directions. Eric Steward later rejected offers of a satnav device saying he’d only been lost once before, from 1997 to 2001 (Reuters).
The British Government has produced a sex guide for pensioners. The guide examines the benefits of a healthy sex-life, suggests the safe positions for the frailer retirees, and explains how to use Viagra and practise safe sex (STV).
Santa Claus will have a slightly easier job of it this year as the US Postal Service has axed its seasonal practice of forwarding letters to Santa to North Pole, Alaska, where dozens of volunteers help answer them, after one volunteer recognised another as a listed sex offender (CNews).
A new exhibition at the National Socialism Documentation Centre in Cologne, Germany is revealing how the Nazi Party tried to “de-Christianise” Christmas. It documents how many carols still sung in Germany today were rewritten without their previous religious imagery, and includes a display of Nazi designed Christmas decorations from that period in the shape of swastikas, grenades and Iron Crosses (Telegraph).
While a 53-year-old man was competing successfully in the swimming section of the National Senior Games in Palo Alto, California, his 61-year-old brother was back home in Madison, Indiana, at the Yacht Club. When the brother called home to his mother to tell her he had just won a 500-yard freestyle, she told him his older brother had just been swept away in the rain-swollen Ohio River and could not be located. The Madison Courier. His body was later found.
Category: Accidents, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death, Disasters, History