Compiled by BENJAMIN LEE, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
TWO hikers in Beijing, China, were trapped on a mountain for over 30 hours due to their belief in local superstition of not answering anyone who calls out their name in the woods, reported China Press.
The incident took place on July 29 when a 78-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman from the town of Liulimiao went hiking to forage for medicinal herbs at 5.30am.
The Huairou district Fire and Rescue Department received a report at around 11pm that night that the man and woman had yet to return home after nearly 17 hours in the mountains.
A search party of firefighters, police officers and villagers familiar with the terrain was assembled to track them.
The dense vegetation, slippery mountain paths and poor visibility made it a difficult search.
By the time the duo were rescued, they had been stranded for more than 30 hours and were severely exhausted.
When asked what had happened, the pair said there was a local taboo that one should never answer when their name was being called out in the mountains.
> A woman in Beijing, who fractured her ribs after her German Shepherd pounced on her, found that it was a blessing in disguise as doctors discovered and removed a mass in her chest, China Press also reported.
It was reported that the woman’s pet dog, weighing around 40kg, jumped on her and fractured several of her ribs.
An X-ray at the hospital revealed an unidentified mass in her chest around 4.6cm, which doctors removed later during surgery.
Laboratory tests showed the mass was Castleman disease, a rare disorder involving enlarged lymph nodes.
The condition could potentially spread via the bloodstream to lymph nodes throughout the body. The early discovery and removal of the mass also meant that the woman did not need to undergo chemotherapy.
Doctors only required her to return for regular check-ups.
The woman, whose surname was Wang, was grateful and said that her dog inadvertently saved her life.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
