http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7546770/?GT1=6428

After her rescue, 75-year-old celebrates with Coke and a cigarette

The Associated Press
Updated: 1:55 p.m. ET April 18, 2005
HAMPTON, Va. - A 75-year-old woman who lay trapped in her bathtub for five days toasted her rescue with a Coke and a cigarette.

Jane Fromal suffered slight dehydration even though she said she ran tap water to drink during the ordeal. She was released Sunday after being hospitalized for four days at Riverside Regional Medical Center.

Fromal said she drew a bath April 9 to nurse a sore tailbone, then was unable to climb out.

“I thought I’d get in the tub and soak,” she said. “I didn’t know I was going to soak for five days.”

She finally got help Wednesday when a neighbor’s grandson noticed newspapers piling up in her driveway and insisted his grandmother call Fromal’s family. Relatives found Fromal in the bathroom.

After she was lifted to safety and donned a warm robe, Fromal didn’t ask for food. She wanted one of her Parliament 100s and a Coke.

It wasn’t the first time Fromal has been stuck in the bathtub, but her family plans to make sure it never happens again by adding railings and a tub chair to the bathroom.

not the first time, and she doesn't think twice about reaching for a Parliament before sustenance. that's a tough broad!

Yeah, my ass is sore, give me a damn light.

Then there's them damn Mainers:


Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Woman thwarts bobcat

WYMAN TOWNSHIP (AP)— A 90-year-old woman grabbed a bobcat by the tail to free her beloved pet cat from its mouth. Mildred Luce, who lives alone in this Franklin County township next to Carrabassett Valley, said the action began one recent day when she looked outside her window and saw the bobcat lying on its side with the head of her 20-year-old cat, Smudge, in its mouth.

Luce ran out the door, grabbed an aluminum snow shovel and pushed it down on the bobcat's neck. But it held on tight.

"Then I took hold of its head with my hand and pulled on its tail, and Smudge popped out," she said.

Smudge hightailed it into the house with the bobcat hot on her heels. Once inside, the wildcat appeared more bewildered than aggressive, Luce said, wandering from room to room before walking into the bathroom.

A neighbor whom Luce had called for help secured the door until Warden Mark Rollins arrived and snared the animal as it hid behind the shower curtain.

Luce was upset by the episode, especially because her other cat, 5-year-old Foxy, had been mauled the night before. Foxy died two days later.

But Luce never had a second thought about coming to the rescue of Smudge, who is still on the mend. "I had no fear of it - I was just interested in saving Smudge," she said.

The bobcat was killed so it could be tested for rabies, and the results were negative.

Chuck Hulsey, a biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said the bobcat likely was emboldened by hunger after such a snowy winter.