British Country men call 999 every 7 seconds chaotic end to 2008

Violence scarred celebrations and led to a bloody New Year across the country as emergency services endured a chaotic end to 2008.
Ambulance control centres reported receiving 999 calls as often as once every seven seconds - the second highest volume of calls since the Millennium - as binge drinkers turned nasty in the freezing temperatures.
Many of the calls related either to alcohol-fuelled assaults or excessive drunkenness.

Booze contributed to time-wasting calls to 999 operators too, with one man calling to ask if New York was in America, and what time it was there.
Elsewhere, while large numbers were ferried to hospitals, in some areas injuries were treated by paramedics in 'booze buses' to leave ambulances free for more serious emergencies.
In Essex, so many drunk people were arrested that all 200 of the constabulary's cells were filled, and overflow revellers had to be shipped to neighbouring Kent to be held for the night.
A huge brawl at a social club in Loughton, Essex, meant 600 rowdy revellers had to be dispersed, with two arrested for attempted murder after a 47-year-old man was stabbed in the eye and back.

In Wales, a 999 call led to tragedy when an ambulance speeding its way to an emergency ran over and killed reveller Jason Hawkes, 23, as he stood in the road outside a pub in Beddau-near Cardiff.
In one of the most disturbing incidents an ambulance was wrecked by callous thugs while parked outside the home of a sick baby boy in Tilehurst, Reading.
He eventually had to be sped to hospital in his family's own car.
Mother-of-two Jemma Dromgoole, 22, had found her son Ryan, 19 months, screaming in pain with a limp arm at teatime on New Year's Eve.
Miss Dromgoole said: 'We thought that he had dislocated his shoulder or something even worse. He was so distressed I had to call 999.

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Crewmen fired high pressure water jets to fight armed Somali pirates

ATHENS, Greece – Crewmen fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates trying to board a Greek oil tanker in the dangerous Gulf of Aden on Friday in the fourth such attack since the start of the year, authorities said.
The pirates in three speedboats and armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades twice tried to board the Greek-flagged Kriti Episkopi but were scared off when the crew turned fire hoses on them and EU aircraft scrambled from a nearby EU naval flotilla to help, company and Greek government officials said.
The attack came a day after Somali pirates seized an Egyptian cargo ship and its 28 crew in the vast waterway, one of the world's most important sea routes, where incidents have continued after 111 attacks in 2008. A Malaysian military helicopter on Thursday saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked and a French warship thwarted an attack on a Panamanian cargo ship.
The captain of the Kriti Episkopi spotted the speedboats just before 8 a.m. GMT approaching his ship and took evasive action to try to shake them off.
He contacted the Greek authorities who alerted the EU naval flotilla which swiftly scrambled an airplane and helicopter, the Greek Merchant Marine Ministry said.
"An aircraft and a helicopter reached the ship very quickly, which scared the pirates off," a ministry spokesman said, on customary condition of anonymity. "A frigate also sped to the scene. Everything now seems to be under control, but we remain vigilant."
The 29 crew members were unhurt and the tanker, carrying oil from the Persian Gulf to Greece, was not damaged in the attack off the pirate-infested Somali coast, said a statement by the ship's operating company Avin International. more

Firetruck Runs Over Firefighter

A firefighter responding to a fast moving fire was killed after getting struck by a firetruck in Elizabeth, N.J. on Friday morning, according to witnessess.


A firefighter responding to a fast moving fire was killed after getting struck by a firetruck in
It wasn't a fire that killed a brave firefighter. It was the truck used to put it out.

Firefighter Mowed Down by Firetruck

Witnesses said the firefighter was pinned beneath the fire truck and it took several other firefighters to free him.
He was taken to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
The fire broke out shortly after 2 a.m. in an abandoned house and spread to a nearby house.
A family of four was able to escape the fire unharmed. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.
Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.
Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.
"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."
Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother, 29, is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria with their families, and both were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan's sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan's three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2.
AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran's handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline's part.
"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."more

Minn. man accused of breaking into his own home

HUTCHINSON, Minn. (AP) — A 19-year-old Hutchinson man was arrested after allegedly breaking into his own home and stealing a car, jewelry, some money, and other items. Police said he allegedly lured his other family members away Friday afternoon by making a dinner reservation for them in Chanhassen. Then, while they were away, he broke into the garage and house, grabbed the booty, and took off in the car.
Police sid their investigation revealed a connection to Duluth, so they notified St. Louis County authorities, and he was arrested later that night by police in Duluth.
He's was in the McLeod County jail, awaiting possible burglary and auto theft charges

woman jailed for filing a false police report

OCALA, Fla. -- A woman in Ocala was jailed for hitting herself in the face with a frying pan and then blaming her estranged husband.
Investigators said Kelley Lemay called police to her estranged husband's apartment twice Tuesday night after an argument.
Police said the first time they came out Lemay didn't have any marks. The second time, she had a swollen eye.
Officers had handcuffed her estranged husband, but she came clean, telling them she had hit herself.
She was arrested for filing a false police report.

Flight attendant attacked by unstable passenger

The U.S. attorney for Nebraska said Wednesday he is still waiting on reports from the FBI about an unstable passenger aboard a Continental Air Express commuter jet who attacked a flight attendant.
The jet was heading from Houston to Omaha last Friday when a middle-aged man left the plane's lavatory after about 40 minutes covered in his own feces.

"Oh, it was awful. It was worse than that." Stacey, from Houston, who asked that we not use her last name, says the plane had just one flight attendant in the cabin, a young man who moved the other passengers forward to empty seats and kept the unkempt passenger in the back row.
The flight attendant asked the passenger to go back into the lavatory and clean up.
"I hear all of this ruckus and this yelling and I kind of turned around and the poor flight attendant is on his back and the guy is like punching him and I'm like, oh my gosh. It's almost like a scene out of a movie. There were two male passengers behind me that got up and kind of got the guy off of him. The poor steward, he's got a black eye, his eye's swelling. I felt so sorry for him."
The injured attendant, with help from the passengers, got the unruly passenger buckled in and calmed down for the landing at Eppley Airfield, which took place without incident an hour later. The airline will not comment on the attendant's condition, but we understand he will be okay.
Sources tell Channel 6 News the man resides at a care facility in Iowa and was returning from a Christmas holiday trip alone, completing a trip from Chicago to Houston and then Omaha.
The U.S. attorney says the man was not arrested, but detained at the airport by authorities until picked up by trained professionals from the care facility in Iowa. more