Weird World News: Shocking news connections
PHUKET: This week’s Weird World News Roundup is all about making the connection, from a flasher at a wedding to a wedding with a deadly-electric ending and finally arriving conveniently at the end with a cleaner and his electric out-of body experience.
Naked flasher ruins wedding
A bride and groom had their their marriage vows interrupted when a flasher threw open the alter shutter doors and not once, but twice, gave them an eyeful of his wedding tackle, reported the Herald Sun.
The unlucky couple were standing in front of the vicar when the shutters above the altar suddenly opened to reveal the naked stranger with his arms aloft in a religious pose.
On the wedding video the bride could be heard whispering: “Oh my god. Get him out. Turn around. Please get him out.”
The man then closed the shutters, only to reappear again, receiving more shocked gasps from the congregation.
He remained on display for several moments before a large wedding guest got up from his seat and strode meaningfully toward the front of the church to take the matter in hand.
Aware of the potential threat the naked stranger closed the shutters and made his exit, just as a relieved priest said: “Let us continue to pray.”
Celebratory gunfire brings down cable, kills 23 attendees at wedding
A more serious wedding disaster occurred in the Middle East on October 30 when celebratory gunfire at a wedding party near Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia brought down an electric cable, killing 23 people, reported The Guardian.
“The cable fell on a metal door and electrocuted the 23 people,” Eastern province official Abdullah Khashman told Reuters.
All those killed were from the same tribe, Mr Khashman said. Thirty others were also injured in the incident, which occurred near Abqaiq, a center of the Saudi energy industry.
The dead were women and children as Saudi Arabia has strict codes that requires the separation of males and females at most public events, including weddings.
It should be noted that last month the kingdom banned the shooting of firearms at weddings, a popular tradition in tribal areas, but old habits die hard.
Cleaner’s out-of-body experience after electric shock from industrial cables
High-voltage electricity also played a prominent role in the adventures of John Scrimshaw, a 51-year-old cleaner in the seaside town of Poole, reported Bournemouth Echo in Southern England.
Mr Scrimshaw a cleaner at Hamworthy Combustion Engineering, told how he had an out-of-body experience after he suffered an electric shock and “could have died”.
Mr Scrimshaw was cleaning electric cables at work when he was thrown five meters from the scaffolding he was working from to the ground. He suffered a broken collarbone and hand, as well as burns.
The cleaner said he was shaking as the current went through him. He described being able to look down and watch his own body fall from the raised platform and hit the ground.
“Then I floated like a leaf back into my body,” he said.
“I had an out-of-body experience,” Mr Scrimshaw added. “I thought ‘I’m a gonner, this is my unlucky day.'”
“It’s changed him completely and he can’t remember things,” said his wife Lorraine.
Mr Scrimshaw, who has seven children and seven grandchildren, said he was signed off for 14 months after the ordeal in July 2010.
The Health and Safety Executive found the cables, which powered an overhead crane used to move heavy industrial heating units, were bare and had not been isolated when Mr Scrimshaw was hurt.
Hamworthy Combustion Engineering admitted breaching electricity at work regulations at Poole Magistrates’ Court. They were fined £16,000 and ordered to pay £14,372.50 in costs.
— Mark Dee
