laughing man prompts rescue

[Amby 490]

helicopter rescue team were scrambled after screams were heard in a German forest - only to find a man laughing his head off at a new book.

A woman dialled 999 after she thought she could hear someone being tortured at the woodland near Elmstein, western Germany.

But 'victim' Roland Hofmann was astonished when armed police surrounded his car which he had driven into the forest and ordered him to give himself up and release his hostage.

He told police he had gone to the forest to read "in peace and quiet".

"We realise that people think the sound of Germans laughing is unusual, but we're sure the caller meant well," said one officer.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3272487.html

[Nagishkaw 510]

:lol: :lol:

[Ban Hammer 13,348]

[alienlovechild 75]

It is possible to die from too much laughter.

Pathophysiology

Death may result from several pathologies that deviate from benign laughter.

Infarction of the pons and medulla oblongata in the brain may cause pathological laughter.

Laughter can cause atonia and collapse ("gelastic syncope"), which in turn can cause trauma. See also laughter-induced syncope, Bezold-Jarisch reflex.

Gelastic seizures can be due to focal lesions to the hypothalamus[6] Depending upon the size of the lesion, the emotional lability may be a sign of an acute condition, and not itself the cause of the fatality. Gelastic syncope has also been associated with the cerebellum.

Historical deaths attributed to laughter

In the third century B.C. the Greek stoic philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter after giving his donkey wine, then seeing it attempt to feed on figs. Almaty R.I.P.

Martin I of Aragon died from a lethal combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing in 1410.

Pietro Aretino "is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much."

It is cited that the Burmese king Nanda Bayin, in 1599 "laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king."

In 1660, the Scottish aristocrat, polymath and first translator of Rabelais into English, Thomas Urquhart, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.

Modern deaths attributed to laughter

On 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, had died laughing while watching the Kung Fu Kapers episode of The Goodies, featuring a Scotsman in a kilt battling a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes. After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mr. Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mr. Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant. Death by British humor is so cruel.

In 1989, a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died watching A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beat at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest.

In 2003, Damnoen Saen-um, a Thai ice cream salesman, is reported to have died while laughing in his sleep at the age of 52. His wife was unable to wake him, and he stopped breathing after two minutes of continuous laughter. He was believed to have died either of heart failure or asphyxiation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_hilarity

Tickle torture does exist.

Another example of tickle torture was used in Ancient Rome, where a person’s feet are dipped in a salt solution, and a goat is brought in to lick the solution off. This type of tickle torture would only start as tickling, eventually becoming extremely painful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickle_torture