You Can't Make This Stuff Up 080308

Grace IS Right. Can you say God?

Hey folks,

Now you have heard of certain natural laws right? Like the law of gravity. There are many aspects to this law, yet there are constants. One, it effects all the same way. Two, depending how high you are when you fall, determines how much damage is done to you when you land. Three, when you fall from a high enough height, even water can act as if it were concrete.

OK. Do you know what soot is? In essence, soot is ash. Burnt wood or coal that goes up into the air that some call a pollutant. Some of it forms in fireplaces after use and is nasty when it comes to walls, and other material in your house. So what is a pile of soot? Basically nothing more than a pile of dirty ash.

Now take one 12 year old girl. Weighing in at about 90 to 100 pounds, a 180 foot fall straight down onto a 2 foot pile of soot, what do you get? A Girl named Grace that walks away pretty much unscathed.

According to the AP - NYC girl survives 180-foot fall down chimney By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer

A 12-year-old girl just wanted to show her cousin the view from her family's Manhattan rooftop. Instead, she fell into a chimney and plummeted down the flue for 14 stories, emerging nearly unscathed to tell her story after landing in a pile of furnace soot.

Grace Bergere, a young rock drummer, was recovering at a hospital on Saturday with an injured hip. A 2-foot-deep pile of ash and dust probably saved her life by cushioning her fall when she crashed into a basement furnace, fire officials said.

"I broke my leg! I broke my leg!" she yelled out after rescuers spotted her soot-caked hand reaching out for help.

Fire Chief Austin Horan said the 12-year-old emerged "relatively unscathed" from the accident Thursday night at the Westbeth Artists Housing complex in the West Village neighborhood. The complex houses artists, including Grace's father, Steve Berger, a jazz guitarist.

"It's a miracle; it's an absolute miracle," he said.

Firefighters responding to a 911 call never expected to find the girl alive. While her father screamed her name, they opened a little metal door at the bottom of the chimney, ready for the worst.

When Grace's small hand poked out, "I just jumped back," Lt. Simon Ressner told reporters on Friday. "I wasn't expecting anybody alive at the bottom of the shaft, so I was shocked."

When they pulled her out, Grace was covered with black, only her eyes and mouth visible.

She said she was having a hard time breathing and was afraid her neck might be broken; they placed a brace on her and gave her oxygen.

By then, her mother had rushed to her side, crying while her father comforted the child as paramedics took her to the hospital.

The rooftop adventure started at about 10:30 p.m., when Grace decided to show her cousin visiting from California the spectacular view from a rooftop deck overlooking the Hudson River.

To get to the highest point, she climbed up a 25-foot ladder alongside the big brick chimney. When she reached the top, there was a surprise: the gaping mouth of the chimney, which swallowed her and sent her plunging down the narrow flue into the basement.

"I think she probably went down head first and landed on her back," Ressner said.

Grace was recovering at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center on Saturday, talking to visitors and watching TV, but still in pain. She was in fair condition.

Can you say GOD? What a name for this Girl. Grace. Her Parents sure named her right.

Peter
Sources:
AP - NYC girl survives 180-foot fall down chimney