AWOL 2014 Issue 275 21st March | Page 5

Advertise here from only 40 baht per week weird NEWS Fujian province, China Man survives despite hammering three 10cm nails into own head A man has miraculously survived after apparently hammering three 10cm (4in) nails into his own head. X-rays revealed that the nails had been hammered through the man’s skull and into his brain – but he made a full recovery following surgery. The unnamed 69-year-old was discharged on Thursday after spending three months in a hospital in Haifeng County, Fujian province in China, to be treated for what he claims were self-inflicted injuries. However, despite maintaining that he hammered the nails in himself, hospital staff believe the injuries must have been inflicted by someone else because of their severity. The very lucky man insisted police should not be called, and no one has yet been arrested in connection with the incident. Zhaotong, china Girl thought to have bad cold turns out to have leech in her windpipe Doctors were surprised when a young patient suffering from throat pain turned out to have a live leech stuck in her windpipe. The seven-year-old girl from Zhaotong, south-west China, was taken to the Kunming Children’s Hospital by her parents after she began having problems with her breathing. Medics eventually discovered she had a five centimetre worm in her windpipe and removed it. ‘We thought she might have caught a cold, but never thought it was a leech or that it could stay there so long,’ the unnamed girl’s mother said. Doctors added the worm had probably grown in size while it was in the youngster’s throat after sucking on her blood. The leech is thought to have entered the schoolgirl’s mouth after she drank directly from a tap. australia Ten-year-old surfer’s ‘shark attack’ downgraded to… a nasty mackerel bite A young surfer sparked a shark attack alert this week when she suffered a ‘significant hand injury’. The tenyear-old, a regular at Lennox Head, New South Wales boarding hot spot, was taken by paramedics to Lismore Base Hospital. However, later reports suggested her assailant was merely mackerel and that she suffered a ‘scratched thumb’ A spokeswoman for the New South Wales state ambulance service said they received a report that the youngster had been bitten on the wrist by a shark off at the beach 120 miles south of Brisbane. Although sharks are common off Australia’s coast, the country averages fewer than two fatal attacks per year. 5 Join the AWOL forum