How long can you tread water? The Marinos of Oviedo, Florida peg it out at 12 hours apiece. They have a long way to go to beat Norman Albert's 1978 Guinness Book record of 64 hours, but they weren't in a placid pool at the University of Pennsylvania:
A father and his 12-year-old son are safe after spending more than 12 hours overnight treading water in the Atlantic miles from the central Florida coast.The Coast Guard said the two were swept away by the tide Saturday and found by rescuers the next morning. The father was found about 8 miles from shore and the boy two hours later and one mile from his father.
Both were in good condition Monday at a local hospital.
Authorities said Chris Marino was swimming when he became caught in a current. His 46-year-old father Walter Marino jumped in to save the boy. Marino's daughter saw them being carried out to sea and called the Coast Guard.
The two became separated after dark as they floated in 3-foot swells. The family is from Oviedo in central Florida.
I can't find an official survival record for being alone and trapped in a wrecked car at the bottom of a ravine, but North Carolina's Amber Pennell has just beaten Florida's own contender for the crown, grandma Tillie Tooter:
The kudzu patch next to Woodbury Lumber on Valway Road shows few signs it was plowed through by an out-of-control pickup truck.No gouges were visible in the median Tuesday to indicate a truck careened over the curb and down an embankment into a healthy patch of kudzu, either.
The busy four-lane highway that passes next to the kudzu patch is flat and straight and it was virtually impossible for the layman to see the trail where the truck left the road. Even from the picnic table on Woodbury Lumber's front porch - just 15 yards from the edge of the ravine - it was impossible to know what lay at the bottom.
It took the expert eye of Caldwell County Emergency Medical Services Director Tommy Courtner to spot a line of slightly tamped-down kudzu that led to the bottom of a 70-foot ravine where Amber Pennell, 21, of Lenoir, lay alive and trapped in her crushed pickup truck five days after her husband Mitchell Pennell, 24, reported her missing.
Emergency extraction teams equipped with electric saws and hydraulic extraction devices arrived and rappelled into the ravine at 7:45 p.m. By 8:30 p.m., they had freed Pennell from the wreckage, gotten her out of the ravine and into an ambulance headed to Carolinas Medical Center, said Keith Davenport, Caldwell County Emergency Medical Services assistant director.
Davenport talked Tuesday about Courtner finding Pennell suffering from broken legs, dehydration and fear she would not be found.
Congrats to all these folks for staying on the right side of the grass, and many thanks to all the people involved in their search and rescues.
UPDATE:
My own survival story doesn't have near as happy an ending. I died a thousand deaths watching my university's production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." It was Maggie's screeching. Her voice pierced my spine multiple times and I had to crawl along on my belly from the performing arts center propelled by chin strength alone.
I still suffer flashbacks.
Wow.. five days.
I've seen kudzu engulf a fair sized area in that length of time.. she is more than lucky, I hope she fairs as well with the leg fractures.
I just don't think that fifth day would have mattered to most..
Posted by: csason at September 8, 2008 01:19 PMDid you see that pic of where the truck went in? You couldn't tell a darn thing. It's amazing she was found alive.
You know, a lot is owed to first-responder police. You know for sure that husband was having to tell the officer "No, no, she didn't run off." Glad he got people that believed him and went all out. She sure needed it.
Bet he buys his baby an extra cell phone.
First time I remember hearing about kudzu was on 60 minutes...they did a special on it.
Before that, I just called it 'the woods'.
Sorry to hear about your experience with Maggie..then again, you may owe her your life. Not many people ever develop those all important sternocleidomastoid muscles as well as you did.
Posted by: csason at September 8, 2008 06:48 PM"Sternocleidomastoid."
I love it when you talk that stuff.
Posted by: Donnah at September 8, 2008 07:01 PMSounds like that lady in the ditch was going to have to exercise her's if they were about to resort to bloodhounds..
FIVE days.. she almost missed the Gator game.
Posted by: csason at September 9, 2008 10:05 AMI forgot...
I am retaking my boards..blech..yuk, double blech.
My days of triple plays and burying telephone for Embarq in LaBelle are over..even with a DELL certification.. so it's back to the cath lab.
On Old Olympus Towering Top, A Finn And German Viewed Some Hopps
..or
Oh OH Oh, To TOuch And Feel Very GOod Velvet, AH !
Are those mnemonics? What do they stand for?
The only ones I know are Be My Little General, Roy G. Biv, and King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti.
Yes...
It's so I can remember the cranial nerves..
..
I had forgotten the third one you mentioned, and
don't ever recall hearing the first two..
;)
Posted by: csason at September 9, 2008 09:23 PMI love mnemonics! Owen, are you serious? You've never heard of Roy G Biv? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet! The colors of the rainbow! I thought everybody's teachers taught them that!
Donnah, what's Be My Little General stand for?
I know the others, although I was taught that "King Phillip can order five great specimens" was the way to remember the living organism classification thing.
We also learned "My violet-eyed monkey jumps straight up near Pluto" for the nine planets. Some prefer "Mary's violet eyes make John stay up nights pining." That was back before Pluto got deplaneted.
We also learned "Tall girls can flirt and other queer things can do" to remember the scale of mineral hardness.
My favorite is how to remember the five Great Lakes (until they let Champlain join in and ruined it): Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Thei first letters spell Homes.
"Be my little general" is a way to remember the ranking of generals from lowest to highest: brigadier, major, lieutenant, and general. That's from boot camp.
Thanks for "Mary's violet eyes." I never knew a mnemonic for the planets.
Air Force, Donnah..it's a bit different. Besides, I had other things on my mind..Like, why they put the ALamo right downtown like that.
Also..Starla..(if you can peel yourself away from the Southern Rock porn) I am red-green purple-blue
colorblind..so all I have ever seen of a rainbow is
some weird yellowish streaks in the sky, with an occasional bluish color, at least what I call blue.
The way I got around that was to take a sampling of the wire I would be working with, and with my potnah's assistance, wrap one of each of my problem colors on a specific finger..
For instance, If I am working with the telco color
code, I would wrap one purple on my left pinky, a blue on the right, one green on my left index, a brown on my right..
Did you know you can count to an infinite number with ten colors ??
Nursing has been a tad tougher at times, especially when I did clinicals in surgery and the anesthesiologist asked me if the color was bright red..or subdued. :(
I really don't think I am actually totally colorblind, more like muted..or problems with identification, as I see them, but they are a little tougher for me to identify..In fact, some colors I see, others cannot..it's weird.
Posted by: csason at September 12, 2008 07:45 AMHold on Owen! I'm peeling myself away! *loud, revolting ripping sound like the sound of damp skin coming unglued from vinyl car upholstery in August*
Okay, *pant, pant, wipes forehead* here I am.
I'm surprised you were able to do the wire-work at all, because I've been told that color-blindness would automatically disqualify a person from that kind of work.
Colored telephone wire is fun though. In elementary school we used to make bracelets out of it, the more colorful the better. I wonder if kids still do that anymore?