Hundreds of Midwestern Power customers and two squirrels were very unlucky one day last fall.

Apparently a squirrel came into contact with an overhead transformer and knocked out service to 177 customers. Power was restored in just under an hour, but naturally the squirrel lost it’s life. The remains were found by repair crews.

Just 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich, another squirrel got into a substation and caused a temporary power outage that affected 1400 customers.

The power company is now thinking about what kind of steps it can take to keep curious animals away from the lines as they, along with weather, are one of the leading causes of power outages.

“We kind of liken it to anyone who’s had a bird feeder and tried to keep the squirrels out,” said the power company spokesperson. “They find a way.”

Good luck!

Can you imagine being stuck in an elevator for three days?

Well that’s what happened to a woman in a suburban Paris housing project last week. The woman, 19 years of age, was found very dehydrated but alive on December 22nd. Newspaper and Television accounts state that the womans father had contacted the building concierge on December 19th when he learned his daughter was missing and suggested that she might be stuck in a broken elevator. However, no alarm had gone off, and they said that a repairman checked the elevators and didn’t find anyone inside.

The repairman began work on the broken elevator the following day, and then returned on the 22nd it was then that he heard a soft cry. On Wednesday, the girl’s father, who had advised police of his daughter’s disappearance, filed a complaint for non-assistance to a person in danger - a crime in France - according to Le Figaro.

Several elevators in the housing project had recently been renovated but not the one in question, according to the news reports. They said that it was unclear why Safiatou did not cry out for help.

Here’s a few accident prone people that you wouldn’t want working on your property:

- Inspecting the Dukovany nuclear power plant in Moravia in September, an unnamed American official with the International Atomic Energy Agency wandered away from the group and fell into a water tank. I hope that water wasn’t tainted!

- In September, firefighters in Spokane, Wash., rescued a worker whose head had become stuck in a water meter enclosure for about four hours. How does one get their head stuck in a water meter enclosure?

- In October, when Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdogan fainted from low blood sugar, his security team rushed him to a hospital but mistakenly locked him and the keys inside his fortified car; after they pounded on it for a while, a nearby construction worker with a sledgehammer saved the day. That could have been a life and death situation for the Prime Minister. I think he needs a new security team- don’t you?

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