Vomiting Dog Causes Auto Accident

A man has a pretty good excuse for why he crashed his car into a utility pole in Winona: his dog puked on him.

The Winona Daily News reported police found the car unattended last Thursday morning against an Xcel Energy pole. Witnesses told officers they saw a man leaving the area and walking a beagle.

The 18-year-old, who does not have insurance or a Minnesota driver’s license, called police about four hours later to confess.

The man told police he was driving when his dog started “throwing up all over him.” Deputy Police Chief Tom Williams said the story checked out — police found vomit in the car.

The pole had only minor damage. The man was cited for driving without insurance or a license.

Woman Crashes Into Salon And Gets Her Hair Done

An 82-year-old woman who accidentally crashed her car through the front window of a southwest Michigan salon stuck around afterward for an appointment to get her hair done.

Authorities said Marion Zock was parking her Ford Fusion outside Classic Hair Design in Kent County’s Plainfield Township, near Grand Rapids, when she stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake.

Two people were injured, including an employee who returned to work after treatment and a girl with a bruised arm.

Zock told WOOD-TV her foot slipped from the brake. She’s a regular customer and says she was “so embarrassed.”

Stylist Kristi Dochod told WWMT-TV the crash sounded like an explosion. The salon stayed open as the car was removed, and is open during repairs.

PetSmart Sued Over Dog Poop

A Poquoson, Virginia man who said he fell after stepping in dog feces at a PetSmart store has filed a $1 million negligence lawsuit against the company.

Robert Holloway alleges in his lawsuit in U.S. District Court that he badly injured his back, struck his head and knocked out four teeth when he slipped in January 2009 at a Newport News PetSmart. He alleges that PetSmart and its manager should have protected him from a hazardous condition created when they allowed animals to defecate on the floor.

In court documents, Phoenix-based PetSmart denied the negligence allegations.

Naked Killer May Escape Jail

A teenager who was naked when she crashed her car and killed her boyfriend could avoid jail because the dead man’s family has forgiven her and don’t want to see her behind bars.

Nineteen-year-old Jessica Maree Langford should not go to jail because she was “exceptionally” remorseful, had pleaded guilty and suffered mental illness problems since before the accident, her lawyer argued in court today.

Langford has pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court to a charge of dangerous driving causing the death of Daniel Andrew Glover, 19, at Hastings, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, on November 29, 2008.

She embraced Glover’s mother, Cheryl, and his sister Tiffany, 16, outside court as all three wept.

Langford will be sentenced next week but Judge Ross Howie said he was considering imposing a community-based sentence, which would not involve a jail sentence.

“The moral culpability is clear, she was having a night out with her boyfriend on the beach, was an inexperienced driver, influenced by alcohol and driving too fast,” Justice Howie said.

Woman Delivers Surprise Baby Boy In Laundry Room

A 32-year-old Kentucky woman who said she didn’t know that she was pregnant delivered her newborn son on the floor of her laundry room by herself and even cut the umbilical cord.

Kelly Bottom told The Advocate-Messenger that she also picked up her other son from school and stopped in at the baby’s grandmother’s house to show her the infant before going to the hospital.

The newspaper reported the mother and baby were discharged from the hospital Monday after checking in Thursday night.

Bottom said the baby, named Brian Keith Sims, weighed 6 lbs., 15 oz. at birth.

Steering Wheel Pops Off Buick

Washington state troopers said a man is lucky to have only minor injuries when he crashed his car into a barn after his steering wheel popped off while driving.

Trooper Keith Leary said the 59-year-old man was driving his 1978 Buick on State Route 530 when his steering wheel came off, the car left the road, went down an embankment, up the other side, and crashed into a barn.

The man narrowly missed a power pole and several small barns with baby cows inside.

Rescuers said it’s a miracle the man suffered only minor neck pain in the accident. The farm’s owner said the car destroyed the farm’s refrigeration and milking area and happened right as 140 cows were about to be milked.

Flying Springer Spaniel Survives 300-Foot Fall

British rescuers say a dog that chased a seagull and fell off a 300-foot cliff into the sea has survived with only minor injuries.

Paul Legendre of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution search and rescue service says the springer spaniel was rescued Feb. 14 after it darted off southern England’s scenic Seven Sisters chalk cliffs.

Legendre says the spaniel fell straight into the sea but there was just enough water to cushion the fall.

He says the owners sought help after they went to the edge of the cliff and saw their pet swim to shore.

“They heard it barking as well, bless it,” Legendre said Tuesday.

He said the spaniel suffered a shock and a partially collapsed lung but looked in good shape.

Plane Lands Safely On The New Jersey Turnpike

A pilot hired to make traffic reports for a local radio station became the news himself when he made an emergency landing on the busy New Jersey Turnpike.

The Cessna single-engine airplane joined the morning rush hour in the most unexpected way after developing engine trouble, but landed safely, said Joe Orlando, chief of staff for the New Jersey Turnpike.

“There were no injuries, no vehicles involved. The pilot did a fantastic job,” Orlando said. “We have 600,000 to 700,000 cars on the road every day and the guy managed to find a safe enough opening to land the plane.”

The accident occurred at 06:46 am (1146 GMT) but fortunately not in the northern section of the Turnpike, near New York, where the traffic is most dense.

The pilot, who was broadcasting live traffic reports for Philadelphia radio station KYW, managed to get his crippled aircraft to the side of the road, although he still created a 1-1/2 mile (2.4 kilometer) tailback.

“He did an extraordinary job,” Orlando said. “But if I was a reporter, I’d be thinking about trying not to create the news.”

Talk About Being Drunk

South Dakota authorities say a woman found passed out in a stolen delivery van earlier this month registered a blood alcohol content of .708 — nearly nine times the legal limit and a possible record for the state.

Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal said that 45-year-old Marguerite Engle was found slumped over the van’s steering wheel along a highway on Dec. 1.

He says the highest blood alcohol content state chemists he spoke with could recall was a .56. The state’s legal limit is .08.

Authorities say Engle missed an initial court hearing Dec. 15, but that they found her in another stolen vehicle, and that she had been drinking.

She was being held on two counts of driving under the influence. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was facing other charges.

Her attorney declined comment.

Flashing Teen Found Guilty After Being Hit By Car

A New Zealand teen who was flashing her breasts at passing cars has been found guilty of disorderly behavior for the prank, which ended with her in a hospital after a distracted driver ran into her.

Cherelle May Dudfield, 18, pleaded guilty to the charge when she appeared in Invercargill District Court, the Southland Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

Dudfield, egged on by her friends, was flashing passing motorists from a traffic island in the middle of a four-lane road in the southern city of Invercargill on Sept. 27.

The alcohol-fueled prank went awry when one of the vehicles crashed into her as she tried to run to the side of the road, police Inspector Olaf Jensen said.

“She was extremely lucky as the vehicle had slowed because of her behavior,” he told The Associated Press. “She rolled up onto the bonnet (hood) and cracked the windscreen before she came down with some minor injuries and was taken to hospital.”

The prank occurred in the city center, where a ban on alcohol use is in force, he noted.

Dudfield was fined $198.