ODDLY ENOUGH | Tabby in Britain is purrfect purring machine

ODDLY ENOUGH

Tabby in Britain is purrfect purring machine

LONDON

No need to bell this cat: A gray-and-white tabby by the name of Smokey has cat-apulted to fame with purring so loudly it has been recorded at a potentially record-setting 73 decibels.

The British community college that measured the sound said it peaked at 16 times louder than that of the average cat. By some estimates, that is about as noisy as busy traffic, a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner.

The 12-year-old, ordinary-size feline first came to national attention last month when her owner, Ruth Adams, decided to run a local competition for the most powerful purr. That led to a local radio-show appearance, and from there, media coverage snowballed, with the tabloids full of headlines such as “Thundercat” and “Rumpuss.”

“Sometimes she purrs so loudly it makes her cough and splutter,” Adams said on a website devoted to the cat, which was rescued from a shelter about three years ago. Smokey “even manages to purr while she eats.”

Hoping to see Smokey recognized as top cat, Adams asked Northampton College in central England to provide the equipment needed to submit a world-record application.

Police: Pa. trucker saved from choking by crash

READING, Pa.

A Pennsylvania trucker may have saved his own life with an unintentional and very elaborate Heimlich maneuver.

Police say 55-year-old Richard Paylor, of Fairless Hills, Bucks County, was eating an apple as he drove on a busy highway in Reading when he began choking Tuesday morning. Authorities say Paylor then lost consciousness and crashed through a concrete median.

The Reading Eagle reports that investigators believe the apple was dislodged when Paylor smacked his chest against the steering wheel. Police recovered a chunk of apple from the dashboard.

Investigators spoke with doctors who backed up their conclusion that the accident dislodged the offending fruit.

NJ bakery blows top, dusts town in flour

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.

People might have thought they were part of a recipe when a northern New Jersey bakery blew its top and shot a cloud of flour over cars and buildings.

Acting Englewood Fire Chief Gerald Marion says a pipe became loose at the top of the La Esperanza Bakery silo as flour was being pumped into the building Tuesday.

Some people thought there was an explosion as flour filled the air and coated several adjacent buildings.

A spokesman for the bakery told The Record newspaper it lost probably less than 10 bags of flour from the 20,000 pounds that were being delivered.

The pipe has been resealed.

Associated Press