Weird News

[glatt]

This could be a movie. Reminds me of Fargo.

QUINCY, Fla., Jan. 13 -- Authorities in northern Florida arrested an Indiana businessman on Tuesday night who is suspected of having tried to fake his own death in a plane crash.

Marcus Schrenker, 38, was taken into custody at a campground in Chattahoochee, Fla., according to Lt. Jim Corder of the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office.

Police found Schrenker after he allegedly e-mailed a family member from the campground office.

Broadcast reports said Schrenker was being treated at a local hospital for slices to his wrist, none of which were considered life threatening.

Schrenker had been missing since Sunday, when he flew from Anderson, Ind., bound for Destin, Fla. Southwest of Birmingham, Ala., he radioed that his plane's windshield had imploded and that his face was covered with blood.

Authorities said they think Schrenker then bailed out of the Piper Turboprop, parachuting to the ground and speeding away on a motorcycle he had stashed away in the pine barrens of central Alabama. Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The plane crashed in the Florida Panhandle after traveling more than 200 miles on autopilot.

Authorities suspect Schrenker, president of a wealth management company, was trying to escape legal and financial troubles, including allegations of fraud. Schrenker's wife also had filed for divorce, alleging that he was having an affair.

The cops had found him earlier, but he escaped.

Authorities examined the crash site and presumed Schrenker was dead.

But on Monday, a visibly wet Shrenker, wearing goggles made for "flying," was spotted by a police officer in Childersburg, Ala. He allegedly told the officer that he had been in a canoeing accident with some friends and handed the officer his driver's license before being taken to a nearby hotel.

After discovering who he was, police went back to the hotel to find Schrenker missing. He had checked in under a fake name, paid in cash and fled into the nearby woods wearing a black toboggan cap.

cites: 1, 2

[Shawnee123]

Heh...Fargo indeed.

I guess those kinds of things are what very wealthy people do in lieu of actually committing suicide.

[classicman]

275-Pound Woman Says Hospital Told Her to Use Zoo MRI

When a 5-foot, 275-pound woman found out she had a tumor on her spine, she was told by her local hospital to go the zoo to have a MRI because a regular MRI machine could not hold her weight, MyFOXKC.com reported.

Carolyn Ragan told the television station she discovered the tumor two years ago and, after the hospital told her she could not use their MRI machine, a medical assistant said he would help her find a solution.

“So he suggested the Kansas City Zoo,” Ragan said. “I thought, I know I’m big, but I’m not as big as an elephant. And my husband got mad.”

The University of Kansas Hospital would not comment on Ragan’s claim, but said its MRI department does not know of any animal MRI in the Kansas City area that would scan a human.

Ragan’s problem was two-fold: She was too heavy for the table and too wide to slide through the opening.

Medical Imaging in Kansas City North, which has both closed and open MRI machines can typically hold up to 440 pounds, but sometimes a person who weighs less can still be out of luck, according to an MRI technician.

“It depends on how they are built a lot of times and what part of their body we’re scanning,” said technician Sarah Abbott of Medical Imaging. “(The machine) can only be so open before the magnetic field dissipates into the room.”

Ragan, who ended up having two surgeries and some paralysis, said she finally found an open MRI machine that held her weight, but it was embarrassing and frustrating.

“They should have machines that fit most everybody,” she said.

Uh, at 5 foot tall - I think I would describe her as more than "big".

And the last line - “They should have machines that fit most everybody,” I think they already do. Her height/weight is way outta the "most everybody" category.

[Flint]

This is a non-story. Millions of people, every day, can't have a radiological etc. study for various reasons (contrast allergy, for example). This is a boring fact of life, and not noteworthy in any way whatsoever. Yet I've read about this on two websites today. Why?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Flint

Millions of people, every day, can't have a radiological etc. study for various reasons

I know you are in the field, and know more about this than I do, but that number is obviously pure horseshit. You made it up, and it is orders of magnitude off the correct number. I might believe that 1000 people a day can't get this done. But "millions" is untrue.

[Flint]

I believe that "1000 people a day" are subject to some factor which contraindicates a diagnostic imaging study they would otherwise have, in every moderately-populated metropolitan area. This is not rare or uncommon in any way, and there are a lot of people in the world.

The number I stated was an extrapolated speculation which may be slightly hyperbolic

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by Flint

This is a non-story. (Thousands) of people, every day, XXX. This is a boring fact of life, and not noteworthy in any way whatsoever. ...

Yes, but this could be said about almost everything printed as "news." (Replace XXX with robberies, rapes, murders, car accidents, starving dogs, lost, missing, football games won and lost, explosion, fire, rain, cold, ...)

[Flint]

This paper reports, according to MEPS, 644 imaging studies "per 1000 persons (all ages) in the U.S. population" in the year 1999. Today, there are 305,614,860 people in the US; at 1999 rates that's 196,815,970 imaging studies performed. If only one half of one percent of that many people needed a study but couldn't have it (for a variety of very common reasons) that would be almost one million (984,080) people in the US alone.

[Happy Monkey]

Heh, if millions of people every day couldn't fit into MRIs, they probably would have zoo-sized MRI machines in hospitals.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Flint

644 imaging studies "per 1000 persons (all ages) in the U.S. population" in the year 1999.

That figure is astounding to me. It's much higher than I figured. I bow down to your superior knowledge in this area.

I'm guessing it includes x-rays at the dentist, which are routine every 2-3 years. Still, it's much higher than I thought.

I take back my "horseshit" comment and embrace your "slightly hyperbolic" characterization. Dammit.

[Pie]

In the weeks before he died, it seemed like my father was getting 1-2 'imaging studies' done per day. I bet there is a subset of patients that skew the statistics mightily.
For which the rest of us (mostly healthy) people should be glad.

[Shawnee123]

Oooh, I want in on Fun Math:

1 million people x 365 days a year = 365 million people. The study is for a year's worth of fail. He said a million people a day, originally. Well, actually, he said "millions of people a day."

slightly hyperbolic

just sayin'

[Trilby]

people can't have rad. procedures coz they're too big, pregnant, allergic, not followed the "cleansing" routine (ie. too full of poop to see), can't hold an enema, freak at getting their boob squished, loads, loads of reasons. Even some US can't be done if someone is too fat or too gassy or can't hold the twenty gallons of water needed to do a uterine/pelvic US. so many appointments get cancelled. It's great!

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Pie

In the weeks before he died, it seemed like my father was getting 1-2 'imaging studies' done per day. I bet there is a subset of patients that skew the statistics mightily.
For which the rest of us (mostly healthy) people should be glad.

Did he die at the hospital or at home?

I used to do daily portable chest Xrays on tons of patients who were clearly only days away from passing.

[Pie]

Hospital. After a bmt.