And You Thought You Had A Bad Day! A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out, and swim to shore... where a tree blew over and killed him. ======== Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas, Texas, was filming a movie in 1983 on the dangers of low-level bridges when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge... and killed him. ======== In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, New York, was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead from a heart attack. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead from a heart attack. ======== A man hit by a car in New York in 1977 got up uninjured, but lay back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car rolled forward and crushed him to death. ======== Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door of the house, clambered over a nine foot wall, dropped down, and found himself in the city prison. ======== In 1976 a 22-year-old Irishman named Bob Finnegan was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van plowed into the crowd, leaving in its wake three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan. When a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd scattered and only one person was hit... Bob Finnegan. In the space of 5 minutes, Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and multiple abrasions. Hospital officials, however, said he would recover. ======== While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti came to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming down. While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later, a horse and cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in a sports car. When the train roared through the crossing, the horse startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be trifled with, Falatti responded by punching the horse in the nose. In consequence, the horse's owner jumped down from his cart and began scuffling with Falatti. The horse, which was not up to this sort of excitement, backed away briskly, smashing the cart into the sports car. At this, the sports car driver leaped out of his car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to try to pacify the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gates rose, strangling his goat. At last report, the insurance companies were still trying to sort out the claims. ======== Two West German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. They were going in opposite directions and each man was guiding his car at a snail's pace near the centerline of the road. At the moment of impact, their heads were both out of the windows when their heads smacked together. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't scratched. ======== Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him, she fainted. Hearing the disturbance, a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she passed by Mr. Fen, her arms laden with booty, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked the neighbor stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she had a heart attack and died. Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled. ======== An unidentified English woman, according to the London Sunday Express, was climbing into her bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she had left some muffins in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs and was removing the muffins when she heard a knock at the door. Thinking it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of bread on the kitchen table if she didn't answer, the woman darted into the broom cupboard. A few moments later, she heard the back door open and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, come to read the meter. As he opened the cupboard, the woman stammered, "Oh, I was expecting the baker!" The gas man blinked, excused himself, closed the cupboard and departed.