WhiteBoard News for Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Cape Town, South Africa (Independent Online):
She's in intensive care, her leg's in traction and she can't even sit up but a Cape Town mother is not letting that interfere with breastfeeding her newborn daughter - even though she's doing it from the confines of her hospital bed.
Jean-Adri Arnoldi, 28, badly injured in a car crash, has astounded medical staff at the Milnerton Medi-Clinic with her courage and determination to do what is best for her baby girl Keola.
She's even holding back on the painkillers so they don't get passed on to the baby through her milk.
'I knew it would be worth it for both of us to try'
The drama unfolded a week ago, two weeks after Arnoldi had a caesarean.
She had popped out to get takeaways with her dad Gerhard Horn, who had arrived from Pretoria just hours before.
Near the Bayside Centre in Table View a car jumped a red light and smacked into their car leaving Arnoldi with a fractured hip, three broken ribs and a broken left hand.
Arnoldi said she desperately wanted to continue breastfeeding her baby so her parents were bringing the infant to the hospital every three hours. "Keola missed me and I missed her so I knew it would be worth it for both of us to try."
Arnoldi's mother, Adri Hor, said she wanted people to know that breastfeeding was possible even under the most difficult circumstances.
Orthopaedic surgeon Hein de Jongh will operate on Arnoldi's hip today. He says the operation will be long and quite risky but he expects a full recovery within three to six months.
Intensive care unit manager Elisa Hendricks said this was a first for her staff.
"But we've loved it. Everyone has been dancing around with this baby."
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Virginia City, Nevada (AP):
With names like "Pee II" and the "Urinator," they rolled down the main drag of this old western town to cheering fans and awe-struck visitors who questioned the locals' sanity.
Welcome to Virginia City's annual Outhouse Races. To the winner goes the Royal Flush Trophy.
"It's bizarre," said Brett Coleman, 30, a financial manager from Seattle visiting a friend in nearby Carson City.
"But it combines two popular things: restrooms and racing."
Even organizer Lou Tassone admits the event is a bit odd.
"It's always been kind of a wacky, crazy thing," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
The races began in 1999, when local business leaders first attached wheels to the outdoor commodes. Twenty-two outhouses and portable toilets took part in the competition Saturday and Sunday.
"I think its hilarious and you'd never see this done anywhere except Virginia City, Nevada," said Bobbie Copeland, 53, a nurse from Carson City.
According to organizers, the event mimics the period in time decades ago when Storey County banned the use of outhouses and citizens protested by putting their outhouses on wheels and parading them down Main Street.
Each outhouse must be at least 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, contain a toilet and toilet paper and have a maximum of three crew members to push it down the street in the double elimination tournament. Those who fail to meet the weight requirement suffer the ultimate penalty _ walking two blocks through town carrying a 50-pound sack of manure.
Motors, sails, dog teams and gas-assisted propulsion are prohibited.
The Royal Flush Trophy is a glass outhouse, but other prizes include a toilet seat and bedpan.
Kevin Moore of Reno said he got strange looks when he took "Flaming Butt Hut" for a test run down Stewart Street on Friday.
"The neighbors were like, `What in the hell are you doing?'" he said.
Moore, 24, the senior carpenter with Verdi-based Sierra Builders, designed the outhouse for his company, which won first place the last two years.
He enjoys the event because, "I can bring my own refrigerator and own beer and drink in the street and not get arrested like in Reno."
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Oslo, Norway (Reuters):
A Norwegian man who stole an ambulance in Oslo was arrested just 20 minutes later after police pinpointed him with the help of a satellite transmitter aboard the vehicle.
Police sent five police cars and a helicopter to catch the thief, who may have been after medicine kept in the ambulance. It had been left unlocked in central Oslo with no patients inside when it was stolen.
"We were lucky to have a GPS transmitter in the ambulance," said police officer Jan Wessel, who headed the operation.
The global positioning system (news - web sites) (GPS) is a satellite-based navigation tool.
The 34-year-old thief drove the ambulance about 12 km (8 miles) before he was caught.
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Osaka, Japan (Ananova):
A train was brought to a halt in the mountains of Japan - by a swarm of millipedes.
Millipedes up to six centimetres long covered a 400 metre stretch of track near Osaka, western Japan.
The single-carriage train, carrying only two passengers, skidded to a halt after crushing lots of the insects, reports The Age.
Millipedes favour dark conditions and the incident occurred on a shadowy upward slope, on a local train line in Hyogo prefecture.
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Schwarzenbach, Germany (Ananova):
A US tourist's trip through Bavaria ended with an unexpected visit to a supermarket when his car's navigation system led him straight through the store's doors.
The car only came to a stop when the Vietnam war veteran, from Toledo, Washington State, crashed into a row of shelves.
The man, who has not been named but was celebrating his 68th birthday the same day, told police in the town of Schwarzenbach that he had relied entirely on the automatic navigation system as he did not know the area.
He added he did not notice the doors of the supermarket looming before him until he had crashed through them.
The American has been told he will have to foot the bill for the damage caused.
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