It was around this time in 2006 that a guy got smacked by a horse… and it turned out great!
(Disclaimer: do NOT try to get a horse to clonk you, in almost every other case it’s doesn’t end well.)
This is the story of Don Karkos, who grew up in Maine and enlisted in the U.S. Navy the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
He was serving aboard a tanker ship in the north Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1942 when a German U-boat attacked.
He said there was a loud explosion and something hit him in the forehead.
The next thing he knew, he was in a military hospital in Iceland, where doctors said he had lost the use of his right eye for good.
So he came back to the States and got on with life as best he could.
He got married, had kids, started his own business, and eventually bought himself a horse farm.
Later he took a job working at a horse track, where he worked security and sometimes helped in the barn.
One day he was working with a horse named My Buddy Chimo, who was getting ready for a workout.
For whatever reason, as he adjusted the straps around the horse’s chest, My Buddy Chimo gave him a headbutt, right above his right eye.
The 82 year old said the last time he’d been hit that hard was during that explosion in the war.
Karkos went home, still feeling a little shaken up by what had happened… until he was walking through his house and realized his right eye was working again.
He said it was like turning on a widescreen TV.
Doctors had said it could never happen, but somehow My Buddy Chimo’s headbutt had undone whatever injury the attack had caused 64 years beforehand.
And Karkos had a reward in mind for his new horse friend, saying “I’m getting him a big bag of carrots for Christmas.”
Today in 1938, the birthday of basketball great Gus “Honeycomb” Johnson.
When he played for the University of Idaho, a bar owner had Johnson jump as high as he could, and then marked the spot with a nail.
Anybody who could jump up and reach the nail, 11 feet 6 inches up, got a free drink.
It’s only happened maybe a couple of times?
Knock on the head just what this paddock guard needed for Christmas (Seattle Times)
The Monticello miracle: Freak racetrack accident restores vision (Times Herald-Record)
Stories of former NBA star Gus Johnson are no tall tales: Terry Pluto (Cleveland.com)
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Photo by RDV via Flickr/Creative Commons
