The Sunday Mail
A pregnant Pakistani woman had a nail hammered into her head by a faith healer, who maintained this would guarantee her a baby boy.
Exploitative faith healers, whose practices are rooted in mystic Sufi lore, are common across Muslim-majority Pakistan despite the disapproval of some schools of Islam.
The woman arrived at a hospital in the north-western city of Peshawar after trying to extract the nail by herself using a pair of pliers.
“She was fully conscious, but was in immense pain,” said a doctor Khan, who later removed the nail.
An X-ray showed the five-centimetre nail had pierced the top of the woman’s forehead and fortunately missed her brain.
Dr Khan said indications are that a hammer or other heavy object was used to knock it in.
The woman told hospital staff she had hammered the nail into her head herself on the advice of a faith healer. However, she later confessed the faith healer was the one who had carried out the act.
Peshawar police are trying to track down the woman in order to question her.
“We have collected the CCTV footage from the hospital and hope to reach the woman soon,” city police chief Abbas Ahsan told AFP.
“We will soon lay our hands on the sorcerer,” he said. — AFP
**********
Man pays R200 000 for
life-sized dog costume
A Japanese man has spent more than R200 000 to fulfil his dream of transforming into a four-legged animal.
The man, only identified as Toco, reportedly spent at least two million Japanese yen to create a lifelike border collie costume that he could wear.
In a video he shared on Twitter, the man was recorded rolling around on the ground in his border collie suit and gesturing at the camera with his paws. — Wires
**********
New York man falls into sinkhole teeming with rats
A New York man, Leonard Shoulders, fell into a sinkhole full of rats.
The 33-year-old Shoulders was waiting for an MTA bus with his mother when the incident occurred.
“He scraped his face, broke his arm and leg when he fell,” revealed his brother, Greg White. His mother, Cindy White, told NBC 4 New York that, despite the incredibly harrowing situation, Shoulders did not scream as he feared the rats would try to get into his mouth.
“When he was found, he could not move. The rats were crawling all over him,” she said.
Shoulders remained trapped in the hellish situation for about 30 minutes before he was rescued by fire fighters and taken to a nearby hospital.
The New York City Buildings Department later issued a full vacate order for the building next to the sinkhole. — Wires
**********
Daredevil lovebirds get hitched — 120m above ground
An American couple, both adrenaline junkies, left the public tongue tied recently, with their wedding pictures showing them getting married while suspended more than 120 metres above a canyon in Utah.
Kimberly Weglin and Ryan Jenks met at a festival for adventure climbers, where they hit it off.
A few years later, they got engaged at the same festival.
True to form, they decided to tie the knot with a shot of adrenaline, on a specially built “spider-web” overhanging a giant canyon in Utah.
“I made tiny soft shackle rings, specifically to exchange on the net so that we would not have to worry about dropping them. Soft shackles are pieces of gear that we use in rigging our high lines, but they are normally a lot bigger,” said Weglin.
“I thought it would be fun to repurpose them and make rings and bouquets since the button knot kind of simultaneously looks like a diamond and a flower. I also loved that it was a very literal ‘tying of the knot’.” — Wires
