Saturday, April 03, 2010

Golden retriever in the doghouse after eating £12,000 diamond

George Kaufmann brings his pet, Sollie, to his jewellery shop, Robert Bernard Jewellers, in Rockville, Maryland, every day.

Mr Kaufmann and his business partner, Robert Rosin, were meeting a diamond dealer in late January and perusing his gems when disaster struck.

The three men were looking at a 3-carat diamond, valued at $20,000, when the stone suddenly fell to the floor - landing right next to Sollie. Before anyone could retrieve it, the dog ate the gem.

They rushed the animal to a vet, who said nature would have to take its course, so they spent three anxious days waiting to see if the gem would turn up in the dog's stool.

"When we took a walk in the morning and evening I collected and went through everything," Mr Kaufmann said.

"It wasn't glamorous, but you gotta do what you gotta do," Mr Kaufmann told Fox News.

Eventually, his patience paid off, and Mr Kaufmann found the diamond - which he cleaned and returned to the dealer.

Telegraph

X-ray shows knife in boy's head

The 16 year-old amazingly survived the attacked after a fight with a local gang at an internet café where he worked in Mishazi, Jilin province, China’s northeast.

The gang had asked him to load unauthorised software on to the store’s computers, to try and beat the teenager’s record high score on the video game Counter Strike, Chinese media reported.

The gang had accused him of cheating.

After the teenager refused, the group become embroiled in a row, during which he was stabbed and a kitchen knife was plunged through the teenager’s left temple.

Incredible pictures later emerged of his X-ray, which showed a half-inch tip protruding from his right temple.

Astonished doctors at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital at Jilin University then watched in amazement as he staggered into casualty with the help of friends who were holding him up.

Surgeons, who initially thought it was a student prank until the teenager collapsed, later operated on him for two hours to remove the blade.

"His face was covered in blood, but he was still conscious,” said Prof Yan Shijun, the hospital’s deputy director of neurosurgery.

“I've never seen anything like it in 23 years as a surgeon.

"The X-rays and CAT scans confirmed that the blade had not hit any main arteries or nerves.”

Police are now examining security CCTV of last week’s attack while doctors say the teenager is likely to make a full miraculous recovery.

“The patient may have post-surgery complications like infections, brain damage or epileptic fits,” Prof Shijun said.

“But he has regained consciousness and is really lucky.

The teenager’s friend Huang Shen, 18, said the pair were attacked by a local gang who tried to force Xiao to load unauthorised software onto the cafe's computers.

"When we were playing games, a group of people from the same café came to us, saying we must install some software to win the game. Then we had an argument with them,” he said.

"I'd been stabbed in my left arm, and when they had gone, I found Wei was lying on the ground with a knife in his head.”

The teenager’s father, who did not want to be named, said his son left school last year as an 8th grader.

“He then worked from time to time, and spent most of the time at the internet café,” he said.

“We would never expect he would have such injuries at a café.”

Telegraph

Bodies of 21 babies found in China river

Bodies of 21 babies have been discovered in plastic bags in a river in eastern China and authorites suspect they were dumped there by local hospitals, state media reported Tuesday.

An initial investigation showed that eight of the 21 babies wore identification tags on their feet tracing them back to Jining Medical College Hospital in Shandong province, the according to the People's Daily Web site. The other 13 were unidentified.

Three of the eight were admitted to the hospital in critical condition, the report said. It did not say when they were admitted.

Video footage posted online showed interviews with local residents who discovered the bodies covered in plastic trash bags floating near the shore over the weekend.

Calls to the Jining Medical College Hospital information office rang unanswered Tuesday afternoon.

Some of babies shown in the video, ranging from newborns to several months old, wore bluish-green identification tags with their mother's name, their birth dates, measurements and weight, while others were found shrouded in hazardous waste bags.

An official who answered the phone at the Jining Health Bureau confirmed the news, but would not give any details. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.

Fox News