Eideard

GARY SPEED
September 1969 – November 2011

He rode inside one of these instead of underneath

A South African man is still alive despite shooting himself in the head and then being hit by a lorry.

The man, from Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, was in a car when he shot himself, an emergency worker told the BBC.

The bullet got lodged in his skull without hitting his brain. He then got out of the car to seek help and was hit by a heavy lorry…

He is now being treated in a Durban hospital.

The man, who has not been named, was in a critical but stable condition, spokesman for the Netcare private emergency service Jeffrey Wicks said.

“I have never seen anything like this before in my career.”

If at first you don’t succeed…

The empty airport control tower at Newcastle airport last night, with the red volcanic ash sky in the background.

British scientists plan to start tests on a novel vaccine against rheumatoid arthritis, which could suppress the effects of the joint condition using patients’ own blood cells.

A team from Newcastle University will test the effectiveness of the vaccine in eight volunteers in a pilot study. If successful, there will then be larger clinical trials.

The idea is to help the body cure itself. A similar technique has been used in cancer research but this is the first time it has been adapted to rheumatoid arthritis.

In healthy people, the immune system protects the body by fighting infection. But in auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis it attacks body tissue, causing inflammation.

The new vaccine involves chemical manipulation of a patient’s own white blood cells, so that they develop into so-called tolerogenic dendritic cells, which are thought to suppress immune system activity.

This would be an amazing breakthrough. Most chronic rheumatoid arthritis sufferers do exactly that – suffer.

I’ll try to keep tabs on this one.