A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.

The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for traveling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said.

“It’s a miracle he wasn’t badly hurt,” the spokesman said on Monday. “This sort of thing can end up killing you.”

Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.

The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescues services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.

The man — unharmed except for cuts and bruises — now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face sizeable a compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said.

“He was full of remorse when I talked to him,” the spokesman said. “And he advised others not to try the same thing.”

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Originally posted 2009-10-13 10:01:29.

Popularity: 5% [?]

A Taiwanese man hired an erotic dancer to perform at his 103-year-old father’s funeral.

The stripper danced in front of Cai Jinlai’s coffin for more than ten minutes at the funeral in Taizhong town.

Son, Cai Ruigong, paid her more than £80 to dance in memory of his late father, reports United Daily News.

Cai Ruigong says he promised his father a stripper for his funeral if he lived beyond the age of 100.

Cai Jinlai passed away at the age of 103 after a three mile walk into town to vote. He was the oldest person in his village and had more than 100 descendants.

His son said his father was famous locally for his interest in strip clubs: “He would travel around the island with his friends to see these shows,” he added.

“Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honoured.”

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Originally posted 2009-11-06 11:39:49.

Popularity: 25% [?]

A 6-year-old boy climbed into a homemade balloon aircraft and floated away Thursday, forcing officials to scramble to figure out how to rescue the boy as he hurled through the air.

The bizarre scene played out live on television and prompted fears that the flying saucer-shaped balloon would crash with the young child inside. FAA spokesman Mike Fergus says the agency has been notified and it was unclear whether traffic controllers had picked it up on radar.

Larimer County sheriff’s spokeswoman Eloise Campanella says the device has the potential to rise to 10,000 feet. Sheriff’s officials last saw the device floating south of Milliken, which is about 40 miles north of Denver.

“We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning,” said neighbor Lisa Eklund.

Additional details about the child and the balloon were not immediately available.

***Update***
The 6-year-old Colorado boy who is believed to have set adrift a helium balloon Thursday, prompting ground and air searches, has been found alive, authorities said.

Falcon Heene was found in a box in the attic of his family’s Fort Collins home, according to authorities.

People across the world watched Thursday as the homemade helium balloon soared 7,000 feet over eastern Colorado for more than an hour and a half.

A sibling said he saw the Falcon get into the craft Thursday morning, authorities said.

But the boy was not inside the craft when it made a soft landing near Keenesburg, about 60 miles from its starting point, at 1:35 p.m. (3:35 p.m. ET). See the balloon’s path »

Shortly after the landing, authorities launched a ground search and suggested that Falcon never took off in the balloon.

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Originally posted 2009-10-15 12:01:53.

Popularity: 4% [?]