Flipper in the Forest
If you think you're having a bad day...
Fire Authorities in California found a corpse in a burnt out section of
forest whilst assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased
male was dressed in a full wetsuit, complete with a dive tank, flippers
and face mask.
A post-mortem examination revealed that the person died not from burns,
but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive
identification. Investigators then set about determining how a fully clad
diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire. It was revealed that, on
the day of the fire, the person went for a diving trip off the coast --
some 20 MILES away from the forest.
The firefighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible,
called in a fleet of helicopters with very large buckets. The buckets were
dropped into the ocean for rapid filling, then flown to the forest fire
and emptied. You guessed it! One minute our diver was making like Flipper
in the Pacific, the next he was doing a breaststroke in a fire bucket
300m in the air. Apparently, he extinguished exactly 1.78m (5'10") of the
fire.
Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed!!