[Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95] James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."
In Michigan: Seems some poor fella thought it would be a good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car. Newspaper reports it took a full minute of neighbors whacking away at him with a 2x4 to free their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.
Bowling Green, Ohio Student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train. He told police he was trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head without getting hit.
Wesley Chapel, Florida Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the leg with pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car. When repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he couldn't find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.
Maine According to Gene Dumont, a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, a man once called to request that the deer-crossing signs on a road near his home be removed because a number of deer had been hit there. "He wanted the deer-crossing signs taken down," Dumont explained, "because he didn't want the deer to cross there anymore."
South Carolina: In a letter to the editor of a South Carolina newspaper, a reader wrote: "I am in favor of daylight saving time. I have planted a vegetable garden for many years and find it does much better with that extra hour of sunlight every day!"
Down the Street from You: At a pharmacy, a woman asked to use the infant scale to weigh the baby she held in her arms. The clerk explained that the device was out for repairs, but said she could figure the infant's weight by weighing the woman and baby together on the adult scale, then weighing the mother alone and subtracting the second amount from the first. "It won't work," countered the woman. "I'm not the mother, I'm the grandmother."
