Meanwhile, the traffic moves in an unceasing flow along the flyover. The aircraft rise from the runways of the airport, carrying the remains of Vaughan’s semen to the instrument panels and radiator grilles of a thousand crashing cars, the leg stances of a million passengers. ibid. p224
This woman rushed out at us. It all happened in a second. It seemed she recognised the car. The Great Gatsby 1974 starring & Robert Redford & Mia Farrow & Bruce Dern & Sam Waterston & Karen Black & Scott Wilson & Lois Chiles & Edward Herrmann & Howard da Silva & Kathryn Leigh Scott & Regina Baff et al, director Jack Clayton, Gatsby
Behind the scenes the development of the module had been fraught with serious accidents and breakdowns. One such failure had almost cost Neil Armstrong his life. In training for the flight Armstrong had practised on two bizarre prototypes that mimicked the gravity conditions of the moon. Buzz Aldrin already had his doubts about the lunar trainer. Despite the disaster NASA were impressed with Armstrong’s quick reactions. First on the Moon: The Untold Story
Bond: But accidents do happen.
Q: They frequently do with you. Tomorrow Never Dies 1997 starring Pierce Brosnan & Judi Dench & Jonathan Pryce & Michaelle Yeoh & Teri Hatcher & Ricky Jay & Gotz Otto & Joe Don Baker & Vincent Schiavelli & Samantha Bond et al, director Roger Spottiswoode
Jules Winnfield: Oh man! You shot Marvin in the face!
Vincent Vega: Well I didn’t mean to do it – it was an accident. Pulp Fiction 1993 starring John Travolta & Samuel L Jackson & Uma Thurman & Harvey Keitel & Tim Roth & Amanda Plummer & Maria de Medeiros & Ving Rhames & Eric Stoltz & Rosanna Arquette & Christopher Walken & Bruce Willis et al, director Quentin Tarantino
There are six and a half thousand injury accidents on Britain’s motorways each year. Police surveys show at least a quarter of them are fatigue related. Horizon: Against the Clock, BBC 1994
Our modern world demands twenty-four-hour healthcare. But the price is high. Twelve-hour shifts would be a luxury for junior doctors on duty for thirty-six or forty-eight at a stretch. ibid.
The most extreme shift patterns and the most disruptive biological clocks can be found in aviation. ibid.
Japanese society works hard, travels hard and plays hard. The result is sleepy people. ibid.
Power-napping will soon enter the vocabulary. ibid.
Avalanches are unstoppable forces of nature that kill hundreds of people every year. Even in Britain, around 30 people have lost their lives to avalanches since the year 2000. Yet we know surprisingly little about them. We can’t predict when or where they’ll strike. Horizon: Avalanche: Making a Deadly Snowstorm, BBC 2018
We desperately need to find new ways of predicting where avalanches will strike. ibid.
Georgia’s sandy coastal shallows hide a deadly secret – a hydrogen bomb dumped by an American bomber half a century ago. Pentagon officials insist the missing H bomb poses no threat. But with the threat of nuclear terrorism after 9/11 some aren’t so sure. America’s Lost H Bomb, History 2007
Richardson dumps the H-bomb. The 7,600 pound nuke plummets a mile and a half somewhere near the shore of Tybee Island, Georgia but doesn’t explode. Its safeties hold. ibid.
Another US nuclear weapon mishap – this one over Palomares, Spain. A collision between a refuelling plane and a B-52 killed seven US airmen and dropped four 1.4 megaton H-bombs over Spanish tomato farms. Parachutes on two of the bombs opened. ibid.
Jack Howard, Defense Secretary ... testified under oath that four nuclear weapons had been lost and were still missing. ibid.
There are approximately 10,000 nuclear weapons in America’s arsenal today. ibid.
Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you. Muhammad Ali
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. Aristotle
I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents. Pablo Picasso
There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. Stephen Hawking
It’s going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I’ll risk saying that we’ll be lucky if something really serious doesn’t happen. Ayrton Senna
Accidents, try to change them – it’s impossible. The accidental reveals man. J B Priestley
We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction. Stephen Jay Gould
Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, etc. are the result of accidents. Bertrand Russell
The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents. John Updike
From 1950 to 1970 there were 33 major accidents involving United States’ nuclear weapons. John Pilger, Mr Nixon’s Secret Legacy 1975, Youtube 26.51
49,002. In July 1956 a United States B-52 crashed into an atomic bomb store at Lakenheath base in Suffolk. John Pilger, The Truth Game, ITV 1982
During the 70s the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons grew into a world-wide force. At the same time the new industry of nuclear power was growing. It was a carbon-dioxide free source of constant energy. But from the outset the industry was controversial. It was secretive. The extent of Britain’s worst nuclear accident in 1957 at Windscale in Cumbria was concealed, and subsequent leaks there and at other plants were covered up. What The Green Movement Got Wrong, 2010
A partial meltdown occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant on America’s east coast. No-one died but the nuclear industry there never recovered. ibid.
You can’t drive past an accident, because as a Scientologist you are the only one who can help. Tom Cruise, cited Andrew Morton
Last year more than seven million viewers watched in horror as two women threw themselves into the path of oncoming traffic. They survived but the footage you are about to see is shocking and extraordinary. Incredibly, the women then turn on the officers who are trying to help them. Motorway Cops: Madness in the Fast Lane, BBC 2010
Just twenty-four hours after being released, one of the women was on the run once again. ibid.
Seconds later the other woman also runs into traffic ... The injured women are twin sisters. ibid.
The officers discover the women are forty-year-old identical twins from Sweden, Ursula and Sabina Eriksson. ibid.
53,715. The woman hit by a lorry on the M6 is in a critical condition. But just five hours after being hit by a car her twin sister Sabina Eriksson is given the all clear. ibid.
Sabina Eriksson is charged with assaulting a police officer and trespass on a motorway. ibid.
The day after she is released from custody Sabina Eriksson stabs a local man to death. ibid.
The sisters became inseparable then disappeared. A day later the sisters turned up in Liverpool. Witnesses see them on a National Express coach bound for London but they never make it that far ... The sisters set off on foot along the M6 motorway. ibid.
Sabina runs into traffic not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions. ibid.
Sabina runs on to a bridge forty feet above the A50 and jumps. ibid.
Sabina is assessed by two forensic psychiatrists. ibid.
Defence diagnosis: Induced Delusional Disorder; Prosecution diagnosis: Acute Polymorphic Psychotic Disorder. ibid.
The court case is fraught with difficulty. ibid.
He sentences her to five years. ibid.
Jesus Christ, have you ever seen that before? ibid. Traffic rozzer
Accidents will happen. Mid-18th century proverb
A lot of really big things happen by accident. James Burke, Connections s1e10: Yesterday, Tomorrow & You, BBC 1978
There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed. Napoleon Bonaparte