CAT | I Survived
Quincy, Massachusetts-
Forty-four year old Mike Bowes had heard this sort of call hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. He was good at his job and knew exactly what to do each and every time the phone rang. Mike was a 911 dispatcher in Quincy, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston in which 90,000 people resided.
At the time of the incident, Mike was a seasoned veteran. He had heard just about every sort of call known to man, ten times over, and prided himself in always staying calm, and always knowing how to handle each and every situation. He would effectively notify police and/or fire and simultaneously talk the caller through what they needed do, whether it be perform CPR, get out of the house due to fire, or run and hide from a home intruder. Mike was always prepared and nothing really shook him.
That was until 10:45 one Monday evening. Mike sat at his desk and received a call he was very familiar with. The caller said, “My neighbor’s house just blew up!”
Just as he had been trained to do, and had practiced religiously, over his 11 year career as a dispatcher, Mike calmly asked, “What’s the address?”
The caller’s response both shocked and surprised Mike. What were the odds in a city of 90K people that he personally would receive the 911 call when his own home was on fire? Mike had lived in the home for 20 years and was immediately worried about his parents, who he knew were both in the house at the time. Within five minutes of the call police were escorting Mike to his burning home.
In the end, both parents and a third person escaped the fire unharmed. And with another twist of irony, one of the first firefighters on the scene was Tom Bowes, Mike’s cousin. Tom rushed into the house and was able to salvage some old albums with wedding and baby photos, but sadly everything else was destroyed. Obviously very upset, Mike handled his personal disaster with a lot of maturity by saying, “My parents are alive; my neighbors are alive, it’s an inconvenience, but we’ll get through it.”
The moral of the story: Irony aside, all that really matters are the people you love. Everything else is replaceable.
© 2010 StrangeRush.com
Print This Strange Story
MIAMI, Florida-
It must have seemed like a clip out of a low budget B flick. If I was there, I probably wouldn’t have believed my eyes and been looking around for a film crew. But there was no film crew and this event at the the Mall of Americas in Miami, Florida was very real.
An obviously very troubled woman was in a clothing store called Savage Boutique when she decided that was the day she was going to kill herself. Who knows, maybe it was premeditated, but either way she planned to check out. The strange thing to me is the way she decided to go about it, in a very public manner, and in what I believe is the absolute most painful way possible.
The 43 year old woman was in the boutique where she proceeded to douse herself with gasoline and light herself on fire. At that point I would have expected her to start screaming and running around frantically, but not this crazy lady. Witnesses said she extended her arms out to her sides and slowly walked out into the main part of the mall, where all that could be seen was a fireball. Two men and a woman used two fire extinguishers to put the blaze out, each of them sustaining mild injuries. She was said to have been on fire for two and a half minutes and her underwear was the only clothing remaining on her, everything else was burned to a crisp.
After two and a half minutes of being a human fireball I would expect her to be near death. But not this pyro, in shock, she quietly walked about a block and a half to the parking lot where fire crews found her still conscious. She had sustained third-degree burns to 75% of her body. I imagine that being lit on fire would rank at about 145th on the suicidal method chart, right after stabbing ones self 50 times with a shank and crushing ones self in a car crusher? Like everyone else, I’ve been close to campfires and I can honestly say, Hell No. As to her reasoning for doing it at the Savage Boutique? Her husband said she had a history of mental illness and her eldest daughter worked in the store (not that that is a reason).
The moral of the story: If you are crazy enough to light yourself on fire, it’s definitely time to check into a mental ward.
© 2009 StrangeRush.com
Print This Strange Story
GRAND HAVEN, Michigan-
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Not a lot of people know the “history” of Thanksgiving in the United States. Thanksgiving dates back to 1621 and the Mayflower Pilgrims at the site of the Plymouth Plantation, which is now generally the Cape Cod area of Eastern Massachusetts. Thanksgiving did not become an actual recognized holiday until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a day for American’s to express thanks for their many blessings. And that’s the end of your history lesson…..I just didn’t want anyone to ever say StrangeRush.com is all fun and games (even though that’s all it really is;)
So YES, I do have a story for you…..applaud now. One can only imagine how many millions of turkeys have sacrificed their innocent little lives for our eating pleasure since Thanksgiving came into existence. I’d imagine 99.9% of turkeys go down without much of a fight, probably understanding in their puny little brains that the human beast will not be without his turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing dinner in late November (Okay, so the turkeys probably don’t understand their eminent fate). Whether turkeys act on some reasoning skills or pure instinct when trying to escape their captors, the turkey hunters will not be outwitted, knowing there’s a hungry population of human beings counting on them to come through with enough turkey for “turkey day”.
Knowing that 99.9% of turkeys are mostly subservient to human needs, there does appear to be one small faction of ruthless wild turkeys who have had enough, and are doing their best to take back control of their streets. In Grand Haven, Michigan, a small town on the eastern seaboard of Lake Michigan there is a flock of rogue turkeys that don’t take any crap. In Grand Haven, it doesn’t pay to be a mail carrier. One afternoon, a mailman named Doug Cody, saw three of the tasty birds while doing his rounds. One of the birds spotted him from down the street and began to make a serious run at him, and the two other birds joined in. According to Cody, they made a dead on run at him, forcing him to retreat to a house’s porch before the three birds could claim him as the first victim of their Turkey Jihad.
After it was all said and done, and Cody was able to make his escape he asked around. He learned that three other mail carriers had also been preyed upon by the fanatical birds. Better get some hunters out to the streets of Grand Haven before these turkeys recruit more naughty turkeys. That’s how Civil Wars start.
So with that I say, tonight, as you are eating your tasty turkey, please remember what that bird gave up to be a part of your life, and thank the little bugger for his sacrifice.
The moral of the story: Don’t forget the gravy.
© 2009 StrangeRush.com
Print This Strange Story
HAYDEN, Idaho-
Anyone who has ever been to, or lived in Hayden, Idaho can tell you that it can get pretty darn cold there in the winter being that close to the Canadian border. Hayden residents Don and Penny Fisher can attest to this personally. For three years and three months the Fishers endured frigid conditions inside their own home, surviving by building fires and bundling up because the couple could not afford the excessively high utility bills they were receiving from the Avista Corporation, the city’s gas and electric company.
But for the Fishers it wasn’t that easy. They heavily conserved on using the utilities and sacrificed comfort, but still continued to receive the high utility bills, all the while knowing they could not have possibly been racking up that much utility debt. They said the bills got so bad they had to skimp on the three Christmases during that time period. Finally, they said during the third January they got so desperate that they reported a fake gas leak to get someone from the utility company to come out and check it out. During that visit it was discovered that their meter had been crossed with their neighbor’s for those three years. One month they had paid $238 while the neighbor paid only $28. The Avista Corporation reimbursed the Fishers nearly $2,000.
The moral of the story: If you rarely use gas or electricity and still get utility bills for hundreds of dollars, don’t wait three years to fake a gas leak.
© 2009 StrangeRush.com
Print This Strange Story
NEWARK, New Jersey-
“Attention Passengers, this is your co-pilot speaking. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the pilot of the plane has just passed away. Please do not be alarmed, I assure you I have this plane under control and we will land safety in New Jersey.”
Obviously this announcement was never made on a plane, but the scenario actually happened on Continental Flight 61 from Brussels, Belgium to Newark, New Jersey. During the flight, the plane’s 60 year old captain died of natural causes. Apparently, the flight had a relief pilot that was able to take the controls with another pilot and the plane was able to land safety at 11:49am.
In fact, there was no mention to the passengers about the incident during the flight. There was only an announcement that if there was a doctor on board he was needed for a medical emergency.
The moral of the story: Try to avoid flights where the pilot is going to die in-flight.
© 2009 StrangeRush.com
FORT WORTH, Texas -
Are you kidding me? This is hilarious. At first I thought this story would be an embarrassment to the US Army and Specialist Zachary Boyd, but it seems it may have made a bit of a cult celebrity out of Specialist Boyd (the Army may still be a little embarrassed though).
As the story goes the Fort Worth soldier was taking an afternoon nap when his unit came under fire from the Taliban. Deciding he didn’t want to waste time putting on his uniform, Boyd jumped up, put on his bulletproof vest and helmet but decided he would go to this dance with what he napped in: his red shirt, flip-flops and pink boxers. Yes, you read it correctly, PINK boxer shorts. Boyd was pictured (see below) with two fellow soldiers on a hill, hiding behind sandbags, engaged with the enemy.
Boyd said he first thought he would get in some trouble for his inappropriate attire, but said he has since been praised for his courage. And the Army is going to display the boxers in the 1st Infantry Division museum at Fort Riley, Kansas.
The moral of the story: If you want to be a ‘different kind of’ military hero, make sure you pack some pink boxers before you deploy.
© 2009 StrangeRush.com
