Breathtaking accidents

Some of these might be better classified as disasters, but as you'll soon see, they ain't all of 'em disasters. (Some of these might sound familiar to those of you who watch "Seconds from Disaster" on the National Geographic Channel.) I'm sure this list will have many sequels.

Cuyahoga River fire. (Here I go, picking on Ohio again. But I'm a Michigander, born to pick on my former southern neighbor.) The Cleveland river was so polluted that it caught on fire in 1969.

In 1989, 24-year-old Leslie Ann Pluhar had the short-lived pleasure of being the driver of the first (and so far only) car blown off the Mackinac Bridge -- a Yugo. She died 150 feet later. The beautiful bridge, an icon of Michigan, spans the 5-mile-wide straits of Mackinac and links the state's two peninsulas. Last time I drove over it, there was a wind advisory and I nearly freaked out. The weather-induced speed limit was 20, so I had plenty of time to gawk at the lake and picture myself flying over the freakishly low guardrail in my Jeep. What a terrible way to die.

Lake Peigneur, Louisiana. An oil drill in the lake punctured the shaft of a salt mine in 1980, and the lake drained into the shaft and created a temporary waterfall and a new channel to the Gulf. The lake is now salt water. Idiots.

Freeland, Michigan. You probably haven't heard of this one because it's not too spectacular. In 1989 a CSX train carrying dangerous compounds on the way to Dow Chemical derailed, and some cars exploded. My mother and I had to leave our home for two days, as we were six miles directly downwind. When we returned, there was a fine dust on our lawn that authorities assured us was harmless and that we were told to simply hose off.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis once had to run this correction: "Elmer Fudd was mistakenly identified as Porky Pig in a photo caption on page E6 Thursday."

I've also been told of a misprint (but never saw it with my own eyes) in a Midwestern newspaper in which a prominent but reticent local butcher was finally persuaded to run an ad. He chose to emphasize his juicy, tender waterfowl, and unfortunately the ad ended up running in big type as "Plump Dick: $2.99/lb."

I saw Bea Arthur fall off the stage during a performance at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Spunky Bea, despite her 77 years, got right back up and gave us what we came for with nary a maude-lin moment (yuk, yuk).

The urban legend about the actor who shot and killed himself with a blank is not an urban legend at all. It actually happened to Jon-Erik Hexum, who was playing what ended up being the last practical joke of his life. Too bad; he was pretty cute.