BehindTheLens

I just returned from a family vacation camping along the White river in northern Arkansas. The weather was cool, the water downright cold. And deep – very deep! Torrential spring rains filled the headwater lakes to within inches of cresting their dams, and our first campsite has a section wiped out from flash flooding back in March.

One other feature of this area is the lack of any form of electronic communications. This means very sketchy cell service, no TV, very limited radio reception and definitely no internet. Usually this would be nirvana for someone trying to get away from the constant barrage of e-mails and text messages. That is until one day….

We arrived back in camp after a family outing to Blanchard Springs caverns. A beautiful place to visit, I might add. Just about the time we were sitting down to enjoy dinner at the picnic table, we heard a rumbling off in the distance. A few minutes later the flash of lightning. We finished eating in a hurry, and quickly began stowing all our gear in the storage compartments of our travel trailer. In record time, I might add. Just in time for the bottom to drop out. Torrents of rain poured on our campsite. We heard something about a severe storm in our area, but did not have a good grasp if it was heading our way or moving to our north. And what about the river, just 50 feet from our campsite?

Everything ended up being OK, but there was a few tense moments that night. In the end we just watched the storm from the safety of our awning and enjoying the light show provided to us by Mother Nature. But if I only had a radar picture on the laptop…..

submitted by Mike Grimm

Submitted by Linda Angelle

As news photographers we see a lot of strange things.  This seems especially true on the holidays.  On the afternoon of July 4, Stephan at the assignment desk got a call from one of the Channel 5 scanner listeners.  He was told that Ft. Worth police were sending officers to a crime scene where human hands had been found in a freezer.  This sounded like a big story and could even be the lead story!  I jumped into my news unit and rushed to the address.  I wasn’t alone.  Police officers and crime scene investigators were in already there in full force.  All the local stations had sent one or even two crews.  Soon the small street was crowded with live vans and news cars as photographers rushed to set up our cameras before the crime scene investigator brought out the gruesome evidence of this hideous crime.

Several neighbors who were well into their holiday celebrations happily offered their views to what might have happened.  As more detectives arrived, crews began to run cables and raise masts for breaking news live shots.  Surely this was going to be network news!  Could it be a serial killer?  What evil lurked in the small upstairs apartment along with those ten frozen fingers? 

Then I noticed three of the officers walking to their cars.  They quickly drove off.  Two officers  guarding the scene were smiling.  I looked at Scott and he was talking on the  his blackberry.  Then he started laughing.  What was going on here?  About a dozen photographer’s were there now and all of our cell phones started ringing.  Scott came over to tell me that I could stop shooting.  Turns out that instead of freezer hands, we had sausage fingers! 

FORT WORTH, TX -

I’m back from vacation and what a way to re-enter. Two suspicious items resembling frozen hands were found today which prompted a call to the police. It happened around 1:30 p.m. at a duplex located in the 1100 block of Grainger. A man was cleaning out a garage apartment in anticipation of moving into his new pad when he noticed a plastic grocery sack in the freezer. Being curious the man opened the sack and got the surprise of a lifetime when he found what he believed to be two mangled up frozen hands. When officers arrived they took a look and agreed that they resembled hands however upon close inspection by a homicide detective they may not be hands after all. It is a distinct possibility that they could be nothing more than sausage or some other kind of meat product stuffed into clear plastic gloves making them look human. The Medical Examiner will make the final determination as to the item’s nature and origin. Until then, our hands are tied on this one.