Posted on 12/17/2004 4:20:18 AM PST by Samwise
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Some Indiana University students could face a hefty fine for tossing a guinea pig from an eighth-floor dormitory with a makeshift parachute.
The students used a garbage bag, dental floss and masking tape to create a parachute and then dropped the animal from their dorm window, Bloomington Animal Shelter manager Leigh Ann Hoffacker said.
The guinea pig landed in a tree and survived. The trembling rodent was discovered moments later by IU freshman Laura Robinson.
"My friend and I were on our way to get some lunch and we looked up and we saw her fall into the tree," Robinson told The Herald-Times for a story published Friday.
School janitors were able to reach the animal through a third-floor window and Robinson took it to the shelter.
"There was string and tape tied around it and it had some hair ripped out from the tape. It was really sad," Robinson said.
The identities of the students who tossed the creature from the building have yet to be determined, but Hoffacker said the list has been narrowed down by dorm administration. She said police likely would not do much, but the shelter's animal control office can issue a $500 ticket for animal abuse.
"Whoever did this did it in broad daylight," Hoffacker said. "They just didn't care, and I think it is quite disturbing."
The guinea pig appeared to be recovering well.
"She was scared and cold and shaking when they brought her in," Hoffacker said. "But now she is eating some alfalfa and seems just fine."
What? No back-up parachute??
Decades ago..when I was at school..we had hamster that was a veteran of 100 jumps. He actually died from injuries received from inserting a shoe tree into his space in a shoe..He was buried with full military honors.
It was a military academy..
I launched frogs using the big D engines. Made a ton of noise, but were usually so top heavy I think only 1 in 12 made it.
He was living in the shoe? And somebody put a shoe-horn in it?
Thanks for the post. I needed a good laugh this morning. A hawk would have just ripped the living meat off the live animal if had caught it. People today are so sonnnsitive.
I used the C sized engines - couldn't get the Ds around here. I launched a chicken house worth of eggs (and got most of them back pretty much intact).
I guess it's better to save the animal for the usual school laboratory experiments.
I think Estes made a mint off of me. All my paper route money went into rockets, until I got my first motorcycle. With the motorcycle, some other stuff became uncool, like the rockets & tonka trucks, so I had to find a way to dispose of the old fun.
D-sized rocket engines and a tonka truck full of 2-stroke premix gas makes a hell of a lot of smoke when it slams into a powerpole & ignites. My mom was pissed!
Nowadays, a kids would be jailed and forced on ritalin for the stuff we did on a regular basis.
"They just didn't care, and I think it is quite disturbing."That pretty much sums it up for me too.
I have to wonder if they still dig graves for sand fleas killed by recruits at Parris Island.
IU is in a small town - students find creative means of entertainment. My IU-grad BIL and his buddies would go out of town on a Friday night, make a dummy from their old laundry, and lay it in the middle of a road around a blind curve. Most people would stop, but one night someone just kept on going. They were picking up their laundry a mile down the road.
In my freshman year, some sicko left a "decorated" inflatable sex doll in our room as some kind of practical joke. We were freaked and tossed it out the first floor window. This turned out to be a bad idea since two women were walking by pushing baby strollers (the only time this ever happened that I can remember). The next thing you know two very angry women came storming into our room. It was a baaaaaaaaaad scene.
Nowadays, a kids would be jailed and forced on ritalin for the stuff we did on a regular basis.
Ain't that the truth. The acetylene gas-filled weather balloons I launched then detonated with bottle rockets alone would have gotten me locked up as a terrorist these days.
"(Is it sad that I'm sitting here in my mind trying to think of safer ways to do this to my puppy??-- she would love it though)"
At least the thing survived. Still sounds a little cruel though. This does sound a little like a comedy bit.
Maybe they should have thrown a baby Jesus doll out instead. Then the campus administration would be looking for this person to make them a hero.
I don't understand what point you are trying to make.
Are you implying that I must have been dropped to think it would be fun to safely parachute my puppy out of a window?
There. ; )
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