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lederhosenSMH article, snipped for length:
A search is under way for a man missing since a crocodile grabbed him from his canoe in Queensland's Cape York Peninsula. [At this point, when they say 'missing', they mean 'we hope to retrieve the body'; there's no real doubt as to the poor beggar's status.]
...National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) rangers combed the area, which is well sign-posted with crocodile warnings, but there was no sign of the man. A search of the Normanby River is continuing. Cairns police Superintendent Mike Keating said the man had been trying to push the crocodile away from the boat when it grabbed him by the arm.
"They were moving throughout the water hole and at some stage they noticed a crocodile," he told the Nine network. "It approached the canoe and as a result of that the canoe has turned over and the man is now missing. He was taken out of the canoe by the arm as he tried to fend the crocodile off."
...Local crocodile hunter Mick Pitman said the area where the man disappeared was a known crocodile habitat and well sign-posted with warnings. "I've never gone up nowhere near an estuarine river where there's crocs because the first thing he'll do is come up and give you a walloping," Mr Pitman told ABC Radio.
I feel sorry for the guy and his wife, but I really wish people would reduce the amount of sorry-feeling I have to do by READING THE SIGNS. Almost every crocodile fatality that happens in Australia seems to happen to people who ignored warning signs and/or local advice; the only exception I can think of offhand is one where a tour guide was subsequently charged with manslaughter for telling tourists an area was safe when it wasn't.
Related note: Am I imagining it, or do Australian police have an odd tendency to squeeze a superfluous 'has' or two into what should be basic perfect-tense constructions? "It approached the canoe and as a result of that the canoe has turned over" instead of "the canoe turned over", "a white male has approached the teller and an exchange of gunfire has taken place", that sort of thing. Not in the it-just-happened context where I usually expect to hear that construction, but in describing events afterwards. I *think* the term for this is 'imperfective aspect', but I'm not certain.
Unrelated note: To those who read yesterdays locked post - eyes feeling happy again today, after another eyebath and early bed last night. Interesting to do once, but would just as soon not do that again in a hurry.
A search is under way for a man missing since a crocodile grabbed him from his canoe in Queensland's Cape York Peninsula. [At this point, when they say 'missing', they mean 'we hope to retrieve the body'; there's no real doubt as to the poor beggar's status.]
...National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) rangers combed the area, which is well sign-posted with crocodile warnings, but there was no sign of the man. A search of the Normanby River is continuing. Cairns police Superintendent Mike Keating said the man had been trying to push the crocodile away from the boat when it grabbed him by the arm.
"They were moving throughout the water hole and at some stage they noticed a crocodile," he told the Nine network. "It approached the canoe and as a result of that the canoe has turned over and the man is now missing. He was taken out of the canoe by the arm as he tried to fend the crocodile off."
...Local crocodile hunter Mick Pitman said the area where the man disappeared was a known crocodile habitat and well sign-posted with warnings. "I've never gone up nowhere near an estuarine river where there's crocs because the first thing he'll do is come up and give you a walloping," Mr Pitman told ABC Radio.
I feel sorry for the guy and his wife, but I really wish people would reduce the amount of sorry-feeling I have to do by READING THE SIGNS. Almost every crocodile fatality that happens in Australia seems to happen to people who ignored warning signs and/or local advice; the only exception I can think of offhand is one where a tour guide was subsequently charged with manslaughter for telling tourists an area was safe when it wasn't.
Related note: Am I imagining it, or do Australian police have an odd tendency to squeeze a superfluous 'has' or two into what should be basic perfect-tense constructions? "It approached the canoe and as a result of that the canoe has turned over" instead of "the canoe turned over", "a white male has approached the teller and an exchange of gunfire has taken place", that sort of thing. Not in the it-just-happened context where I usually expect to hear that construction, but in describing events afterwards. I *think* the term for this is 'imperfective aspect', but I'm not certain.
Unrelated note: To those who read yesterdays locked post - eyes feeling happy again today, after another eyebath and early bed last night. Interesting to do once, but would just as soon not do that again in a hurry.
