The Observer, March 21, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 21
News You Can't Use
Human skeleton found in luggage at Munich airport
A woman was stopped at the Munich airport last week after baggage screeners discovered a skeleton sealed in a plastic bag in her luggage, police said. The skeleton turned out to be her brother.
The 62-year-old woman and her 63-year-old friend, who both live in Italy, were taken into custody by airport police last week after the scan showed a bag containing a human skull and other bones. The women were traveling from Brazil to Italy.
Security discovered that the woman was attempting to fulfill the last wish of her brother–who died 11 years ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil–to be buried in Italy.
The travelers were able to produce the appropriate papers from Brazilian authorities for the transport and were allowed to continue to Naples, bones and all.
Collision cancels 800-pound man's date
In preparation for his date, Manuel Urbine made all the necessary arrangements: the food, the flowers, the forklift to carry him out of his house, and the flatbed truck to haul the formerly half-ton man and his bed.
But Uribe, from Mexico City, didn't realize that the open road wasn't big enough to handle his dream of celebrating his 440 -pound weight loss with his girlfriend.
Uribe was halfway to a picnic near his Monterrey-area home last week when one of the posts holding a sun-shielding tarp over his bed hit an overpass.
Uribe's blood pressure dropped so much, doctors advised him to go back home, and the party was cancelled.
"We were going to celebrate that I've been losing weight for two years and that it was my girlfriend's birthday," Uribe said in a telephone interview. "The saddest part was that I couldn't fulfill my dream of taking my girlfriend out to eat."
Uribe started losing weight two years ago when he went on a high-protein diet. He's now down to about 800 pounds.
Last year, Uribe left his home for the first time in five years. He had to have six people push his iron bed on wheels out into the street where a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered to see the man who formerly weighed 1235 pounds.
Uribe weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent and kept on growing.
He's been bedridden since 2002 and has relied on his mother and friends to feed and clean him. Uribe drew international attention in 2006 when he begged for help on national television.
Uribe says, despite the setback, he still hopes to go out with his girlfriend on June 11, when he will turn 43.
"We'll just have to plan it better," he said.
