SIDELINES...

BOUNCE, BOUNCE, BOUNCE

A four-year-old boy hiking with his parents in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky slipped and fell over a cliff, landing 70ft (21m) below after bouncing off multiple ledges on the way down. When rescuers got to him, they found him alert and apparently unscathed “he’s kind of scraped up and bruised, but otherwise generally unhurt,” said Drew Stevens, of Wolfe County Search and Rescue. A check-up at hospital confirmed that he was unharmed. news.sky.com, 19 Oct 2021.

FLUME DOOM

After a night of heavy drinking, Claire Vickers, 46, and Barry Douglas, 44, broke into a nearby lido for a swim. Once inside they decided to slide down the pool’s water flume, not realising the end had been closed off with a barrier. They both smashed into the obstruction at high speed. Vickers snapped her right shin and broke every bone in her left foot, while Douglas broke his left leg and both ankles. They were then stuck in the flume for two hours until police found them. Vickers said: “We’re idiots”. Sun, 4 Oct 2021.

SUITCASE STOWAWAY

When Jared Owens and his wife Christi were stopped at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport in Texas because their luggage was 6lb (2.7kg) overweight, they discovered a surprising piece of excess baggage in their suitcase. Icky, their chihuahua, had hidden in one of Jared’s cowboy boots and had been packed with it. “She didn’t make a peep, not one sound. We had no clue, and as soon as we unzipped it, she just came crawling right out,” Kristi said. After a brief pause for the Owens to arrange for a relative to collect Icky, they made their flight to Las Vegas. yahoo.com/news, 14 Oct 2021.