Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader Read Free Page B

Knowing time was running out, he jumped down from his own side onto the train tracks, and then jumped over the third rail, which carries 600 deadly volts of electricity. When he finally got across, Kali—at 5’5” and 150 pounds—realized the man was nearly
twice his size…and unconscious (he’d been drinking). Kali tried to lift the man, but was unable to get him all the way up onto the platform. He did, however, lift him high enough so that people up on top could pull him to safety. Then, as bystanders applauded, Kali jumped back over the third rail and quickly scooted up to his own platform just in time to catch his train home. Kali’s humble explanation of his good deed: “People should help people.”

IT CAME FROM ABOVE
    At around 11:00 a.m. on a Monday in April 2008, mail carrier Lisa Harrell walked into a front yard in Albany, New York, to deliver an Express Mail package. Harrell, a 13-year Postal Service veteran, stepped up onto the porch and rang the bell. All of a sudden, something brushed her shoulder. Without thinking, Harrell extended her arms and discovered that she was holding a baby. The one-year-old girl was crying but otherwise fine. Had Harrell not been there, the infant would have landed on the concrete. The mother ran outside, grabbed her daughter, thanked Harrell, and then ran off to her own mother’s house down the street. (It was later revealed that the baby had been sitting on a bed next to an open window when she rolled out.) Making the story even stranger, normally Harrell wouldn’t have been at that house until after 2:00 p.m., but because she was delivering an Express Mail package that day, she had to get there by noon. “I was pretty shaken up,” said Harrell. “I couldn’t finish the route.”

DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING
    In Fenton, Missouri, a man who was later identified only as “Jerry” heard some strange noises coming from his neighbor’s apartment. Aware that the woman who lived there wasn’t home, he had a gut feeling that it was an intruder. So Jerry went outside and kicked open his neighbor’s door. Whoever was inside slammed it shut again and locked it. So Jerry waited outside until his neighbor returned home. When she did, she told him that no one should have been inside her place. They called the police, who came and apprehended the intruder—later revealed to be an ex-con who’d planned to wait in the apartment and attack the woman when she arrived home. Police hailed Jerry as a hero. One other thing about him: He’s legally blind.

BIONIC MEN
    Part man, part machine—and all real stories of people with robot parts.
     
    FINGER. Finnish computer programmer Jerry Jalava lost his ring finger in a motorcycle accident. He replaced it with a prosthetic finger of his own design—it’s also a computer flash drive. It looks like a normal finger (a shiny plastic one), but Jalava can pull back the nail, plug it into the USB slot on his computer, and store data files. (Ironically, these drives are sometimes called “thumb drives.”)
     
    KNEE. Brad Halling served in the Army’s Special Forces during the 1993 U.S. intervention in Somalia. A grenade hit his helicopter, and Halling lost his leg in the attack. In 2007 he received the most sophisticated joint replacement ever built: the Power Knee. Connected to two prosthetic leg parts, a microprocessor in the $100,000 device receives a signal from a small transmitter strapped to Halling’s other leg. The microprocessor senses how he’s moving and directs the robotic knee’s electric motor to copy the muscle movements. In short, he can walk normally. The downsides: It makes a loud whirring noise and has to be charged every night.
     
    EYE. Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence lost the use of his right eye in a childhood gun accident. So, inspired by the tiny camera on his cell phone, in 2009, Spence decided to make the ultimate first-person-POV film…by installing a prosthetic eye that is also a camera. A team from the