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Global Bizarre

By Times staff and wire reports
Published February 2, 2008

Mouth to muzzle

German saves choking tiger cub with CPR

A medical student visiting a German zoo on Thursday used CPR to rescue a baby tiger choking on a piece of meat. Janine Bauer was watching the big cats at the Halle zoo with her 1-year-old son, when a 4-month-old tiger began to choke on a piece of meat. "The little baby tiger was gnawing meat off a bone. All of a sudden, he couldn't breathe and lost consciousness," said Bauer, according to the daily Bild. A zookeeper's hands were too big to pull the offending strip of steak out of the young tiger's throat, so Bauer, a medical student, rushed into the enclosure. She pulled the 4-inch chunk of meat out of the tiger's windpipe, but he did not regain consciousness. So Bauer performed CPR on the cub, using heart massage and locking lips to chops. "It was just like an infant," she said. "It took four or five endless minutes, but then the tiger was growling again." The zoo's director announced that the tiger would be named Johann - like Bauer's son.

Sorry stroll

Former thief walks to pay his debt

In May 2004, then 15-year-old Seb Green and a friend stole a dinghy from a harbor in Dorset, England, and rowed it out to sea. They got into difficulties in a lagoon, and when they got out they became stuck in mud. A passer-by heard their calls for help, and a coast guard helicopter, a police helicopter, two coast guard land teams and two lifeboats went to their aid. The operation cost about $40,000. Seb was sentenced to supervision in youth court. With most kids, the story would end here. Not Seb. Now 18, he set off Thursday with only his border collie on a walk around the coast of Britain to apologize by raising money for those who saved him. "I won't feel like I've made amends until I've paid back the money. If it takes a year, then it takes a year." Walk tall, young man!

Disrespectfully, ...

Good thing the debt wasn't more

A collection agency tried to collect a $16.96 debt with a letter that addressed its recipient with "Dear S---." The word was spelled out in the letter, which arrived in an envelope addressed to "S--- Face." Attorney Kenneth Hiller said his client plans to sue Nationwide Collections Inc. By law, debt collectors are not allowed to use profanity to collect a debt, Hiller said. Nationwide president Phillip McGarvey said the letter was automatically generated after his company bought about 350,000 Columbia House accounts. "S--- Face" is the name under which the account was opened and how the coupon to start the club was filled out, he said. Hiller's client has signed an affidavit saying he didn't sign up for the music club membership under that name.

Update

Two plead guilty in Barbie Bandits case

The so-called Barbie Bandits bank heist case neared its end Friday as two more defendants entered guilty pleas. Ashley Nicole Miller, 19, one of the young women who walked into a Bank of America supermarket branch last year with a demand note, pleaded guilty to theft by taking. Benny Herman Allen III, the teller at the Acworth, Ga., bank who handed Miller and Heather Lyn Johnston the cash, also pleaded guilty to theft by taking and a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.

Compiled from Times sources.

[Last modified February 1, 2008, 23:36:17]