- Oct 28, 1999
- 62,484
- 8,345
- 126
Heh. I'm home sick and bored...and probably running a fever so my mind is a little overactive.
The story this morning got me thinking about making a "Hardcore Hall of Fame" site. It's basically an encyclopedia of acts that go above and beyond the acts that a "normal" person would do.
There's three categories -
The good - These are people that look death in the face and laugh at it to help out their fellow man.
The bad - Typically reserved for the criminally insane or those who go above and beyond any convential means of killing another person. The steel worker who made the sword and nearly decapitated a coworker is a poster child for this category.
The ugly - A category for acts that really don't affect anyone and result in death or injury to the inductee.
I've got a short list going right now - Add any others that you think deserve credit
The Good -
http://www.boston.com/news/wor...abs_shark_to_save_men/
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - An Icelandic fishing captain, known as "the Iceman" for his tough character, grabbed a 660-lb shark with his bare hands as it swam in shallow water toward his crew, a witness said Thursday.
The skipper of the trawler "Erik the Red" was on a beach in Kuummiit, east Greenland, watching his crew processing a catch when he saw the shark swimming toward the fish blood and guts -- and his men.
Captain Sigurdur Petursson, known to locals as "the Iceman," ran into the shallow water and grabbed the shark by its tail. He dragged it off to dry land and killed it with his knife.
"He caught it just with his hands. There was a lot of blood in the sea and the shark came in and he thought it was dangerous," Frede Kilime, a hunter and fisherman who watched from the beach, told Reuters by phone from Greenland.
Icelandic author and journalist Reynir Traustason, who knows the trawler captain, said the act was typical of the man.
"He's called 'the Iceman' because he isn't scared of anything," he said. "I know the people in that part of the world. They are really tough."
The Bad
http://www.usatoday.com/news/n...0-29-sword-death_x.htm
Police: Metals plant employee makes sword, kills coworker
DETROIT (AP) ? A factory worker attacked and killed a fellow employee with a sword the suspect apparently made himself at the metals plant where both men worked, police said Thursday.
Witnesses told police the 30-year-old man had complained he was being bullied by the victim at the Peerless Steel Corp. factory, which makes metal powders used in automobile brakes.
The suspect had been working on the sword for several days at the factory.
"After the suspect had made the weapon, (he) brandished it ... where the other employees could see it. He told all the other employees to go home," said police Inspector Bill Rice.
The employees fled, called police and remained outside the plant.
Inside, the suspect struck Anthony Williams, 40, with the sword in the neck, nearly decapitating him.
The suspect ran away but later returned to the factory. When police arrived, he was having a beer and smoking a cigarette, authorities said.
The suspect's name was not immediately released.
The Ugly
http://www.pcgameworld.com/story.php/id/651/
Man Dies After 86 Hours Non-stop Gaming
A 24-year-old South Korean man has died after gaming nonstop with no sleep or meal breaks for 86 hours, Korean police have said.
The unemployed man was identified by police by his last name 'Kim', and was found dead yesterday at an Internet cafe in Kwangju, a town 260 kilometres south-west of Seoul city.
According to witnesses, police detective Oh Myong-sik stated that the man had been virtually glued to the computer since late last Friday and had no decent sleep or meals.
The man collapsed in front of the counter early yesterday but soon regained consciousness. He then went to the toilet where he later was found dead, the police officer said.
Initial investigation ruled out the possibility of murder, police said. An autopsy was planned." - Source: news.com.au
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Cen...09/climber.amputation/
GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (CNN) -- Deep within an isolated Utah slot canyon, Aron Ralston faced a difficult decision.
His right arm had been pinned for five days under an 800-pound boulder and he was out of water and nearly dehydrated.
Ralston's only escape, he reasoned, was to cut off part of his arm and hike 8 miles to safety. He did both successfully and discussed his ordeal publicly for the first time Thursday, a week after his dramatic rescue.
"The courage became more a matter of pragmatics than 'could I withstand the actual actions I had to take'," Ralston told a crowd of reporters at St. Mary's Hospital and Medical Center.
"It was more a concern of will I be able to think through this as I do it and will I be able to make good decisions when I'm halfway through it."
Ralston was an experienced hiker and was prepared for the treacherous environment he often used as an emotional escape.
But while descending into the canyon, a boulder shifted. Ralston said he moved quick enough to get his body and left arm out of its path but couldn't get his right arm out of the way of the falling rock.
"It came to rest very snugly in the canyon," Ralston said as he recounted the events dispassionately. He immediately started pushing the rock and using all his weight to lean against it.
"It didn't move. It took some good calm thinking in order to get myself to calm down and stop throwing myself against the boulder," he said.
Ralston had biked several miles and then walked a few more to reach this canyon. While he had met a couple of young women on the trail, he knew that he was now far away from anyone else.
Little hope of rescue
The canyon was "very giving of its solitude," he said. "I was quite alone there."
And so over a period of days he thought through various scenarios and devised possible means of escape. As the days passed, his supplies dwindled.
It was Thursday morning and Ralston had been trapped by the boulder since Saturday afternoon. He was out of water. He had licked clean the wrappers of four candy bars that had been consumed on his hike to the canyon. Once trapped, he'd eaten the only other food he'd brought with him -- two burritos.
His position inside one of the many serpentine canyons with narrow walls, offered little hope that a rescue party could find him alive. He was even concerned they would never find his body. Ralston feared his remains would be washed away in a flash flood.
The man who would eventually fly Ralston to safety told CNN the experienced hiker would not have been saved by the rescue team.
"If he hadn't helped himself, we would have never found him because of where he was pinned. We went back in there and looked at the spot that he was pinned," pilot Terry Mercer said,"and it was in such a narrow canyon and the overlap was so bad that we could [have flown] directly over it and we would have never seen him down there." (Full story)
Chipping away at the boulder with his pocket knife had failed. Rigging a series of pulleys to move the boulder had failed. And simply waiting for help had failed, too.
So Ralston gathered his gear neatly, prepared a tourniquet and planned his route out of the canyon.
Once prepared, Ralston broke two bones in his wrist and then used the dull blade of his multi-tool pocket knife to saw through his flesh.
Good memories and pain
The knife he used was not a surgical tool. He described it as "similar to a Leatherman but not nearly as nice."
"It's the type of thing that you'd get if you bought a $15 flashlight and got a free multi-tool knife, which I think is what I did," he said.
But Ralston thought of his family and friends and concentrated on a flood of good memories. He remembered previous hikes and thought he'd been fortunate to meet so many wonderful people in his life. He also thought about the future.
He did feel pain, he said. But he persevered. Soon he was free and lowered himself to the canyon floor where he began his trek home.
Eventually he found hikers on the trail -- a couple from Holland and their son.
"They helped me carry my pack, gave me additional water, they gave me two Oreo cookies, the first food that I'd had in several days," Ralston said.
The family escorted Ralston for a couple of miles before Mercer, the pilot of a Utah Public Safety Helicopter spotted them.
Ralston appeared to be in good health but was bloody. He was flown to a hospital where his wounds were closed during surgery. He'll soon get a prosthetic arm.
During the flight, Ralston said he remained conscious and lucid but he was losing blood quickly.
Mercer said Ralston talked to deputies aboard helicopter.
"I just didn't want him to pass out on the way to the hospital," Mercer said. "When he landed at the hospital, again, he got up and walked right into the emergency room."
Ralston hopes to hike again soon, with friends. And when the doctors give him the OK, he's looking forward to a "big tall, tasty, crushed-ice margarita."
"I thought a lot about margaritas while I was out there," he said
The story this morning got me thinking about making a "Hardcore Hall of Fame" site. It's basically an encyclopedia of acts that go above and beyond the acts that a "normal" person would do.
There's three categories -
The good - These are people that look death in the face and laugh at it to help out their fellow man.
The bad - Typically reserved for the criminally insane or those who go above and beyond any convential means of killing another person. The steel worker who made the sword and nearly decapitated a coworker is a poster child for this category.
The ugly - A category for acts that really don't affect anyone and result in death or injury to the inductee.
I've got a short list going right now - Add any others that you think deserve credit
The Good -
http://www.boston.com/news/wor...abs_shark_to_save_men/
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - An Icelandic fishing captain, known as "the Iceman" for his tough character, grabbed a 660-lb shark with his bare hands as it swam in shallow water toward his crew, a witness said Thursday.
The skipper of the trawler "Erik the Red" was on a beach in Kuummiit, east Greenland, watching his crew processing a catch when he saw the shark swimming toward the fish blood and guts -- and his men.
Captain Sigurdur Petursson, known to locals as "the Iceman," ran into the shallow water and grabbed the shark by its tail. He dragged it off to dry land and killed it with his knife.
"He caught it just with his hands. There was a lot of blood in the sea and the shark came in and he thought it was dangerous," Frede Kilime, a hunter and fisherman who watched from the beach, told Reuters by phone from Greenland.
Icelandic author and journalist Reynir Traustason, who knows the trawler captain, said the act was typical of the man.
"He's called 'the Iceman' because he isn't scared of anything," he said. "I know the people in that part of the world. They are really tough."
The Bad
http://www.usatoday.com/news/n...0-29-sword-death_x.htm
Police: Metals plant employee makes sword, kills coworker
DETROIT (AP) ? A factory worker attacked and killed a fellow employee with a sword the suspect apparently made himself at the metals plant where both men worked, police said Thursday.
Witnesses told police the 30-year-old man had complained he was being bullied by the victim at the Peerless Steel Corp. factory, which makes metal powders used in automobile brakes.
The suspect had been working on the sword for several days at the factory.
"After the suspect had made the weapon, (he) brandished it ... where the other employees could see it. He told all the other employees to go home," said police Inspector Bill Rice.
The employees fled, called police and remained outside the plant.
Inside, the suspect struck Anthony Williams, 40, with the sword in the neck, nearly decapitating him.
The suspect ran away but later returned to the factory. When police arrived, he was having a beer and smoking a cigarette, authorities said.
The suspect's name was not immediately released.
The Ugly
http://www.pcgameworld.com/story.php/id/651/
Man Dies After 86 Hours Non-stop Gaming
A 24-year-old South Korean man has died after gaming nonstop with no sleep or meal breaks for 86 hours, Korean police have said.
The unemployed man was identified by police by his last name 'Kim', and was found dead yesterday at an Internet cafe in Kwangju, a town 260 kilometres south-west of Seoul city.
According to witnesses, police detective Oh Myong-sik stated that the man had been virtually glued to the computer since late last Friday and had no decent sleep or meals.
The man collapsed in front of the counter early yesterday but soon regained consciousness. He then went to the toilet where he later was found dead, the police officer said.
Initial investigation ruled out the possibility of murder, police said. An autopsy was planned." - Source: news.com.au
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Cen...09/climber.amputation/
GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (CNN) -- Deep within an isolated Utah slot canyon, Aron Ralston faced a difficult decision.
His right arm had been pinned for five days under an 800-pound boulder and he was out of water and nearly dehydrated.
Ralston's only escape, he reasoned, was to cut off part of his arm and hike 8 miles to safety. He did both successfully and discussed his ordeal publicly for the first time Thursday, a week after his dramatic rescue.
"The courage became more a matter of pragmatics than 'could I withstand the actual actions I had to take'," Ralston told a crowd of reporters at St. Mary's Hospital and Medical Center.
"It was more a concern of will I be able to think through this as I do it and will I be able to make good decisions when I'm halfway through it."
Ralston was an experienced hiker and was prepared for the treacherous environment he often used as an emotional escape.
But while descending into the canyon, a boulder shifted. Ralston said he moved quick enough to get his body and left arm out of its path but couldn't get his right arm out of the way of the falling rock.
"It came to rest very snugly in the canyon," Ralston said as he recounted the events dispassionately. He immediately started pushing the rock and using all his weight to lean against it.
"It didn't move. It took some good calm thinking in order to get myself to calm down and stop throwing myself against the boulder," he said.
Ralston had biked several miles and then walked a few more to reach this canyon. While he had met a couple of young women on the trail, he knew that he was now far away from anyone else.
Little hope of rescue
The canyon was "very giving of its solitude," he said. "I was quite alone there."
And so over a period of days he thought through various scenarios and devised possible means of escape. As the days passed, his supplies dwindled.
It was Thursday morning and Ralston had been trapped by the boulder since Saturday afternoon. He was out of water. He had licked clean the wrappers of four candy bars that had been consumed on his hike to the canyon. Once trapped, he'd eaten the only other food he'd brought with him -- two burritos.
His position inside one of the many serpentine canyons with narrow walls, offered little hope that a rescue party could find him alive. He was even concerned they would never find his body. Ralston feared his remains would be washed away in a flash flood.
The man who would eventually fly Ralston to safety told CNN the experienced hiker would not have been saved by the rescue team.
"If he hadn't helped himself, we would have never found him because of where he was pinned. We went back in there and looked at the spot that he was pinned," pilot Terry Mercer said,"and it was in such a narrow canyon and the overlap was so bad that we could [have flown] directly over it and we would have never seen him down there." (Full story)
Chipping away at the boulder with his pocket knife had failed. Rigging a series of pulleys to move the boulder had failed. And simply waiting for help had failed, too.
So Ralston gathered his gear neatly, prepared a tourniquet and planned his route out of the canyon.
Once prepared, Ralston broke two bones in his wrist and then used the dull blade of his multi-tool pocket knife to saw through his flesh.
Good memories and pain
The knife he used was not a surgical tool. He described it as "similar to a Leatherman but not nearly as nice."
"It's the type of thing that you'd get if you bought a $15 flashlight and got a free multi-tool knife, which I think is what I did," he said.
But Ralston thought of his family and friends and concentrated on a flood of good memories. He remembered previous hikes and thought he'd been fortunate to meet so many wonderful people in his life. He also thought about the future.
He did feel pain, he said. But he persevered. Soon he was free and lowered himself to the canyon floor where he began his trek home.
Eventually he found hikers on the trail -- a couple from Holland and their son.
"They helped me carry my pack, gave me additional water, they gave me two Oreo cookies, the first food that I'd had in several days," Ralston said.
The family escorted Ralston for a couple of miles before Mercer, the pilot of a Utah Public Safety Helicopter spotted them.
Ralston appeared to be in good health but was bloody. He was flown to a hospital where his wounds were closed during surgery. He'll soon get a prosthetic arm.
During the flight, Ralston said he remained conscious and lucid but he was losing blood quickly.
Mercer said Ralston talked to deputies aboard helicopter.
"I just didn't want him to pass out on the way to the hospital," Mercer said. "When he landed at the hospital, again, he got up and walked right into the emergency room."
Ralston hopes to hike again soon, with friends. And when the doctors give him the OK, he's looking forward to a "big tall, tasty, crushed-ice margarita."
"I thought a lot about margaritas while I was out there," he said
Facebook
Twitter