A 2-year-old Florida girl died after being strangled by a pet python that escaped from its aquarium and attacked her while she was sleeping in her crib. Shaiunna Hare was strangled early Wednesday morning by the 8-1/2 foot Burmese python.
“The baby’s dead!” the mother sobbed to a 911 dispatcher. “Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby.”
Deputies said the live-in boyfriend of the girl’s mother may face charges for not having a permit for the snake. The boyfriend, 32-year-old Charles Jason Darnell, told police that he put the snake in a bag inside its aquarium the night before. But when he woke up Wednesday morning, the snake was gone, and he found it wrapped around the girl in her crib. Darnell stabbed the snake repeatedly to free the little girl, but the toddler already had been strangled to death.
Story at FoxNews
Michael Bay will likely never win a Best Director Oscar, but Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese will likely never claim an even higher honor: the Guinness Record for biggest explosion ever caught on film with actors present. The world-record blast takes place in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, which opened in theaters on June 24. In honor of this big bang, Popular Mechanics ranks the ten greatest explosions in movie history.
For example, explosion #8 is in the original Die Hard movie. In one of the film’s climactic moments, Bruce Willis uses a fire hose to jump off the roof of the building just as it explodes. According to director John McTiernan, most of the exterior building explosion shots were real explosions set around the building.
Top 10 Movie Explosions of All Time
Doctors are fighting to save a boy being eaten alive by a common bacteria found in lakes. The boy’s nose, roof of his mouth, and 5 teeth have been eaten away by the bacteria.
Police say a 5-year-old Arizona girl was accidentally shot and killed at her own birthday party in southern Utah. The girl and another girl apparently found a rifle belonging to her grandparents in a bedroom. The birthday girl was shot in the torso and died later at a hospital. Authorities are not sure whether the girl shot herself or was shot by the other girl. The girl who died would have turned 6 on Tuesday.
Story at FoxNews
On May 26, park visitors flagged down Yosemite National Park Ranger Dan Abbe while he was on his way to work in Yosemite Valley. The visitors informed Abbe there was a vehicle on fire over the side of the road and some people were trapped inside the vehicle.
Abbe rushed to the vehicle about 30 feet below the road and saw a pickup truck on its side with a trailer upright behind it. The truck’s engine was on fire. Abbe was able to remove the two park visitors who were stuck the truck, and he led them downhill to safety.
The visitors then told Abbe that the truck was filled with 70 gallons of gasoline and had an extra 50-gallon gas container, and the trailer had two full propane tanks. So Abbe led the visitors further away from the vehicle through thick brush and back up to the roadway. At this point, the truck filled with smoke and soon became fully engulfed in flames, starting a small brush fire that burned a quarter acre.
Fire officials arrived and extinguished the flames. Abbe and the park visitors were transported to Yosemite Medical Clinic where they were treated for smoke inhalation and released. The truck and trailer were a total loss.
The park visitors credit Ranger Dan Abbe with saving their lives and will return to the park to present him with a plaque to show their appreciation.
Story at NPS.gov
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The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the swine flu alert to its highest level, Level 6, saying the H1N1 virus has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic.
Increasing the alert to Level 6 does not mean that the disease is more fatal or dangerous than before, rather it means the flu has spread to more countries and is not expected to subside anytime soon.
“This is an important and challenging day for all of us,” said WHO Director General Margaret Chan. “We are moving into the early days of the first flu pandemic of the 21st century.” The last pandemic occurred in 1968.
So far, the virus has spread to 74 countries, with 28,774 confirmed cases and 144 deaths. The United States had 13,217 cases in all 50 states and 27 deaths.
More Flu Information
A Yosemite National Park employee was found dead Monday afternoon. Christopher Hale, 23, was reported missing Sunday morning and was found by park rangers in the eastern part of Yosemite Valley. It appears that he fell from a cliff above Mirror Lake. The incident is under investigation. Hale’s death comes just two days after a hiker fell to his death from Half Dome.
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Yosemite National Park officials say a hiker fell to his death Saturday while descending Half Dome, the park’s famous mile-high granite monolith.
California man Manoj Kumar, 40, was using the cabled hand rails while climbing down from the top of Half Dome, when he slipped and fell an estimated 100 feet around 3:40 p.m. as forty other hikers watched in horror. Rain and hailstorms had made the face of the granite mountain slippery.
“The weather was not ideal for the hike,” said Yosemite National Park Ranger Kari Cobb. “That definitely played a big part. It gets really slippery when it gets wet.”
Rangers escorted thirty other climbers down Half Dome for their safety Saturday evening.
The last death at Half Dome was Japanese hiker Hirofumi Nohara, who slipped off the cables in June 2007.
Story at FoxNews
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A teenager was hit by a meteorite travelling at 30,000mph, and he lived to talk about it. Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he looked up to see a massive fireball heading straight towards him. He didn’t have time to react, and the white-hot meteorite struck the boy’s hand then hit the ground so hard it left a foot-long crater in the asphalt.
“At first I just saw a large ball of light and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand,” Blank said. “Then, a split second after that, there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards.” The boy was not seriously injured and had a three-inch scar on his hand to show for it.
Scientists are studying the pea-sized meteorite. Chemical tests on the rock have proven it is from outer space. Chances of being struck by a meteorite are about 1 in 100 million.
Story at Sky News
A grizzly bear attacked and injured a trail jogger in Glacier National Park on Sunday morning.
Thomas Nerison, 60, of Kalispell, Montana, was jogging on the Lake McDonald Valley Trail when he heard what he described as the sound of a dog barking and then galloping horses coming up the trail behind him. Nerison turned around and stepped off the trail when he saw two grizzly bears running toward him.
Nerison believed the bears were running from something that startled them, and one of the bears stopped next to him and knocked him off his feet. Nerison fell to the ground, and the bear bit him twice. Nerison fought back by kicking the bear and poking it with sticks. Eventually the bear lost interest and returned to where it had come from up the trail.
The injured jogger drove himself to the Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Room for medical treatment. He told the ranger that he normally carries bear spray, but didn’t this time.
“Make no mistake, bears are active,” said Park Superintendent Chas Cartwrigtht. “All park visitors should be alert while bicycling or simply walking and/or driving along park roads. Running along trails is discouraged because of the potential of surprising a bear. A runner alone on a trail can inadvertently startle or frighten a bear (or mountain lion), causing it to react in a defensive or aggressive manner. Females with cubs are particularly dangerous when they venture from their dens with newborns in the spring.”
Story at NPS.gov
Wildlife Photos from Glacier NP
National Park News
In spite of all our differences, the one thing that binds all living creatures is that we each have an expiration date. This finality to our existence is what makes life special, something to be cherished and protected. But occasionally things can go terribly wrong…
