Sleeping on the sleepers leads to train on the brain

A Florida man woke up with a 109-car freight train rattling past above him.

'They'd put the brakes on and there was squealing and sparks flying all around me,' said 39-year-old James Alliff from his hospital bed.

Unemployed Mr Alliff emerged from under the train with a long list of injuries.

'I've got a headache, let me tell you,' he said. 'About every three or four seconds an axle would come along and crack me upside the head. It's a good thing I wasn't on my back or that train would have torn my face off.' Police said they believed Mr Alliff passed out on the track after drinking.

A secretary who had never earned more than US$15,000 (HK$116,000) a year yet invested in the stock market left US$18 million to a children's hospital where she often gave out teddy bears.

Gladys Holm, who died aged 86, spoke of 'having something' for the Children's Memorial Hospital in her will but no one dreamed it would be so much, a hospital spokesman said.

Ms Holm retired in 1969 after 41 years as a secretary for American Hospital Supply. Her boss, the firm's founder Foster McGaw, told her to invest any excess earnings in stocks.