[vc318]

Old Thread: Strange Findings in the News Thread #1

Let's carry on with the weirdness!

Oh, this is hilarious:

'Nurse of the Year' charged with not being a nurse

NORWALK, Conn. -A Connecticut woman who authorities say spent more than $2,000 to stage a dinner honoring her as "Nurse of the Year" has been charged with pretending to be a nurse at a doctor's office. Betty Lichtenstein, 56, of Norwalk was charged Thursday.

Prosecutors say Dr. Gerald Weiss believed Lichtenstein was a registered nurse, especially after she was named the Connecticut Nursing Association's "Nurse of the Year" in 2008.

According to the arrest warrant, that association does not exist.

The state's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit began investigating after a patient complained about Lichtenstein.

She faces up to five years in prison if convicted of reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation charges.

Lichtenstein did not return a telephone message for comment.


I swear - don't people look at credentials anymore?!

[fetch]

o.0

[ericfan1]

That is bizarre... That doc is irresponsible for not checking her creditentals. Luckily no one died.

[vc318]

One of the things that a nurse has to do is administer medication so I'm sure we'll be hearing about the list of victims soon.

[ericfan1]

Well, hopefully not. They do not administor many medications in a doctors office but they do give shots and sometimes advice. Thank God they can not write prescriptions.

[vc318]

Mouse Builds Nest in ATM

Mouse Builds ATM Nest With $20 Bills

LA GRANDE, Ore. (Aug. 8) - A mouse found inside an automatic teller machine — along with a nest it had built with chewed-up $20 bills — gave an Oregon gas station employee the surprise of her life.

The mouse, discovered Thursday, had thoroughly torn up two bills and damaged another 14 to line his nest. Employee Millie Taylor said she screamed and slammed the machine's door shut.

The bank replaced all the money that wasn't extensively damaged, and the ATM has continued to work just fine. The mouse also got a reprieve: He was evicted from his nest but set free outside the station.

Other workers at the Gem Stop Chevron in La Grande in eastern Oregon say they're mystified about how the mouse got inside the machine.

Ah, poor guy. You have to use anything you can to keep yourself warm at night, I guess.

[ericfan1]

I guess the Economy has hit the mouse household pretty hard too. Maybe he could get a tax credit and or a low rate mortgage to rebuld another nest. He should be able to repay without a problem, since he has access to a steady flow of cash. LOL!

[vc318]

^

[sunnykerr]

That's hilarious, Sue.

Mind you, I'm very cheered up by the fact that they didn't kill the mouse. That seems to be the fate of more and more animals who try to make their way in a world where we humans are taking over.

Not that I'm blaming us for expansion. Just the treatment of the animals we didn't warn.

[vc318]

This story is no laughing matter, unfortunately:

Beached beaked whale and calf die on Hollywood beach -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Baby whale euthanized after its mother dies on Hollywood beach

HOLLYWOOD - Hundreds of onlookers cheered Monday afternoon when a beached mother whale was reunited with her calf on Hollywood beach, the mother frantically thrashing about and splashing water into the air.

But the joy was short-lived, as rescuers and others gathered on the shore realized the mother whale's life was rapidly reaching its end, and the baby's death was soon to follow.

"This ultimately is a tragic story," said Blair Mase, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's expert on stranded marine life.

The story began in the early afternoon, when beachgoers and lifeguards noticed the pair off Garfield Street. Some saw the mother first, a 16-foot beaked whale weighing about 2,000 pounds, according to Mase. Others said the baby, about 6-feet long and 200 pounds, was the first to head to the shallow water.

Well-meaning swimmers immediately tried to help the whales back out to sea, which goes against the advice of marine mammal experts.

"If they're on the beach, you keep them on the beach," said Vincent Canosa, chief of the Hollywood Beach Safety Unit. "Pushing them out only hurts them."

Some small children seemed to know early on that the story of the two whales would have an unhappy ending.

"Mom, don't take a picture," said Danielle Zachary, 9, of Aventura. "It's too sad."

She and her mother, Michelle, 42, stayed at the beach as the drama unfolded, hopeful as both mother and calf seemed to be headed back to the open water, only to watch helplessly as the mother swam in circles and then darted back to the shoreline due east of Johnson Street.

Rescuers from the Marine Animal Rescue Society and NOAA joined lifeguards and others who placed wet towels on the mother to protect her from the afternoon sun. The calf was brought back to her mother a short time later, drawing cheers from the hundreds who had gathered to watch.

Rumors spread quickly that the pair were to be taken to the Miami Seaquarium, but that turned out to be wishful thinking.

"There's no aquarium that has this species in captivity," Mase said.

Beaked whales, native to the Florida coast, are deep-feeders, officials said. For them to have come to shore in the first place was a major sign of distress. Their survival was questionable from the start, Mase said.

Sure enough, a few minutes after the mother whale was reunited with her calf, she stopped thrashing. Mase confirmed she had died, and while rescuers' attention began to focus on the calf, some were already saying there was no way it would live.

"The baby's too young to survive on its own," said Sophia Barrett, 18, of Hollywood, who has studied marine biology from the time she started middle school until her graduation this year from South Broward High School. "It would just suffer."

Her words were echoed by Mase and by Vanessa Lane, spokeswoman for the Marine Animal Rescue Society.

The calf was euthanized, and both animals were taken to a NOAA facility in Key Biscayne, officials said. Not much is known about beaked whales, so experts plan to study the two carcasses.

NOAA responds to an average of one to two beached whales a year in South Florida.

Please help me to understand this - why did the baby whale have to be euthanized? I can understand that in some cases this is necessary but I didn't understand why the baby had to be killed.

[strawberrypie]

- why did the baby whale have to be euthanized?

Well it sounds like it was too young to survive on his own, and that there were no aquariums or rescue places like that to take him. I'm more confused by this:

Well-meaning swimmers immediately tried to help the whales back out to sea, which goes against the advice of marine mammal experts. "If they're on the beach, you keep them on the beach," said Vincent Canosa, chief of the Hollywood Beach Safety Unit. "Pushing them out only hurts them."

First of all, I'm not sure if the writer is referring to that man specifically as a "marine mammal expert", 'cause it sounds like he's in charge of beach security and wouldn't know too much about animals. Second, I've definitely seen many experts rescuing whales and orcas from beaches . Maybe there's an certain way to do it so it doesn't hurt the animal, but you don't just leave them there to die.

[ericfan1]

That is a very sad story... I prefer happy endings.... But, I know they all can not be happy ones.

[sunnykerr]

Sounds to me like they were more interested in studying this great, rare race rather than actually help two of its members survive.

[vc318]

Originally Posted by sunnykerr (View Post) Sounds to me like they were more interested in studying this great, rare race rather than actually help two of its members survive.

I feel that way too. I just thought the decision to terminate the baby whale was quite hasty. I was reading online somewhere that other whales are willing to adopt orphans and why wasn't this taking into consideration? I understand the mother was way too sick (she had parasites in her system or something) but if the baby whale just needed to be fed, any wildlife organization could have done this through bottle feeding of some sort. And do they normally take the carcass to the city dump?! How awful!

[ericfan1]

Originally Posted by sunnykerr (View Post) Sounds to me like they were more interested in studying this great, rare race rather than actually help two of its members survive.

I agree.