Climber has miraculous recovery from stupendous fall
Adam Potter, a 35-year-old mountain climber, is lucky to be alive.
This past Saturday, Potter fell about 1,000 feet after he lost his footing near the summit of Sgurr Choinnich Mor, a Scottish mountain. Potter didn't just survive the fall -- when rescuers found him, the adventurer was "standing up and reading a map."
Potter was standing on an icy part of the mountain when he slipped and began his terrifying fall. The other climbers saw him tumble and quickly alerted authorities. While the search and rescue helicopter was being deployed, Potter was falling down a nearly vertical cliff at a frightening level of speed.
When the rescuers found Potter, they couldn't believe their eyes. At the bottom of the cliff, the man stood on his own two feet, examining his map, as if to say, "Now, where did I take that wrong turn?" In fact, the rescue team thought they might be looking at the wrong guy. Lieutenant Tim Barker remarked, "We honestly thought it couldn't be him, as he was on his feet, reading a map. It seemed impossible."
Wanting to be sure, the crew retraced its steps, and found bits of Potter's vertical line along the cliffs. It was then that they were sure. According to a piece from the AFP, Potter was clearly shaken up by the time rescuers got to him: "He was said to be 'shaking from extreme emotional shock and the sheer relief at still being alive.'"
Amazingly, Potter only suffered minor injuries, including some superficial cuts and bruises and a "minor chest injury." He is recovering in a Glasgow hospital.
Hitler's last bodyguard gives up on fan mail
BERLIN (Reuters) – More than 65 years after World War Two, Adolf Hitler's last surviving bodyguard says that he can no longer respond to the continuous deluge of fan mail he receives from around the world, because of his advanced age.
Rochus Misch is 93 and uses a walking frame to move around his apartment. He told the Berliner Kurier tabloid that, with most of the letters he receives asking for autographs, it was "no longer possible" to reply because of his age.
"They (letters) come from Korea, from Knoxville, Tennessee, from Finland and Iceland -- and not one has a bad word to say," said Misch, who is believed to be the last man alive to have seen Hitler and other top-ranking Nazis in the flesh.
In the past Misch used to send fans autographed copies of wartime photos of himself in a neatly pressed SS uniform. Now the incoming fan mail, including letters and packages, piles up in his flat in south Berlin's leafy Rudow neighborhood.
Misch also served as Hitler's telephone operator and courier. His memoirs, "The Last Witness," were published in 2008 in Germany and are in the works to become a feature film.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Paul Casciato)
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