I tell you, sometimes I think the most entertaining job in the world has to be writing headlines. I mean who wouldn't enjoy writing something like this:
Man Nearly Explodes After Compressed Air Valve Lodges in Buttocks
From the story:
The nipple of the valve punctured the 48-year-old’s left buttock, pumping air into his body at 100 lbs. per square inch. The pressure drove air into every possible space in his body, separating fat from muscle and compressing his lungs and heart.
“The sensation was like when you’re diving with the bends, and you have to go back down to let the air pressure come off your body,” McCormack said. “I could hear the sound of the air going into me and the people walking around me, but they didn’t want to get near because of what they could see, it wasn’t a very nice sight.”
His boss, Robbie Peterson, and two other workers tried to pull him off the valve — to no avail. “We couldn’t get him off the nipple because the angle acted like a hook,” Peterson said…
It took the trucker about three days to shrink back to his normal size, the time for the air to naturally disperse. “You can’t turn a tap on and let it out,” McCormack said. “You just have to fart it out, or burp it out.”
That last paragraph might qualify as the best quote in a news story in 2011.
Befuddled 