HAIL, 8 June 2008 — A 50-year-old man who boarded a plane on a domestic flight from Hail to Riyadh decided at the last moment that there was no way on God’s green earth that he was going to take that flight. So he ran. According to yesterday’s Okaz daily, the man took off down the aisle, down the stairs, onto the tarmac and onward. Security personnel caught up to the old man and questioned him. He said a strange sound coming from the side propeller of the small commercial aircraft gave him second thoughts about flying. (As far as anyone could tell, the “strange sound” the old man heard was what others might call “the sound of the engine preparing for takeoff”.) Eventually the old man was released after police realized that he was just a harmless man struck by a last-minute fear of flying. He was allowed to leave, to drive to Riyadh.
Fire Injures 3 in Needless Rescue
HAIL, 8 June 2008 — A fire broke out in a house here recently, and three Civil Defense heroes were injured trying to rescue a boy who turned out to be swimming in the rooftop pool. According to yesterday’s Al-Watan daily, an oxygen explosion inside the burning house injured the rescuers. (An oxygen explosion occurs when a door to a burning room inside a house is opened and the rush of fresh air caused an explosion of flames.) It turned out that the child was swimming on the roof, unaware of the inferno below. The three rescuers were treated and all are expected to survive.
