New Zealand Sheep Thwart High Speed Chase

New Zealand police make their arrest after
sheep (seen in background) halted the suspects' car.

Authorities routinely put up road blocks to stop those high speed chases you always see, the ones where people futiily try to roar away from cops in their cars, only to get caught anyway.

Such was the case recently in New Zealand, but it was a New Zealand style roadblock that ended the car chase.

Police were chasing the suspects when a flock of sheep belonging to an off-duty cop, were led onto a road.

It turns out the sheep were there coincidentally, and the farmer had no idea a high speed chase was on the way, but it all worked out.

The sheep and the dogs guiding them totally blocked the road, which stopped the car being driven by the suspects, allowing police to make their arrests.

None of the sheep and dogs were injured during this, which is the best thing of all.

Two men, ages 19 and 23, were charged with reckless driving, failing to stop for flashing lights, three thefts related to gas station drive-offs and theft of a motor vehicle.

Hmm, wonder if these guys will be counting sheep as they try to drift off to sleep in their jail cells.

Scary: Suspension Bridge Collapse As People Are Walking Across It; And Glass Bridge Cracks

The New Zealand suspesion foot bridge after it partly
collapsed, sending people in the gorge below  

Recently in New Zealand a group of hikers were crossing a suspension bridge over a gorge along a hiking trail.  The bridge then abruptly snapped, flinging at least three people off of it.

Amazingly, the people who plunged 28 feet down landed in the water, not the rocks, so they weren't badly hurt, says stuff.co.nz 

The hikers, one of whom was filming, said the bridge suddenly let out a loud crack, and three people were pitched over the side into the water. A fourth person clung on to a piece of the bridge and was able to hoist himself back up.

The video, which you'll see at the bottom of this post, shows the hikers calmly walking across the bridge, then the view goes off in all kinds of wild directions as they fall, then the view plunges under water. Then you see people emerge.

The glass walkway in China that
later cracked whe somebody dropped
a stainlesss steel mug on it.  

Officials in New Zealand said there was a manufacturing fault in a cable on the suspension bridge, which led to the collapse.

Before we get to that video, there was another scary bridge accident, this one in China. There's a glass bottomed walkway more than 3,500 feet above s gorge.

It would be scary enough to venture out onto the walkway to begin with. Then, somebody dropped a stainless steel mug as they walked across the bridge and part of the glass bottom shattered.

Understandably, this set off a rush of people trying to get the HELL off the walkway now if not sooner.

The People's Daily Online, via Mashable, said only one of three layers of glass broke, so nobody was in any danger. Plus the glass is designed to kind of hold together even if it does crack.

The walkway is closed, however, until repairs are made.

Here's the video of the New Zealand collapse. The slow-mo version near the end is especially terrifying:

Ultimate DYI Guy: Shark Bites Man, Man Stabs Shark, Stitches Up His Wound, Goes Out For A Beer

I've always liked the kind of guy who takes care of his own problems, just solves the issues that comes up and moves on.

James Grant recovering nicely
from the shark bite that he fixed up on his own.  

Which is why New Zealander James Grant, 24, is my kind of guy.

According to the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, Grant was spearfishing along the coast of New Zealand, in maybe about six feet of water when he felt a shark bite his leg.

Grant said he thought, "Bugger, now I have to try and get this thing off my leg."

Let's stop there for a second. Notice the lack of panic. I love it. He sounded about as alarmed as when us normal people would like to remove a non-biting fly that landed on our arm.

Grant had a knife, for his spearfishing, so he stabbed the offending shark, which then let go of its grip. Grant said his friends didn't notice, so he waded to shore and used the first aid kit he uses for his pig hunting dogs (!!!)  to stitch up the bite on his lower leg.

Eventually, his friends returned, and after their fun day retired to Colac Bay Tavern for a beer. The people at the tavern like Grant, but were slightly annoyed by the blood dripping on the floor, so they gave him a bandage to help contain the mess.

After his beer, he went to a nearby hospital where he works so they could improve upon his stitching a bit.

And so, after another enjoyable but routine weekend, he went back to work the following Monday.

I really do have to wonder what in the world, if anything, would alarm Grant. If an army of space aliens tried to kidnap him, would he just fend them off, while yawning, with his spearfishing knife?

If somebody decided to try dropping a nuclear bomb on Grant's head, would he just swat it away like a picnicker dispatching a vaguely annoying mosquito?

The Morning Herald article says Grant is a junior doctor. Maybe his real calling is to be some sort of superhero.

Big Earthquake? No Worries, Continue The Greyhound Dog Race

This week, there was an earthquake in New Zealand, reaching 6.2 on the Richter scale.

Items were knocked off shelves at this
New Zealand store during an earthquake this
week, but the folks and dogs at a racetrack
barely noticed it.  

It caused relatively minor damage, cut power to a few thousand people and gave the region quite a scare.

Except at the dog track. As you can see in the video, a greyhound dog race went off without a hitch even though things were shaking like mad.

The announcer got a little excited, but the dogs just did their job and ran their race.

It looks like bystanders watching the race were pretty much unperturbed, too.

The rest of the day's races were called off because of fears of road and other damage around. But still. I guess earthquakes are no big deal at the dog track.

Watch: