Welcome to a new feature here at TPRS, something I call My New Hero. Think of it as a sort of anti-DUMB@$$ AWARD, a semi-regular feature in which I celebrate creative thinking. It’s a kind of “I’ll know it when I see it” thing, but I’ve come to recognize that after “celebrating” 189 DUMB@$$ AWARD wieners, there are also those who, through creative problem-solving, take actions that us convention-bound types might not consider.
My first HERO had best hope he still has a functioning pair of kidneys, but he owes he life to some quick thinking, 60 half-liter bottles of beer, and an over-active bladder. There are those instances of which it can safely be said that desperate times call for desperate measures. I suppose being trapped under an avalanche would definitely qualify as desperate times. Credit Mr. Kral for some quick thinking in evaluating his circumstances and then identifying a way out.
A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.
He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.
But as he dug with his hands, he realised the snow would fill his car before he managed to break through.
He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.
He said: “I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I’m glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there.”
Parts of Europe have this week been hit by the heaviest snowfalls since 1941, with some places registering more than ten feet of snow in 24 hours.
I’d be willing to hazard a guess that MY NEW HERO will never be able to look at a bottle of beer (or a urinal) in quite the same way again.
Let’s hope that it was at least GOOD beer….
