A video of a repeat drink driver being tricked into thinking he’d been in a coma for 10 years is proving one of the year’s most popular viral videos.
Nearly nine million people have watched the video since it was posted on YouTube just three days ago.
The man’s friends staged the prank to give him a wake-up call after five arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol.
They smuggled him into a fake hospital room while he was passed out in a drunken haze and wired him up to medical equipment.
He awoke to find a nurse by his bed. She called the ‘doctor’ who told him he had been in a car accident after drinking – “back in 2013”.
A fake TV news bulletin – featuring stories about President Hillary Clinton planning an invasion of Canada and Miley Cyrus being evicted from a trailer park – added to the effect.
The whole idea was the brainchild of American comedian Tom Mabe who’d seen his friend suffer with an apparent drink problem.
When the doctor slaps him in the face to ‘test his reactions’, the man realises the whole thing is faked.
But Mabe isn’t in the mood for laughs as he attempts to drum into his friend the gravity of the situation.
“It’s not funny… you could’ve lost your daughter, 10 years could’ve been wasted away here,” he says in the video.
Police wait to retrieve swallowed jewels
A suspected jewel thief who swallowed two large diamond engagement rings has been refused bail until the loot can be recovered.
The man posed as a customer to examine the rings, worth more than £30,000, at a jewellers in Brisbane, Australia, then ran off with them, reports the Courier-Mail. Store manager Liljana McDonald set off in pursuit, screaming for help as she chased the thief through a packed shopping centre.
Shoppers pointed her in the direction of the man, before workers cornered him in the back of a pharmacy. That was when the man swallowed the one-carat diamond solitaire ring and 1.53-carat yellow diamond surrounded by 28 white diamonds.
“I think the second one would have been pretty difficult to swallow,’’ McDonald said. “Everyone says they’re not going to be hanging around for that to come through.’’
The man was charged with theft and fraud, Magistrates refused bail until the rings had worked their way through the man’s system and police could retrieve them.
Santa makes kids take lie detector tests
Father Christmas is making children undergo a lie detector test when they are asked whether they have been a good boy or girl.
Younsters visiting grottos at a number of shopping centres are to be tested with a polygraph before they get to see Santa.
WestQuay, Southampton, Centrale, Croydon and Brent Cross malls will all have polygraphs on hand for those brave enough to try it out.
Katie Tucker, marketing manager at Brent Cross said: “We know that Christmas is a busy time of year for Santa and parents, so we decided to lend both a hand and check if children had really been naughty or nice, to make sure no one is telling fibs.
“The children of Brent Cross proved to be extremely honest, and we look forward to testing the kids of Croydon and Southampton to see how they fare!”
Snowplough driver uncovers ‘drunk’ cyclist
A snowplough driver in Norway was astonished to uncover a ‘drunk’ cyclist while clearing heavy snow from a bike path.
The man, who drives a plough for a local council contractor, was clearing away snow in Notteroy, south of Oslo.
“I saw some handlebars poking out of the snow,” the driver told Aftenposten.
“When I got closer, I saw that there was a man on a bike completely covered by snow. I also noticed that the man was wearing a reflective vest.”
The driver immediately called an ambulance who took the unconscious man to hospital, where he recovered from a severe chill.
The buried man, a 26-year-old from the nearby island of Tjome, told police he had no recollection of what had happened.
“He said that the last thing he remembered was riding home from a friend’s house.
“He had probably been out on a p*** up, which may have contributed to the ride ending the way it did,” the police’s Knut Henning Bjune said.
Post published in: World News