When US Border Patrol agent Dennis Dickey decided to reveal the gender of his soon-to-be-born baby to family and friends in an explosive fashion, he never imagined that his stunt would spark a 45,000 acre wildfire, but that’s exactly what it did.

The 37-yer-old Border Patrol agent planned to fire a shotgun at a target that would explode with either pink or blue powder, thus revealing the gender of his unborn child. There were a few things he didn’t really think through, though. First, he packed the target with a legal but highly explosive compound called Tannerite, for a more dramatic effect, and he also chose to place that target among dry grasses and mesquite trees. When Dickey fired his shotgun, blue smoke exploded from the target, revealing that his child was a boy, but there was no time to celebrate, as the explosion immediately ignited the surrounding the dry plants.

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A Michigan woman spent five days stuck in her own bathtub after becoming unable to reach the handrail she normally used to pull herself out. She was rescued thanks to a vigilant postman who noticed that she wasn’t picking up her mail as usual.

54-year-old Alison Gibson became a prisoner in her own bathroom on October 15. She lied down in her bathtub as she normally did, but after finishing her bath, the woman found herself unable to reach the metal handrail she used to pull herself back up. She apparently had her back turned to it and there was no way for to grab a hold of it, so she was basically stuck there. To make matters worse, she had left her phone in another room, so she couldn’t call anyone for help.

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A man was recently injured after falling into an 8-foot-deep art installation at the Serralves Foundation Museum in Porto, Portugal. He apparently though it looked fake, so he decided to step into it to make sure.

Created by acclaimed British artist Anish Kapoor in 1992, “Descent Into Limbo” is an optical illusion that looks like a black circle painted on the floor. It’s designed to appear like a bottomless pit and staring into is is reportedly a dizzying experience, but one unnamed Italian tourist visiting the installation last week apparently wanted to do more than that. Despite several warning signs and a staffer tasked with keeping visitors safe, the man somehow managed to test the fake-looking pit by stepping into it. He got injured after taking an 8-foot fall, but at least he satisfied his curiosity.

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An Australian man who was left with “catastrophic” injuries after jumping out of a car driven by his wife has sued her for not slamming the brakes earlier, after seeing that he was about to jump.

This unbelievable incident took place in December of 2012, when Brian Lim, his wife, Eunkyung Cho, and their two children were driving home after a family dinner at a barbecue restaurant. The two spouses had began arguing after Mr. Lim spoke to an acquaintance at the restaurant, and their argument continued on the drive home. At one point, Ms. Cho allegedly made a critical comment about her husband’s parents. Lim responded by telling her that he wanted a divorce, but then, all of a sudden, opened the car door and jumped out before his five could grab him or slam her foot on the brake.

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Most women think that the worst thing that can happen while doing their makeup in a moving vehicle is to mess up and start over, but as this poor woman in Bangkok recently learned, there are worse things than makeup smudges.

Emergency service rescuers in Bangkok, Thailand, were summoned to the scene of a minor car crash in the Ratchathewi District, yesterday. A cab had crashed into the back of a slow moving truck, but while such accidents are quite frequent and rarely result in serious injuries, in this case, the passenger in the back of the taxi had sustained a piercing wound to her left eye. Rescuers reported that the woman was using an eyeliner when the crash happened, so the pencil jammed into her eye socket.

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A young couple who quit their jobs and sold everything they owned in order to buy a boat and go on an epic sailing adventure had to put their bold dream on hiatus after their sailboat sank just two days into their voyage.

Tanner Broadwell and Nikki Walsh had been planning their once-in-a-lifetime adventure for over two years. They both had jobs they didn’t really enjoy and felt that there had to be more to life than constantly being involved in a rat race. Tanner, who had grown up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, convinced Nikki that sailing around the Gulf of Mexico, maybe even the world, was the escape they were both looking for, and they started working harder to make their dream a reality. They started saving money, he Ubered on the side, and last year they took the plunge. The couple quit their jobs, sold everything they owned and bought a 49-year-old sailboat in Alabama. The boat cost $5,000, but they had so spend that much more fixing it up.

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A woman visiting a jewelry market in China’s Yunnan Province passed out after accidentally dropping a jade bracelet worth 180,000 yuan ($26,500) and splitting it in half.

The unwritten rule of “you break it, you buy it” is usually ignored by business owners when customers accidentally break beverage bottles, clothing items or other mundane products, but when it comes to trying out expensive jewelry, it’s generally a good idea to be extra cautious, because you’ll probably have to pay for it if you break it. A female tourist visiting the Ruili Jiegao Jade market on Tuesday found that out the hard way, after accidentally dropping a jadeite bracelet and splitting it in half. When she learned that the item in question had a 300,000 yuan ($44,100) price tag and that the seller wanted compensation, she passed out.

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Solid glass or crystal doorknobs look pretty cool, but it turns out that they can literally set your house on fire if hit by direct sunlight. One family from the UK learned that the hard way last September, when one of their glass doorknobs focused the sun’s rays on nearby clothing, setting them ablaze.

Luckily  for Londoner Clare Thomson and her family , who were at home at the time of the fire, a smoke alarm fitted on the property went off before the fire got out of control, and they were able to safely leave the house. “I was amazed at how intense the low September sun could be and I was amazed at how quickly a small fire could take place,” Thompson said. “I would advise people not to buy crystal doorknobs, and I would advise home stores to be aware of the fire risk when stocking. Or, at least, such doorknobs should come with a warning.”

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A report recently released by the Tokyo Medical University Hospital in Shinjuku Ward revealed that a patient suffered burns on most of her body after passing gas during laser surgery.

The incident occurred back in April, but has only made news headlines after a team of external experts conducted a through investigation and concluded that it was most likely caused by the gas passed by the patient, which was ignited by the surgical laser. The anonymous patient, a woman in her 30s, was undergoing an operation that involved applying a laser to her cervix, the lower part of the uterus, when intestinal gas leaked out and was set ablaze by the irradiation of the laser.

“When the patient’s intestinal gas leaked into the space of the operation (room), it ignited with the irradiation of the laser, and the burning spread, eventually reaching the surgical drape and causing the fire,” the experts’ report stated. Unfortunately, the woman was left screaming in agony after she suffered burns on much of her body, including her waist and legs. Read More »

Navy veteran Sean Mace is suing a California national park for $5 million after his skull was crushed in a freak accident. A giant pine cone apparently fell out of a tree and hit him on the head, causing serious, life-altering injuries.

The incident occurred last October at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, where Mace was reading a book under a grove of coniferous Araucaria bidwillii trees. He had been waiting to watch a Blue Angels air show when a 16-pound pine cone dropped from a tree and smashed his skull, knocking him unconscious. Mace suffered severe swelling and a brain hemorrhage.

He was immediately rushed to San Francisco General Hospital, where he underwent two emergency surgeries to relieve the pressure on his brain. A part of his skull had to be removed during surgery, in order to save his life. He now suffers from permanent brain damage, memory loss, depression, and ‘a tremendous degree of anxiety’. He cannot get a job, while he still has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. And he still has to get a third operation.

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New York woman Jennifer Connell is being called the world’s worst aunt after she tried to sue her 12-year-old nephew for breaking her wrist four years ago. The kid, Sean Tarala, apparently jumped into her arms because he was excited to see her at his eighth birthday party in March, 2011.

The awkward embrace resulted in a broken wrist, for which Connell, 54, is now seeking a compensation of $127,000. She admitted in court that her nephew was ‘very loving’ and ‘sensitive’ towards her, but she believes that the boy should be held accountable for his behavior.

The lawsuit alleged that the boy’s “negligence and carelessness” caused Connell’s injuries and subsequent losses. It stated that “a reasonable eight years old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff.”

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A Florida woman was temporarily blinded in one eye after her friend accidentally handed her a bottle of glue instead of her eye drops!

The freak accident occurred last week, when Katherine Gaydos, 28, and her friend were clearing dry leaves at her West Palm Beach property. They were using a leaf blower when a small piece of debris got into Katherine’s eye. She then asked her friend to hand her a bottle of Visine from her handbag, but the woman mistakenly reached for fingernail glue instead.

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