So you think you're having a bad day? In California, wildfires are part of
the natural cycle of the forest. They are caused by lightning, by arson, by
acts of God. Brave firefighters earn their livings extingiushing these
ravenous blazes.
Recently, Fire Marshals found a corpse in a rural section of California
while they were assessing the damage done by a recent forest fire. The
deceased male was dressed in diving gear consisting of a recently-melted
wetsuit, a dive tank, flippers, and facemask. Apparently the man had been
participating in recreational diving fairly recently.
A post-mortem examination attributed death not to burns, but to massive
internal injuries. Salt water was found in his stomach. Dental records
provided a positive identification of a man who had been reported missing a
week before, and the next-of-kin were notified. Investigators then set about
determining how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.
It was discovered that, on the day of the fire, the deceased had set out on
diving trip in the Pacific Ocean. His third dive was 20 kilometers away from
the location of a large brush fire which which was threatening the saftey of
a nearby town.
Firefighters, seeking to control the conflagration as quickly as possible,
had called in a fleet of helicopters to saturate the area with water. The
helicopters towed large buckets, which were dropped into the ocean for rapid
filling, then flown to the fire and emptied.
You guessed it! One minute our diver was marveling at the fish species of
the Pacific, and in the next breath, he found himself in a fire bucket 300
meters in the air. He experienced rapid decompression caused by the altitude
change, suddenly followed by a plummet into burning trees.
As a consolation to bereaved relatives, investigators calculate that the man
extinguished roughly 1.78 square meters of the fire, approximately the area
covered by a splattered human body. Bereaved are also consoled by the
knowledge that he had enjoyed two rewarding dives preceeding his fatal third
dive.
Divers and pilots alike are being warned to remain on the alert. Divers are
encouraged to remain calm if scooped from the water, and to hang onto the
bucket when the water is dumped on the fire. Decompression chambers will be
available immediately upon landing.
Classified Urban Legend 17 October 1997
Kilde:
www.darwinawards.com
Mvh. Lasse