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A
Modest Hero
This
is a True Story, but the names have been changed to avoid embarrassment
to the real people involved
At
two in the morning, the Smith family
was woken up suddenly as a
seven foot high figure crashed through the
glass of the Canberra
house. (Canberra is the capital of Australia.)
This was two am
and they had been suddenly woken up. When you are just
woken up it
can take a few seconds to return to full awareness. Why was an insane giant ninja doing
impossible leaps round the house?
The intruder got into his
10 year old son John's bedroom. The boy called out something like:
"Dad, there's a Kangaroo
in my bedroom!"
By
this time, Mr. Smith had worked out what the intruder
was and went to
help the boy. The Kangaroo was trying to get out, and
was probably even
more frightened and confused than the humans had
been. The Kangaroo was
attempting to get out through the corner of
the bedroom. Mr. Smith
realized the danger his son was in. A wild
Kangaroo is unlikely to
deliberately attack a human, but this one was
totally confused. At any
moment the animal could jump onto John.
Mr. Smith grabbed
the Kangaroo from behind and was able
to wrestle it to the ground, drag
it along the hallway and through
the front door without injuring it
further (The Kangaroo had cut
itself coming through the glass). Mr. Smith had scratches, but was not
badly hurt.
Mr. Smith and John came onto national
television to tell their story. Mr. Smith
told it with modesty and
humour. He is a chef by profession and was
asked if he ever served
Kangaroo. He joked that it would be on the menu
for the next night.
The normal way of catching a Kangaroo
without injuring it
is for there to be two men. One man approaches from
the front, and
the other man grabs the Kangaroo's tail. Kangaroos have
a very
powerful double kick, but they can only kick forwards, and need
their
tail to support themselves while kicking. Once the tail is held,
the
men can overpower the animal. This method requires 2 men. Probably
what
Mr. Smith did was the best way in the circumstances.
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