A British man, who had just cut off his arm in a freak chainsaw accident, calmly knocked on his neighbor’s door and said, "Please help, I’ve just cut my arm off."
John Stirling was cutting down a tree in his yard when his chainsaw slipped and cut off his arm below the elbow. His neighbor, Steve Francis, placed the arm in a bag of frozen food to keep the limb cold. "He wasn’t screaming, he was as relaxed as can be," Francis said. "I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I looked down and saw his arm missing. He’s a brave man, I’ll give him that. I couldn’t believe he didn’t faint."
Stirling ended up in Queen Victoria Hospital in West Sussex. He underwent 14 hours of emergency surgery to reattach the arm.
More at Sky News
An aspiring chef in England died after eating red-hot chili sauce in a competition with a friend.
Andrew Lee, 33, challenged his girlfriend’s brother to see who could eat the hottest sauce. Lee prepared a tomato sauce with red chilies grown on his father’s farm. Lee ate the sauce and immediately suffered intense discomfort and itching. He was found dead the next morning and possibly suffered a heart attack.
The coroner is conducting toxicology tests to see if Lee died from the hot sauce. Lee was in perfect health and had just passed a medical exam at work. He was a good cook and often prepared meals for his family.
Lee climbed into be around 2:30 am and was itching all over his body. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. When she awoke, Lee was dead.
An Iowa teenager is recovering after falling and impaling himself on a set of deer antlers. Todd Reynolds, 16, was climbing through a window in his grandmother’s home after locking himself out. He slipped and fell onto the antlers, which impaled him through his back and just missed his spine.
The antlers were resting upright on the floor when the boy fell on them. The grandmother had saved the antlers of a deer that she accidentally killed with her car years ago.
Emergency room doctors removed the antlers. The teen is home now and expected to recover fully.
A Cuban tae kwon do athlete, unhappy with the referee’s call during the Olympics, took matters into his own hands, er, feet.
Angel Valodia Matos attacked the referee, Chakir Chelbat of Sweden, after Chelbat disqualified Matos for taking too long in an injury timeout. Matos became upset with the call, pushed another judge, kicked Chelbat, and spat on the mat as security hauled him out of the arena.
After the match, the World Taekwondo Federation banned Matos and his coach, Leodis Gonzalez, for life and erased his records at the Beijing Games. "This is a strong violation of the spirit of tae kwon do and the Olympic Games," the WTF said in a statement.
Matos was winning his match in the second round against Arman Chilmanov of Kazakhstan, when Chilmanov landed a good blow on Matos, who then fell to the ground. More than a minute passed as Matos waited for medical attention, so Chelbat disqualified Matos because tae kwon do rules allow only one minute for an injury timeout. "To me it was obvious he was unable to continue," said Chilmanov, who went on to win the bronze medal. "His toe on his left foot was broken."
More at The New York Times
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…
