[Note from SuperChef: SuperChef and the staff at
WhiteBoard News Central will be vacationing starting
next week. WhiteBoard News will return to broadcasting
on August 17.]
WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, July 29, 1998
Winnipeg, Canada:
A 55-year-old man who had his penis hacked off says he
was mistaken for the new lover of his attacker's
ex-girlfriend.
The man was attacked while lying in the woman's bed
about 5 a.m. on July 10 by a man wielding a serrated
steak knife.
The 49-year-old woman was stabbed several times.
"We weren't in bed together, either. I was not her
boyfriend," the man, who didn't want to be named, said
Saturday. "I was very tired, and had a pretty strong
drink. Then the glass on the window broke and
everything happened."
Next, he was "knocked out cold . . . they cut it off,
the works," said the man, who eventually ran bleeding
into the street for help.
"I was looking for someone to get me to hospital. I was
getting weak. I'm lucky to be alive. A cop said this
guy was planning on leaving me to bleed to death."
The attack has left him battling depression, but it has
not stolen his sense of humor.
"Maybe I'll get a nine-incher this time," he joked.
"Four psychiatrists came to see me in the hospital. I
told them, 'If you need help, come and see me.' "
The woman visited him briefly Saturday with a get-well
card.
"It's going to take a long time to get well," the man
said. "She feels bad, that it's her fault. But I
shouldn't have gone there to begin with."
Doctors are trying to extend what is left of his penis
through reconstructive surgery. The severed organ was
apparently discarded by the attacker and couldn't be
found despite an intensive search by the Winnipeg
police dog unit.
==========
Valletta, Malta:
A large swordfish that escaped from the nets of a
Maltese fishing boat went on the attack and rammed the
vessel, holing it below the waterline and nearly
sinking it, a Maltese newspaper said.
The 90-foot Our Lady of Pompeii was 95 miles off Malta
when the 200-pound swordfish charged the hull, jamming
its sword into the engine room, the In-Nazzjon
newspaper said Saturday.
The crew killed the fish and cut its head off but left
its body stuck in the hole to serve as a plug.
With pumps working flat out to keep the boat afloat,
another Maltese trawler answered its distress call and
helped it back to the fishing village of Marsaxlokk in
the south of the Mediterranean island.
==========
Wiesbaden, Germany:
A woman has accused her dentist of storming into a
crowded bar and yanking out her dentures because she
failed to pay her dental bill, police said Tuesday.
The 48-year-old woman has paid what she owed since the
incident Saturday in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt,
authorities said. They said her assault complaint
against the dentist was under investigation.
The dentist was out of his office Tuesday when police
went to question him, but his assistant showed them a
plastic bag containing the dentures and said the woman
could pick them up when convenient, a police official
said.
Authorities did not identify the woman or the dentist.
==========
Chandler, Arizona:
A boy riding a bicycle was trapped beneath a car that
dragged him several feet. He was rescued when four
witnesses lifted the car enough to allow him to crawl
clear.
"It was just something that needed to be done," said
Gilbert Vela, one of the four men who picked up the
2,400-pound vehicle long enough for the teen to get out
from under it Tuesday.
Abraham Villa, 13, was able to walk about on his own
shortly after being freed but collapsed in shock
moments later. Severely bruised with cuts, scrapes and
puncture wounds, he was in fair condition later at a
Scottsdale hospital.
Brad Armstrong, a photographer for The Tribune
newspaper, which serves suburban Phoenix, heard a
scream and then saw a car driving out of a parking lot
while an arm waved frantically from beneath it.
"I started running down the street screaming for this
guy to stop," said Abraham, 44. Then he ran inside an
auto parts store yelling for help.
Vela, who was behind the counter, and two customers
accompanied Armstrong to the car. He and Armstrong said
there was no discussion when they reached it, they just
all grabbed onto it and lifted.
"Then someone said, 'He's clear,' and we just dropped
it," Armstrong said.
The driver, Lyle Saichkin, 19, of Chandler, was cited
for failing to yield, police said.
===========
Newport, Rhode Island:
Saturday was a blissful night for the young couple in
love - champagne, classical music and a decision to
wed. But the bliss turned awful with an ill-timed
gesture and the sickening plop of an engagement ring
falling into the dark waters of Newport Harbor.
During intermission of the Newport Musical Festival at
The Breakers mansion, Moore McLaughlin had pulled out
an heirloom diamond ring and asked his beloved Lisa
Courtemanche to marry him.
Later, the couple strolled along the downtown
waterfront and stopped to chat on a stone wall.
Courtemanche gestured with her hand and the ring,
slightly too large, went flying off her finger and into
the harbor.
"It was like slow motion out of a bad movie. She looked
at me. I looked at her. And watched the ring fly into
the water," McLaughlin told The Providence Journal.
McLaughlin ran for a police officer, who told him it
was hopeless. The ring was sunk to a depth of 10 feet
in an area overgrown with eelgrass. The tide would be
coming in.
McLaughlin, a 31-year-old tax attorney from Warwick,
could not sleep that night.
He had promised his father back home in Dallas that he
would call as soon as he proposed to 33-year-old
Courtemanche of West Warwick. But he didn't have the
heart to tell him about the ring.
The ring was worth about $4,000, but its sentimental
value was immeasurable, McLaughlin said. After his
stepmother died of cancer two weeks ago, his father
passed the ring on to him so he could give it to
Courtemanche.
On Sunday morning, McLaughlin called his friend Jim
Broccoli, a recreational diver and a North Providence
police officer. Broccoli searched the waters for 30
minutes.
He surfaced with the ring glimmering around this little
finger. McLaughlin cried.
"He saved our fantasy, is what he did," Courtemanche
said
==========
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:
A pair of identical Ethiopian twin brothers drew lots
to see who would wed whom after their parents arranged
their marriage to a pair of identical twin sisters.
The state-run Ethiopian News Agency said Isamel
Mohammed and Ali Mohammed, both 27 and residents of
Nazareth town, some 60 miles east of the capital Addis
Ababa, had insisted their parents should look for twin
sisters if they wanted them to get married and settle
down.
"After long search, the parents were able to locate
twin sisters who looked alike in every respect," the
agency said.
Since both brides and grooms were identical, it proved
difficult to identify them and it was decided to cast
lots to settle the marriage, ENA said.
==========
Chow
SuperChef
WhiteBoard News Service Bureau Chef
www.joeha.com/whiteboard