xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Fidel Cueva, 41, survived with only scrapes and bruises after he bailed out of an emergency window of a Greyhound bus, at 55 mph, in the fast lane of California’s 101 freeway at rush hour because the bus, an “express,” had just bypassed his stop. (Ventura, Calif., May).
News of the Weird reported in 2002 and 2003 on ever-more-daring exploits of “extreme ironing” athletes, who set up boards and press creases under competitively difficult circumstances, such as while sailboarding or bouncing on a trampoline. Several British “ironists” made a publicity tour of the United States in May in their campaign to make their obsession an Olympic sport. (Events are now judged at 120 points each, half of which is based on the quality of the pressing.) Founder Phil Shaw said he got the idea one day in 1997 when he faced a load of wrinkled shirts and thought he would be less bored if he hooked up a long extension cord and ironed while he went rock-climbing.
An 18-year-old man survived (but was in critical condition) after losing at a variation of Russian roulette (six open cans of Mountain Dew, one spiked with antifreeze) at a party (Princeton, W.Va., May).
A high school student survived (at one time in critical condition, bleeding from the mouth) after drinking an unidentified chemistry-lab substance in order to win a $2 bet (Odessa, Texas, May).
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
