Rarest of rare: Woman gets hit in the ribs by a meteorite in France
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Sometimes things just fall into your lap. And while that can be a good thing, it wasn’t the case for a woman happily sipping her coffee in northeastern France.
In a freak accident on July 6 in Schirmeck, a woman was hit by a meteorite in her ribs, according to a report by the French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace (DNA).
Don't you just hate it when your morning coffee gets interrupted like that?
Rarest of rare
Getting hit by a meteorite is an extremely rare event, especially in a place like France which falls under a temperate climate zone. One has a better chance of getting hit by a bolt of lightning or a tsunami.
The woman was sitting on a terrace with a friend when she heard a big ‘poom’ from the roof next to them. “In the second that followed, I felt a shock on the ribs. I thought it was an animal, a bat!” she narrated. “We thought it was a piece of cement, the one we apply to the ridge tiles. But it didn't have the color.”
For those of us who grew up watching the 1998 Bruce Willis-starrer Armageddon, a meteor shower meant total destruction and annihilation of humanity. Fortunately for the French woman, it was a small piece of rock that bounced off the roof and hit her chest. She has a bruise on her chest and near her ribs, but other than that she is unharmed.
Extraterrestrial origins
The perplexed woman took the rock to geologist Dr. Thierry Rebmann who examined it and confirmed that it had extraterrestrial origins, reported DNA.
“Finding a meteor is already uncommon, but to be in direct contact and have it fall on you, that is astronomically rare,” said Dr Rebmann.
There have been only five incidents of meteorite landings in France in the 21st century. As per National Geographic, Ann Hodges is the only confirmed person in history to have been hit by a meteorite. She was hit by a meteorite in 1954 while she was taking a nap in her living room when a softball-sized portion of a black rock broke through her ceiling and hit her on the thigh. She survived with some bruising.
Statistically speaking, women are usually attacked by someone they know. What are they expected to do now? Keep an eye out for a meteorite landing just in case? It does beg the question though: Can’t a woman drink her coffee in peace?
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