Eideard

A Swedish man was dug out alive after being snowed in to his car on a forest track for two months with no food, police and local media have reported.

The 45-year-old from southern Sweden was found on Friday, emaciated and too weak to utter more than a few words. He was found not far from the city of Umea in the north of Sweden by snowmobilers who thought they had come across a car wreck until they dug their way to a window and saw movement inside.

The man, who was laying in the back seat in a sleeping bag, said he had been in the car since December 19.

“Just incredible that he’s alive considering that he had no food, but also since it’s been really cold for some time after Christmas,” a rescue team member told regional daily Vasterbottens-Kuriren, which broke the news…

Umea University Hospital, where the man is recovering after being rescued by police and a rescue team, said in a statement he was doing well considering the circumstances.

Doctors at the hospital said humans would normally be able to survive for about four weeks without food. Besides eating snow, the man probably survived by going into a dormant-like state, physician Stefan Branth told Vasterbottens-Kuriren.

“A bit like a bear that hibernates. Humans can do that,” he said. “He probably had a body temperature of around 31 degrees (Celsius) which the body adjusted to. Due to the low temperature, not much energy was used up.”

The police hope that sooner or later he’ll be able to tell folks what he was doing out there.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia: Jay Leno has driven his Chevrolet Volt nearly 11,000 miles and doesn’t have a single gas station receipt to show for it. According to The New York Times Wheels blog, Leno has had his plug-in for 11 months and, as he told them, “I’ve never had to put gas in it yet… They gave it to me with a full tank of gas. I’ve used less than half of that.”

Given that Leno has an entire fleet of gas-swilling rides in his garage, he can just take the Volt out whenever he knows he can get to Point B and back without refueling. You have to be kind of careful to put 11,000 miles on a Volt without ever going more than 40 miles (plus or minus) at a stretch. Luckily, Leno said his commute is less than 35 miles a day, and so he uses the Volt as his daily driver.

Which matches the stats from the DOT which says the average American commute is 40 miles or less. Which is also why we’re considering an electric car for our next family vehicle – if and when my wife’s ancient Volvo ever kicks the bucket.

And we can find an electric car we can afford.

When Teresa Culpepper called Atlanta police to report her car stolen, the last thing she expected was to land behind bars for 53 days in a case of mistaken identity.

Mistaken for a woman of the same first name who was wanted on a battery charge, Culpepper is now trying to return her life to normal after the ordeal cost her home and her car. Her attorney said none of it would have happened if police had followed basic procedures…

Culpepper’s saga started August 21, whe she called police to report that her car was stolen, attorney Ashleigh Merchant said. An officer took information from her, but never filed a report. Shortly after, police dispatchers called out a bulletin, alerting officers to look out for a woman named Teresa Gilbert who was suspected of aggravated battery.

Police returned to Culpepper’s house and arrested her. And the differences between the two women didn’t stop at their last names, Merchant said.

“The birth dates didn’t match. The addresses were different. The description didn’t match. Other than the name Teresa, nothing matched,” Merchant said. “All they had to do was show a picture of Teresa to the victim and none of this would have happened…”

Weeks later…the battery victim came forward in court and cleared Culpepper’s name. Released on October 12, Culpepper found herself homeless and her car in the impound lot.

“After investigating this matter thoroughly and discussing it carefully with the Atlanta Police Department, we have concluded that the wrong person was arrested,” District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. said in a written statement to CNN affiliate WSB. “The fact that both of the women in question had the same first name and lived in the same police beat led the officer to believe Ms. Culpepper was responsible … Unfortunately, the officer never presented a picture or any form of identification to the victim.”

Culpepper is seeking legal action against the Atlanta police, Merchant said.

“It is scary, really,” Merchant said. “Because it is not like Teresa is an uncommon name. It makes you feel that it could have happened to anybody.”

Well, at least anybody who is Black and named Teresa – in Atlanta.

 
Police in Utah are searching for a group of construction workers, students and bystanders. But for a good reason.

This group is credited with saving a man’s life by working together to lift a burning car and pull a man to safety.

It was a “life-saving move that the Logan Police Department does not want to go unnoticed,” said Jeff Curtis, assistant chief of the police department in Logan, Utah.

The incident occurred Monday morning on a street near Utah State University and was captured on video.

Police said the BMW pulled out of a parking lot and in front of Wright. Curtis said the motorcyclist tried to avoid the car, which resulted in him laying the motorcycle down. After crashing, gas spilled out of the motorcycle and ignited, engulfing both the motorcycle and the front end of the car in flames…The motorcyclist became lodged underneath the burning vehicle…

Curtis said police are trying to find the people who helped so they can be recognized for their efforts at a city council meeting.

Bravo. Ordinary people torn an their ordinary day by extraordinary circumstances. Caring – as we all should – for the life of another human being.

Another popular Ryanair promotion

Ryanair has launched an enquiry after three passengers on the same flight each won a car worth €10,000 after playing its in-flight scratchcard game.

The three passengers, who were flying from Milan to Madrid last Monday, won the prize after buying one of the airline’s €2 scratchcards, despite an average of one car being won each month.

The airline blamed a printing error by Brandforce, the company which runs the game, but has promised that all three winners will receive their vehicles.

Ryanair began selling scratchcards in 2008 in an attempt to further increase its additional or “ancillary” revenues. Around a quarter of the airline’s annual earnings are generated by ancillary revenues. Its extra charges, including check-in fees, booking fees and luggage charges, have increased by up to 700 per cent since 2006.

Perish the thought that some cynical journalists are suggesting Ryanair arranged for three winning cards on a single flight to increase their sales of scratchcards. Could you imagine a reputable firm pulling a stunt like that.

Oh!

Italy’s Piaggio is preparing to launch a small city three-person, four-wheel car, including a hybrid-powered version, for use in Asian and European cities to overcome traffic congestion, said its Chairman Roberto Colaninno.

Best known for its Vespa scooters, Piaggio plans to launch the low-consumption, low-polluting vehicle on the market in the next three years but has so far made no decisions on where to produce the vehicle, nor where it will start selling, nor the price, Colaninno said at the presentation of prototypes at a motorbike show.

I know, I know. Smoke and mirrors – so far.

“We have not thought of the Nano for India even less the Smart,” Colaninno said, asked about possible competitors produced respectively by India’s Tata Motors and Germany’s Daimler AG.

The prototypes shown on Piaggio’s stand at the show resemble both these two other small vehicles, though the unnamed Piaggio vehicle has two seats behind and a single driver’s seat upfront.

Medical examiners have identified a mummified corpse that was left in a car’s passenger seat for 10 months in Southern California…

Authorities had said earlier it could take weeks to identify the homeless woman, but the Orange County coroner’s office was able to rehydrate the desiccated body’s fingertips to obtain a usable fingerprint, said Costa Mesa police Detective Sgt. Paul Beckman. The office will not release the name until next-of-kin are notified, he said.

The woman’s remains, discovered Monday in a car parked illegally in Costa Mesa, are little more than skin and bones and weigh 30 pounds, said police Sgt. Ed Everett.

The car’s driver befriended the homeless woman in a park in nearby Fountain Valley and told her she could sleep in the car. When she found the woman dead in the passenger seat, she was afraid to tell police, Everett said.

The driver is a 57-year-old former real estate agent from Corona del Mar, an upscale beach community, who herself had fallen on hard times and was living with friends, he said.

Authorities have not determined if the driver, whose name has been withheld, will face any charges in the case…

The driver had placed a box of baking soda in the car to mask the smell and covered the body with a blanket and some clothes, he said.

Officers found it Monday when they noticed a stench while responding to a call about an illegally parked vehicle.

Sometimes you need the really large economy size box of baking soda.

Authorities say a 3-year-old boy who was lost by his drunk father and found strapped into his car seat about 25 hours later in Pasadena has been placed in protective custody.

Dylan Kurihara was found late Sunday night in a parking structure in the area of Madison Avenue and Green Street, just blocks away from where he was lost, according to the Pasadena Police Department.

Rowdy Metzger, a Pasadena resident, saw and recognized the boy inside his father’s missing silver 2001 Lexus four-door sedan and called authorities…”I tapped on the window, it woke him up. The door was open. I opened it. He got a little scared. I called out his name. I told him it was going to be okay,” Metzger told KTLA.

“I kept giving a thumb’s up signal because I didn’t know if he would understand me, if he was in shock or whatever. I called 911. I just kept talking to him until the police came,” he added.

The boy was a little dehydrated and covered in urine, but otherwise in good condition.

He was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital for evaluation and was later placed into protective custody, police said…

Police were made aware of the missing child when his mother woke up at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, discovered him missing and called police.

Joe Kurihara was being held on $10,000 bail on suspicion of felony child endangerment.

Drunk and stupid. Not necessarily in that order.

He was arrested for drunkenness before the discovery of his son – and he didn’t remember that his son had been with him.

About two months before two new plug-in cars go on sale in the United States, the federal government is struggling with how to rate the fuel economy of mass-market plug-in vehicles.

How the Environmental Protection Agency rates the two cars, the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf, could have a big influence on consumers’ perceptions of vehicles that run on electricity. General Motors, which makes the Volt, and Nissan are anxiously awaiting the agency’s decision as they start production of the cars and complete marketing plans for rollouts in December.

Providing the customary city and highway miles-per-gallon information would make little sense for the Volt, which can drive 25 to 50 miles on battery power before its gas engine kicks on, and even less so for the Leaf, which is powered by only a rechargeable battery.

Cathy Milbourn, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., declined to specify a date when the new ratings might be released, saying only that they would come “shortly.”

There’s a fair bit of geek introspection in the article. Most of which is irrelevant to the average vehicle purchase.

I understand and agree with all the other good stuff about pollution and climate change. Cripes – I’ve been an advocate for positive change for long enough. But, that average consumer we always consider ain’t bringing in all the guidelines to choose their new ride. They want to know what it costs. That’s all. That’s enough.

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.

It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.

The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.

Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he’d done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he’d been under FBI surveillance for three to six months…

Afifi, the son of an Islamic-American community leader who died a year ago in Egypt, is one of only a few people known to have found a government-tracking device on their vehicle…

Well, he’s one of only a few people who found one of the Feds’ tracking devices on his vehicle – who made it public.

Brian Alseth from the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington state contacted Afifi after seeing pictures of the tracking device posted online and told him the ACLU had been waiting for a case like this to challenge the ruling allowing the government to do this.

“This is the kind of thing we like to throw lawyers at,” Afifi said Alseth told him.

“It seems very frightening that the FBI have placed a surveillance-tracking device on the car of a 20-year-old American citizen who has done nothing more than being half-Egyptian,” Alseth told Wired.com…

Afifi’s encounter with the FBI ended with the agents telling him not to worry.

“We have all the information we needed,” they told him. “You don’t need to call your lawyer. Don’t worry, you’re boring. “

They shook his hand and left.

RTFA. Long, occasionally humorous – and you have to understand the FBI does face-to-face interviews as much to try to intimidate activists or the innocent bystander equally often. It’s part of political cop 101. It gets the word around “they’re watching – oooh!”

They press further? Tell ‘em to talk to your lawyer and make an appointment. That fulfills legal requirements.