xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Recent alarming headlines:
(1) “Dangerous Chemical Found in Women’s Breasts” (a March San Francisco Chronicle report on heavy tissue concentrations of a flame-retarding pollutant, most likely from inhaling foam insulation).
(2) “Grisly Mexico Factory Breeds Man-Eating Flies” (a February Reuters story on the manufacture of sterile male fresh-blood-eating screwworms, which are used only to mate with wild female screwworms so that its population will die out).
(3) “Girl Headed for Eye Doctor Ends Up With Teeth Pulled Instead” (a March story on the Web site of KTRK-TV, Houston, about the error by a Texas Medicaid worker who dropped the 5-year-old girl off with the wrong doctor).
News of the Weird has reported at least twice over the years on dogs playfully stepping on their masters’ guns, with a paw innocently nudging the trigger, to tragic results. In Estes Park, Colo., in February, a 32-year-old woman was shot in the leg and hospitalized after her cat jumped onto a shelf, knocking off a .32 caliber Colt semi-automatic, which discharged a round when it hit the floor. (A second cat-shot-me story, by a 15-year-old boy in Tuscarawas Township, Ohio, in April, has been publicly doubted by the sheriff.)
A student at George Washington High School, Charleston, W.Va. (who was not identified because of his age), was disciplined after he accidentally wedged himself in behind the shower wall in the girls’ locker room, after allegedly taking a choice vantage point for peeping. Virtually immobile, the boy waited until school was out for the day and called his father on his cell phone. The father went to the gym and rescued the boy but later turned him in.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD