Boy burned as BlackBerry phone 'bursts into flames'

A schoolboy suffered serious burns after a BlackBerry smartphone appeared to burst into flames in the middle of the night and set fire to his bed.

 

Kian McCreath with his duvet that was set on fire by the exploding phone 

Kian McCreath, 11, fled from his bedroom screaming "my bed is on fire" after flames engulfed him while he slept last weekend.

His mother Sarah, 39, awoke to her son’s screams after the new BlackBerry device, bought as a gift for his brother, Mason, malfunctioned and spontaneously combusted.

The youngster was rushed to University Hospital Coventry with serious burns to his legs and feet after plastic stuck to his skin. He has been left permanently scarred.

The year 7 pupil said tonight: "It was really scary. I woke up with my legs in a fire at the bottom of my bed. I'm also having problems sleeping at night."

The family is now demanding the popular BlackBerry Curve 9320 mobile is recalled from shops in time for Christmas.

Tonight, local trading standards officials were investigating the incident, which occurred just after 2.30am last Sunday at the family’s home in Coventry, West Mids.

Research in Motion, the manufacturers behind BlackBerry, also confirmed that an internal investigation had been launched as “a priority”.

Kian’s father, Pete, a 39 year-old carpenter, bought the £13 a month mobile phone for his eldest son as a 13th birthday present, from a Vodafone shop in Birmingham.

No problems were reported for about a week. Mrs McCreath had placed the charging phone in the boy’s bedroom because it is used as an alarm just a few hours before it blew up.

She said that after going to sleep, she heard a loud “pop” sound, before he son started “screaming at the top of his voice, shouting ‘my bed's on fire’”.

They dashed into his room, to find the bottom of his duvet and mattress alight as Mrs McCreath frantically smothered the fire using a quilt.

Kian was immediately put in the bath to cool the burns before being rushed to hospital. Mrs McCreath, an administrative assistant, said her son has been left traumatised by the incident.

She said: “It was just horrific. He was in a lot of pain as his feet had pretty much been engulfed in flames.

"I ran into the room and started battering the flames with his brother's quilt to put them out.

"The bed was charred and the phone itself was just a blackened shell. It could have easily been much worse if he hadn't have woken up.”

She added: "If I had left the phone on the landing, the whole house could have gone up. You just don't expect this to happen with a mobile phone.

"You wouldn't think something so small could do so much damage – my son could quite easily have died. It sends a shudder down my spine to think what could have happened. “

"He hasn't been able to use his own mobile phone since and is having trouble sleeping. He is going to be scarred for life as well.”

She warned that thousands of children will be receiving the phones as Christmas gifts, so “parents need to be aware of the dangers before somebody dies”.

Mr McCreath added: "If Sarah hadn't acted so quickly that room could have gone up in flames within minutes.

"It was just lucky she got there so quickly. I'm shaking just talking about it.

"The phone... needs to be tested. A lot of kids are raving about that Blackberry phone right now. My main concern is for the safety of other kids.”

A spokesman for Birmingham City Council's trading standards office said: "We have received a complaint and we are going to investigate the matter."

The family have since contacted Trading Standards, who have urged them to keep the mobile as evidence, while McCreath has held a video conference with RIM officials over his concerns.

A spokesman from Research in Motion said: "We take claims of this nature very seriously and are investigating this matter as a priority." She declined to comment further.

Blackberry devices were the biggest selling smartphones in Britain last year.

Music graduate gets job as human scarecrow

A student who graduated university with a degree in music and English is putting his skills to good use in a Norfolk field, after being employed as a human scarecrow.

Jamie Fox will use a ukulele, accordion and cowbell to frighten away troublesome partridges

Jamie Fox, 22, who recently graduated from Bangor University, will use a ukulele, accordion and cowbell to frighten away troublesome partridges.

While his fellow students may be pulling pints, going travelling or desperately seeking their first professional role, Mr Fox will earn £250 a week patrolling the ten-acre field.

Wearing a bright orange coat, he will play the musical instruments in a bid to finally scare off the hardy birds, which were unperturbed by ordinary scarecrows.

His employer, a farmer from Aylsham, Norfolk, even warned him to “bring a deckchair and a good book” for his days in the oilseed rape field, where he will also practice his ukulele in the hopes of getting a full-time job in music.

Mr Fox, who says his friends are “slightly envious” of his role, is now saving to pay for a trip to New Zealand next year.

"I get to sit and read for a lot of the time but whenever I see the partridges, I have to get up and scare them off," he told the BBC.

“I ring a cowbell and I've even played the accordion, but the ukulele doesn't seem to have any effect on them.

"The farmer said to me, 'Bring a deckchair and a good book'. A couple of my friends in busier, more generously-paid jobs, are slightly envious.”

Farmer William Youngs said he resorted to his human scarecrow after partridges were not put off by more ordinary methods of frightening them away.

"The only way to get rid of them is to walk down the field and push them off," he said. "Jamie's doing a good job. You can really see the difference."

Has the Loch Ness monster finally been caught on camera?

A monster hunter who has spent 26 years searching for the Loch Ness Monster claims to have taken the "best picture ever" of the beast, after dedicating 60 hours a week to his quest.

Nessie hunter George Edwards waited 26 years for this moment - and he now believes he has the best picture ever taken of the Loch Ness monster.

He spends his life on the loch - around 60 hours a week - taking tourists out on his boat Nessie Hunter IV, and has led numerous Nessie hunts over the years.

But this image is the one that's convinced him that there really is a monster or monsters - out there. It shows a mysterious dark hump moving in the water towards Urquhart Castle.

"I was just about to return to Temple Pier (in Drumnadrochit) and I went to the back of the boat which was facing the pier and that's when I saw it," said 60-year-old Mr Edwards, a lifelong believer in the monster.

"It was slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle and it was a dark grey colour. It was quite a fair way from the boat, probably about half a mile away but it's difficult to tell in water."

After watching the object for five to ten minutes, Mr Edwards said it slowly sank below the surface and never resurfaced. "I'm convinced I was seeing Nessie as I believe in these creatures.

Far too many people have being seeing them for far too long," he said. "The first recorded sighting was in 565AD and there have been thousands of eye witness reports since then.

"All these people can't be telling lies. And the fact the reports stretch over so many years mean there can't just be one of them. I'm convinced there are several monsters."

Steve Feltham, who has dedicated the past 21 years to hunting for Nessie was unequivocval.

"It is the best photograph I think I have ever seen," he said.

From his base on Dores beach and has studied many Nessie sighting photographs.

"I think the images are fantastic - that's the animal I have been looking for all this time," he said yesterday.

"I would say it doesn't prove what Nessie is, but it does prove what Nessie isn't, a sturgeon which is a fish that has been put forward as one of the main explanations as to what Nessie could be but this hasn't got a serrated spine like the sturgeon.

Mr Edwards his vessel's sonar to make a contact but to no avail. "I hung around for a good half-an-hour and used the deep scanning sonar to try and pick it up, but I'm afraid I had no luck at all."

Mr Edwards took the photo at 9am on 2nd November last year on a compact Samsung digital camera that he always keeps on the boat.

Before releasing it publicly he sent it to the USA for analysis, though he can't reveal further details.

"I did not want to mention my sighting until I was sure that I had not photographed a log or something inanimate in the water in the water," he said.

"I have friends in the USA who have friends in the military.

"They had my photo analysed and they have no doubt that I photographed an animate object in the water. I was really excited as I am sure that some strange creatures are lurking in the depths of Loch Ness."

Netherlands councillors call for fines for wrong weather forecasts

Local councillors in the Netherlands are calling for weather forecasters who get their predictions wrong to be fined.

The demand comes from Labour councillors in Hoek van Holland who say that "bad" forecasts are spoiling the local seaside trade.

It follow claims that wrong forecasts in both the Netherlands and Belgium are damaging outdoor attractions as day trippers cancel plans to go out because of poor weather prospects.

Joep Thonissen, head of Recron, the Dutch tourist attraction association, said "incorrect" forecasts were causing "considerable damage" to visitor attractions.

He said, "Last week it was really good weather over most of the country but the weather forecasts were full of heavy rain and thunderstorms, so people stayed home."

KNMI, the commercial weather bureau, based at Hilversum, near Amsterdam, whose forecasts are widely used by Dutch TV and newspapers, has been blamed with Mr Thonissen saying: "Heavy rain above Hilversum does not mean that is the case in the rest of the country."

Pieter van Cutsem, who runs a small hotel in Hoek van Holland, agrees that forecasters should be "punished" for incorrect predictions,saying: "Despite having more forecasting tools than ever before they often get it wrong.

"Recent weather reporting has been completely inaccurate and it is hitting local businesses dearly because people are cancelling bookings. I agree they should be fined on the grounds of disseminating incorrerct information."

Cees Molenaars, a spokesman for KNMI told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf: "TV, radio and newspapers use the raw data we deliver but it is up to them to how their forecasts turn out."

Last week, tourist attraction bosses in Belgium called for "less pessimistic forecasts" and urged meteorologists to pay as much attention to sun as they do to rain.

French cows reared on fine wine

French cows are enjoying up to two bottles of high quality wine every day as farmers attempt to produce the best beef in Europe.

Jean-Charles Tastavy, who came up with the idea, said the two Angus and one Camargue were initially fed the wine in a mix of barley, hay and grapes

The extraordinary development has seen a 'Vinbovin' label of meat established which is already being championed by some of the best restaurants in Paris.

It follows an experiment in Lunel-Viel, in the southern Herault region of France, which saw three cows fed local wine for four months.

Jean-Charles Tastavy, who came up with the idea, said the two Angus and one Camargue were initially fed the wine in a mix of barley, hay and grapes.

It soon became clear that they were 'happy cows' who ended up producing an exceptionally succulent meat.

Outlining how he encouraged the cows to enjoy a tipple, Mr Tastavy said: "For each animal, alcohol intake should be equivalent to the amount recommended by health authorities for a man – namely two or three glasses of wine a day. In the case of cows, this amounts to between a litre and a litre-and-a-half a day."

After a rough mix of grapes and water, the cows were allowed wine from Saint-Genies des Mourgues, a Languedoc village near Montpellier renowned for its vineyards.

"The cattle loved what was on the menu and drank it with relish," said Claude Chaballier, owner of the farm where the experiment started last year.

Referring to the Muscat grape, Mr Chaballier added: "I thought that next time we may try Muscat so as to give the meat a more musky taste."

Laurent Pourcel, a Michelin-starred chef, is among those enthusing about the 'luxury meat' saying: "It has a very special texture – beautiful, marbled and tender, and which caramelises during cooking. All the best Parisien restaurants will take it."

Japanese Kobe beef, which is made with beer, is currently considered among the best in the world, but the possibility of cows enjoying vintage wine will guarantee an even more luxurious product.

There is a down side, however: the introduction of wine into the feed of the Lunel-Viel cows tripled the cost of their feed, adding up to £80 to the cost of a prime beef cut.

Indonesian smoking orang-utan to kick the habit

Tori is a teenager with a bad habit. The 15-year-old orang-utan has been smoking cigarettes at an Indonesian zoo for a decade, but she’s about to go cold turkey.

Tori the smoking orangutan inside her enclosure at a zoo in the central Java town of Solo 

Zookeepers said on Friday that they plan to move Tori away from visitors who regularly throw lit cigarettes into her cage so they can watch and photograph her puffing away and flicking ashes on the ground.

The primate mimics human behavior, holding cigarettes casually between her fingers while taking long drags and blowing bursts of smoke out her nostrils to the delight of visitors.

Taru Jurug Zoo director Lili Krisdianto said the move was aimed to protect four endangered orangutans at the 14-hectare (35-acre) zoo in the Central Java town of Solo.

Results of a medical test are expected Saturday to determine how much Tori's smoking has affected her health, said Hardi Baktiantoro of the Borneo-based Center for Orangutan Protection, which is helping to coordinate the intervention. A mesh cover will initially be placed over Tori's cage, and later she will be moved to a small island away from the public, he said.

Several Indonesian zoos have come under scrutiny following animal deaths, including a giraffe that died in the long-troubled Surabaya Zoo in March with an 18-kilogram (40-pound) ball of plastic in its stomach after years of ingesting trash thrown into its enclosure by visitors.

Indonesia is also one of the last remaining countries where tobacco companies face few restrictions on selling, advertising and promoting products long banned elsewhere.

More than 60 percent of all men light up and a third of the country's entire population smokes.

Lifeguard sacked after saving drowning man outside his beach patrol

A young lifeguard in Florida has lost his job after rescuing a drowning man in a section of beach he was not assigned to patrol, local news media reported on Wednesday.

Tomas Lopez, 21, fired for helping drowning man 

Tomas Lopez, 21, was manning his post on Hallandale Beach, north of Miami, on Monday afternoon when a beachgoer alerted him to a swimmer struggling in an "unprotected" part of the beach.

"It was a long run, but someone needed my help. I wasn't going to say no," said Lopez, quoted by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

The unidentified man was rescued, then rushed to hospital where he remains in intensive care. But when Lopez went to file an incident report, he was fired for going 500 yards out of his assigned area.

"They didn't tell me in a bad way. It was more like they were 'sorry, but rules are rules,'" Lopez said. "I couldn't believe what was happening."

"We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," explained a supervisor for the private contractor that supplies lifeguards for Hallandale Beach, a popular destination for Canadian winter holiday makers.

"What he did was his own decision. He knew the company rules and did what he thought he needed to do."

No longer in a job that pays $8.25 an hour, Lopez said he would do what he did again if he had to. "It was the moral thing to do," he said. "I would never pick a job over my morals."