‘911 green, 911 green’ referred to numbers and call button on Blackberry
GUTHRIE, Okla. - A 3-year-old girl used a simple song her mom made up to teach her how to call 911 to summon help when mom fainted.
When the 24-year-old and 3-months-pregnant Jessica Eaves fainted, daughter Madelyn used the song “911 Green” to dial for help on her mother’s BlackBerry phone, punching in 911, then the green send button to place the call as she had been taught just a week before.
The girl was connected to a dispatcher. In recently released transcripts of her May 27 911 call, Madelyn was able to answer questions about her house and cars outside, leading emergency workers to the home.
This isn’t the first time Madelyn has used a cell phone to call for help for her mother.
A year ago, Eaves first learned she had a condition that can cause frequent fainting and made up a simple song around the lyrics “green, green, green.” When Eaves lost consciousness back then, Madelyn picked up a cell phone and pressed the green button, which called the last person Eaves had called and that person called for help.
So Eaves revised the words to “911 green, 911 green,” referring to the color of the send button on most cell phones.
Stranded after fall, plucky climber attracts lumberjacks with undergarment
BERLIN - An American hiker stranded in the Bavarian Alps for nearly three days was rescued after using her sports bra as a signal, police in southern Germany said Monday.
Berchtesgaden police officer Lorenz Rasp said that he helped lift 24-year-old Jessica Bruinsma of Colorado to safety by helicopter on Thursday after she attracted the attention of lumberjacks by attaching her sports bra to a cable used to move timber down the mountain.
“She’s a very smart girl, and she acted very resourcefully,” said Rasp. “She kept her shirt and jacket for warmth, but thought the sports bra could work as a signal.”
An Alpine rescue team, including five helicopters and 80 emergency workers, had been searching for Bruinsma since she went missing June 16 after losing her way in bad weather while hiking with a friend near the Austrian border.
Repairman sees bra
She fell about 15 feet to a rocky overhang, where she spent the next 70 hours on the narrow ledge, sustained by water that she found by breaking into a supply box on the ledge.
She badly bruised a leg and dislocated a shoulder in the fall, and the cliff was too isolated for her to climb free, Rasp said.
Rasp said the cable was only within reach because the timber transport system was out of service. When a repairman restored the line on Thursday, the cable car started moving up the mountain and Bruinsma’s bra reached the worker at the base. He knew of the missing hiker and immediately called police.
Woman waves to rescuers
Rasp said his team followed the cable line up the cliffside in a helicopter and found Bruinsma standing on the ledge, waving with her good arm. After circling once, they lowered a winch to Bruinsma and lifted her aboard.
“She did so well because she is in very good shape,” Rasp said. “She has been training for a marathon — her goal is to finish in 3 hours and 10 minutes.”
Bruinsma told Rasp that she has scrapped plans to stay in Berchtesgaden to learn German and plans to return home to Colorado Springs with her parents. He said she still plans to run the marathon, if she recovers in time to keep training.
NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Police say a New York man cut a hole in a woman’s couch and hid in the carved-out space until she came home. Newburgh police said the woman sat on the couch Wednesday evening, felt a bump and then saw it move within the cushions.
She jumped up and David Joe Limones emerged from his hiding place, knocking a cell phone out of her hand.
The woman was on the phone with a friend when she entered her apartment because she had filed an earlier complaint against Limones and was worried he might be there. Police said she had asked the friend to stay on the line and call police if something went wrong.
When officers arrived, they found Limones and the 22-year-old woman arguing on the apartment’s balcony.
Limones, 27, faces burglary and other charges. He is being held on $20,000 bail.
County officials, including those at the public defenders office and the sheriff’s department, were unable to provide the name of Limones’ lawyer.
Austria tops Germany 10-5 in match between topless women’s teams
VIENNA, Austria - Whether it has any bearing on Monday’s crunch Euro 2008 match between the two countries is debatable but Austria drew first blood on Sunday when their topless women’s soccer team beat Germany 10-5.
The traditional swapping of shirts afterwards was not an option as the six-a-side teams wore nothing but thongs, with the national colors painted on to their bare skin.
The football may not have been of the highest quality but that did not temper the enthusiasm of a mostly male crowd boosted by a sizeable media presence only too happy to desert Euro 2008 training for an hour or two.
The match was organized by a chat room web site.
Austria were delighted with a victory they hoped would be a morale-booster for their male counterparts but was not without its serious side.
“I hope our men will take heart from that tomorrow. We played pretty hard, we even had some injuries, like I for example broke my toe nail,” 29-year-old bank employee Doris Fastenmeir told Reuters.
The Germans took defeat sportingly and joined their opponents for alcopops and dancing at a beach club alongside the Danube.
“I was supposed to hold the balls but I really have no idea how to do that,” said German keeper Jana Bach.
“Maybe it is because I am not all that much into soccer. I am more into shoes to be honest.”
The verdict of the onlookers?
“They might have to work on their technique a bit but it was definitely a rather pleasant game to watch and a very nice version of the ‘beautiful game’,” said Rolf Hansen from Berlin.
ROME - A deer with a single horn in the center of its head — much like the fabled, mythical unicorn — has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
“This is fantasy becoming reality,” Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. “The unicorn has always been a mythological animal.”
The 1-year-old Roe Deer — nicknamed “Unicorn” — was born in captivity in the research center’s park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.
“This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly,” he said by telephone. “It’s not like they dreamed it up.”
Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of — but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.
“Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case,” said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome’s zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal’s life.
Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.
Dutch man ends up with ‘deep wounds’ after restaurant window shatters
UTRECHT, Netherlands - A 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a “mooning” that went horribly wrong.
Police said the man and two others had run down a street in Utrecht with their pants pulled down “for a joke.”
But the 21-year-old suffered “deep wounds to his derriere” when he pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant and it broke.
In a statement issued Tuesday, police said they detained the three men after Sunday morning’s incident. But the cafe owner decided not to press charges after the men agreed to pay for the broken window.
The injured man was treated for his injuries at a hospital.
He and a friend in wheelchair nab woman who allegedly tried to rob him
KINGSTON, Pa. - The young woman probably thought the 71-year-old veteran, whose friend was in a wheelchair, would make an easy target. She was wrong.
Harry Kopenis chased and tackled the 22-year-old woman he says robbed him at an ATM in northeastern Pennsylvania. Then, with help from his friend in a wheelchair, he held her until police arrived.
“Maybe she thought I was easy prey. She didn’t think I was going to get her. Well, senior citizens aren’t easy prey,” Kopenis said.
Police charged Erin Vanmatre, of Kingston, with robbery, harassment and other offenses. Vanmatre, who was on probation for conspiracy to commit theft, was locked up on $10,000 bail. It wasn’t clear if she had an attorney.
Kopenis said he’s not sure how he was able to catch Vanmatre, considering he suffered a stroke five years ago and is on various prescription medications. He pointed to the sky and said, “It was a source up there who gave me the energy.”
He had gone to an ATM near his Kingston home Monday morning and withdrew $100 when Vanmatre allegedly knocked him down, took his money and fled.
Kopenis’ friend, Kevin Lamb, was nearby in his electric wheelchair. Both men took off after her. Kopenis got her to the ground and Lamb grabbed her leg.
“She wasn’t going anyplace then,” said Lamb, 56, who uses the wheelchair due to breathing problems.
Kopenis said he thought about not pressing charges, but she continued to resist and gave him a kick to the leg.
The men weren’t seriously injured.
Japanese man became aware of her presence when food began vanishing!
TOKYO - A homeless woman who sneaked into a man’s house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.
The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.
“We searched the house … checking everywhere someone could possibly hide,” Itakura said. “When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side.”
Woman found the home unlocked
The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man’s house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.
The closet is part of a Japanese-style room, one of several rooms in his one-story house where the man lived alone — or so he had thought.
Police were investigating how she managed to go in and out of the house unnoticed, as well as details of her life inside the closet, and if she had taken anything else besides food.
She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman “neat and clean.”
