One of the Dr. at work was being asked to refer an elderly gentleman for a psychiatric assessment and he asked why? When it was suggested it was because of ‘behaviors’ meaning the gentleman had been ‘getting into trouble’ the Dr. suggested that this was because “he doesn’t like it here” I cautioned him that if ‘behaviors’ got you assessed he had best watch himself. He’s always been one of those physicians who questions the system (a good thing) which has earned him a reputation for being ‘somewhat difficult’ After a few minutes he says “could the psyche assessment be done by someone who speaks English?” “No, no” he protested “I’m not being racist it’s just that he’s an elderly, hard of hearing, confused man and how accurate is the assessment if he doesn’t understand the questions?” I advised him that all this common sense was getting him into trouble.
I managed to make it home this afternoon even though in the confusion of switching vehicles I was without glasses. This switch was because the baby daughter had headed out to Fredericton in my car as she has a suicide intervention course which must be completed before clinical begins. She has ordered her laptop (a MacBook) from the campus computer store and is planning to pick it up as well.
When I arrived home from work I discovered that Keely had (again) gotten stung by some kind
of insect. A few years ago she was stung several times over the course of the summer and we said “dumb dog jumping on bees” but come to find out she had a hornet’s nest IN her doghouse. So today, the carpenter was called away from his duties to check her house first (nope no nest) before we sent her back out there. She must’ve been snuffing around in the bee attracting flowers and been a target. She looks like Igor but doesn’t seem to notice what’s wrong. Kind of like the kids when they were small and had some kind of injury, as long as they didn’t look in the mirror everything was fine.A couple of hours of staining planks which had been moved to the barn pending the predicted precipitation and so I’m gaining. Likely another few evening spent in such artistic endeavors before I see much headway being made. Part of the back wall is up to give some shape to the structure -looks like a village square to me at this point - but what would I know -that’s why I don’t get to make the design decisions.
Now I close with a story which ran on the front page of the Chronicle Herald today - can you believe that I live in a part of the world with practical jokers like these?
Take shark, insert leg, stir up excitement - Fisherman’s artificial-limb joke taken seriously by officials
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASERand JENNIFER STEWART Staff Reporters | 4:41 AM
It could have been the most gruesome catch of the day ever reported in waters off Nova Scotia.
But thankfully, a report that a person’s leg had been found inside a shark hauled up on Georges Bank by a southwestern Nova Scotia fishing boat turned out to be as artificial as the appendage.
"It turned out to be an artificial leg," RCMP Cpl. Joe Taplin said Sunday evening.
The shark didn’t have the leg in its jaws when it was caught. Instead, somebody on board the vessel Sarah & Dillion took off his own leg prosthesis and popped it into the dead shark’s mouth.
People on board took pictures and, somehow, a neighbouring skipper got the wrong idea.
He reported the discovery of the leg to the coast guard at about 11 a.m. and officials immediately arranged for one of their vessels to go pick up the catch.
Sources said the coast guard asked the fishermen to try to preserve the leg by putting it on ice. They also asked about any distinguishing clothing on the appendage and whether they could identify if it had belonged to a male or female.
"It turned out to be a high-seas joke," Cpl. Taplin said.
But it was also a time-consuming one.
The coast guard spent about seven hours to get out to the boat after the neighbouring vessel called in the report, and its American counterpart was also on high alert about the discovery, he said.
The RCMP’s major crime unit had also been notified and the medical examiner was on standby awaiting the leg’s return to shore.
"You have to err on the side of caution," Cpl. Taplin said.
Police on both sides of the border had already started researching files to track who the person might be.
"You start looking at missing-people files . . . from people who might have gone missing near the coastline," he said.
Despite the time logged on a Sunday by authorities in several jurisdictions, the corporal doesn’t believe charges will be laid in the unusual situation.
"There was no ill intent (by) the actual fishermen who were on the boat. This was relayed by another boat to the coast guard."
However, coast guard officials will rendezvous with the RCMP to discuss how the call was made to them.
Sanford Atwood, skipper of the Ocean Legend, said he reported the incident.
He said he never saw the shark or the leg but spoke to the skipper of the Sarah & Dillion, a vessel out of Clark’s Harbour that had apparently pulled both aboard.
"I guess it was a joke," Mr. Atwood said Sunday, speaking on his cellphone from his boat.
"It was an artificial leg. I called it in because I took it as the truth."
The Ocean Legend was one of several vessels long-lining for groundfish about 10 hours off Nova Scotia’s western coast in the Georges Bank area. Mr. Atwood said all the boats were hooking sharks.
"In my fishing career, 40-odd years on Georges, I never heard tell of a shark having a human leg in its mouth before," he said.
Cpl. Taplin was relieved that no one had met an untimely end inside a shark.
"That was the first time (we’ve) had something so bizarre transpiring," he said.
"I was already trying to figure out what I had to do tomorrow for it, trying to get my speaking notes together because this was definitely a different one."
A spokesman for the coast guard was releasing little information, only confirming that the agency was working with the RCMP on the matter.
With Brian Medel, Yarmouth Bureau
