Really Bad Luck

California Examiner, March 20, 1998

Fire Authorities in California found a corpse in a burnt-out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire.

The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with a dive tank, flippers, and face mask. A post mortem examination revealed that the person died not from burns but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification. Investigators then set about determining how a fully-clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.

It was revealed that, on the day of the fire, the person went for a diving trip off the coast - some 20 miles away from the forest. The firefighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, called in a fleet of helicopters with very large buckets. The buckets were dropped into the ocean for rapid filling, then flown to the forest fire and emptied.

You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next he was doing a breaststroke in a fire bucket 300 feet in the air.

Apparently, he extinguished exactly 5'10" of the fire.

And you thought you were having bad luck!