24.5.2009
A Life-saving Coincidence
They met for the first time on a hot June night when F. crashed his motor bike. He had been racing down the road, chasing a speeding truck, when the vehicle slowed to turn. Unaware of the change of pace, F. slammed full throttle into the rear of the truck. The motor bike was demolished and his body was badly battered. One leg had been nearly amputated. As he lay in agony on the road, a pool of blood began to form beneath the shattered limb. He had ruptured an artery in his leg and was bleeding to death. It was then that fate brought F. and Smith together, writes Storer. Sm. had vbeen driving home along the road when he saw the accident. Shaken but alert he was out of his car and bending over the badly injured man almost before the sound of the impact died on the night air. He wasn't a doctor but could see what had to be done for the dying patrol-man. Whipping off his tie, he quickly bound F. leg in a crude tourniquet. It worked. The flow of blood slackened to a trickle and then stopped entirely. When the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, Sm. learned for the first time that he had saved his life. F. spent several months in hospital. After surgery he eventually returned to police work. 5 years later around Christmas he was on highway night patrol when he received a radio call from headquarters to investigate a bad accident. A car had smashed into a tree.. A man was in a serious condition and an ambulance was on the way. F. reached the wreck well before the ambul. Pushing his way past a group of frightened bystanders he found the injured man slumped unconscious across the torn car seat. The man's right trouser leg was saturated with blood. He had severed a major artery and was bleeding to death. Well trained in first aid, F. quickly applied a tourniquet above the ruptured artery. When the bleeding stopped, he pulled the man from the car and made him comfortable on the ground. That's when he recognized the victim-Alfred Smith, the man who had saved his own life 5 years earlier.
A Life-saving Coincidence
http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/simple%20things.mp3
This case was reported in the American National Tattler Amazing but True column, written by Doug Storer. It concerns 2 Texans, one Allen Falby, an El Paso County highway patrolman, the other Alfred Smith. a businessman.
The Berlitz Mystery
Arthur C. Clarke, scientist, best selling author-and a connoisseur of the curious-tells his personal favourite coincidence in World of Strange Powers. In Des. 1969 he flew into Paris to address a Unesco conference. The aircraft doors had just been opened and he was shuffling down the cabin when he noticed a Berlitz guidebook lying on one of the seats. Instantly the thought flashed through his mind: I wonder what's happened to Charlie Berlitz? I haven't seen him for years (this, incidentally, was long before he'd struck gold in the Bermuda Triangle).
I took another 3 or 4 steps, and a voice behind me said:
- Hello Arthur, Guess who? Charlie Berlitz!
This incident still astonishes me. - Yet it shouldn't. In the course of a busy lifetime many similar events must occur, purely by coincidence. Nevertheless they give one an odd sensation somewhere at the top of the spine eand tend to induce a semi-mystical belief that there's a lot going on in the universethat we... don't... understand...
Another Plane Tale
This case concerns a small-world story involving actor Gordon Chater. He was flying from London to New York after a twenty-week tour as one of the leading actors in the play The Dresser. On Concorde Chater chatted with the womansitting next to him, who said it was her first trip to NY. -And why are you going, asked the actor. -Well, she replied, my husband is Ronald Harwood and he has written a play that you probably haven't heard of. It's called The Dresser and it's opening in NY...
Homely Judge
In 1949 a man from Chester, Pennsylvania, was picked up on a vagrancy charge (no lawful means of support). He insisted that he was innocent and did have means of support; in fact he had a home, 714 McIlvain Street. When he came before Judge Lowry, he told the same story.
- Where did you get that address, the judge asked.
- It's just an address, said the defendant.
- I'll say it is, that's where I live.
90 days.
Holey Tale
In the early 1980s Scott Palmer created the Everest of golf stories. In fact he got so used to not being believed, he rounded up affidavits from 65 witnesses to provide verification of the story. They show he has hit a hole in one 18 times. Not only that, his drives hit the pin 50 other times. The US Golf Digest says this is a clear record; the previous one was set in 1962 by a Californian doctor with 11 in a single year. The Digest says the chances of an ordinary human being hitting the hole from the tee are 33,616 to 1.
Scott, a Californian is an author and able to play on most days at the Balboa Park course in San Diego. Four of his holes in one came on consecutive days in October 1983, 7 have been on par-4 holes and the average length of the 18 is 209 m. Scott started taking lessons half-way through this streak, so instead of hooking holes in one he got them in straight. He has hit all but one of his aces with the same apparently instructable ball, a Spalding Top Flite XL No.2.
He has been offered more than $14000 for it. Palmer says the way he does it is by getting a mental image of a faceless woman pouring a glass of milk the moment he hits the drive. The imagery is rather obtuse.