February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Patrick Markey
Painful fashion
The latest in fashion trends took a painful turn for the worse recently when firefighters were forced to remove two sets of nipple rings from two Northern teens.
The Irish News reports that the firefighters were drafted into a hospital to cut supertough titanium nipple rings from the chests of the two teenagers after their pierced parts become inflamed.
The two teens checked in separately to the casualty department at Eastbourne District General Hospital after their nipples became sore and swollen.
But when staff were unable to remove the rings the local fire brigade had to step in on both occasions — with bolt-cutters.
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A fire brigade spokesman said the "units usually have a special machine for removing difficult rings from fingers and ears, but getting one off a nipple is a different matter."
Hospital spokesman Chris Randall said: "It’s bizarre that we had to deal with two incidents like this so close together, and the two young men didn’t know each other either. The rings were apparently made of titanium, which is obviously why they were so hard to get off."
One teen’s mother said: "His ring is a normal silver-looking ear-ring in his right nipple, and although he only got it done a few weeks ago, it’s been playing him up for some time, even though he went to a good place to get it done and not somewhere in the backstreets."
Cautious exchange
Spanish exchange students staying in Buncrana are being stopped at the Northern border and asked to stay in the Republic, reports the Belfast Telegraph.
The students have been prohibited from crossing into Northern Ireland by exchange trip organizers following talks with the students’ parents and their host families in the Donegal village.
The decision is directly linked to the Omagh bombing in which two Spanish students were killed and over a dozen more were injured.
The local priest, Fr. Shane Bradley, said: "It was felt by all concerned that it would be better if the students were not allowed to cross the border. The decision was taken so as to reassure their families back in Spain who were understandably concerned."
About 90 Spanish students returned to the seaside town this month in the first of two exchange trips organized this summer. A second group of 25, which will include some of those injured in the Omagh blast, will arrive in the town at the beginning of August.
Fr. Bradley today confirmed that none of the group will be traveling to Omagh on Aug. 15 for the special service. Instead, they will take part in an open air anniversary Mass in the center of Buncrana.
"The families felt that it would be more appropriate to have the Mass on the anniversary and not the day beforehand," Bradley said.
Teenage terrors
They may be young but they’re also on the run.
Tipperary gardai were searching for an all female gang — including a 10-year-old — who raided a gas station in Rosegreen, reports the Clonmel Nationalist.
Three teen girls, accompanied by a child, took £600 from the till of a filling station after distracting a 16-year-old part-time attendant.
Garda said that the three girls and a child pulled up outside Bernard Ryan’s filling station in Rosegreen. The occupants asked the young attendant to pump gas for them. The attendant refused to serve them and went back into the office. So the women started to mess with the petrol pumps.
As the attendant came out to deal with them, one of the women made her way into the office and took money from the till. As the attendant went back into the office she was pushed out of the way by the woman who had taken the money and sped off in a red Nissan Sunny.