Four young Floridians got a taxi ride they won't soon forget.
Twenty-year-old Todd Carter, his brother and two friends, all residents of Pasco, north of Tampa, needed a ride home from a Port Richey shopping mall last Tuesday. So they hailed a cab.
"When the cab arrived, he had someone in the front seat of the cab, which meant we had to pile in the back," Carter told Bay 9 News, a local cable news channel.
It got more interesting.
"We realized the cab driver and the passenger were drinking in the car," Carter continued.
Then, according to the passengers, the driver's friend started removing her clothes.
"She was stripping in the car in front of a 16-year-old girl," Carter said.
Finally, when the disrobing woman wanted more to drink, the cabbie dropped the kids off at a gas station about a quarter-mile from their home. They called the sheriff's department, which quickly tracked down the taxi.
Arrested on drug-possession and exposure charges was exotic dancer Nichole Hyde, 21. The driver was not arrested due to lack of evidence, but was suspended by the cab company that employed him.
Carter said the driver and his friend at first denied the incident, and tried bribing the kids.
"They offered us two years of free rides," Carter told the TV channel, "but we told them no."
— Thanks to Out There reader Steve B.
Man Nearly Crushed by Pipe Organ
A Sandusky, Ohio, man was rescued Wednesday after having been pinned under a pipe organ for about 10 days.
Elex Pentorn Jr.'s mail had been piling up, so apartment building workers Jack Johnson and Edward J. Ferback went to check on him, according to the Lorain Morning Journal. They found the 50-year-old man trapped underneath the 200-pound instrument, lifted it off him and called 911.
Paramedics rushed Pentorn to a local hospital. He was then flown to a special-care unit in Toledo (search), where he was in critical condition Friday.
"You could see the [organ's indentation] across his stomach when they picked him up," Johnson told the newspaper.
It appeared that Pentorn, said to be an expert weightlifter, may have had a stroke and pulled the organ down on top of himself.
"They said he was in there seven to 10 days," Johnson said. "They said another day, and he wouldn't have made it."
— Thanks to Out There reader Jill P.
Fisherman Pulls Live Man Out of Water
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — A bass fisher ended up a hero last Monday, saving a man stuck in the mud up to his chest in Lake Conestee (search).
"If the guy with the canoe had just not happened upon him, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have died there," Belmont Fire Chief Anthony Segars said. "He could have screamed his lungs out and wouldn't have been heard."
Mike Slagle said he had caught two bass before noticing something "kind of purple" covered in mud in the water.
Once Slagle realized it was a man, he tried to pull 36-year-old Steve Camden out, but could only get him partway out of the mud.
Lacking a phone, Slagle decided to paddle half a mile back to a convenience store for help.
"I was just asking God to let him live until I could get back," Slagle said.
When Slagle returned with a friend, Camden was unconscious and had fallen back into the water, his head nearly submerged.
"I believe he was drowning," Slagle said. "I held his head up with my boat paddle, and I could tell he must have been passed out."
Slagle scrambled on the bank and grabbed Camden by the hair and pulled his head out of the water. He then wrapped his legs around Camden and pulled him out of the mud.
"I just held on to him and kept telling him it's gonna to be all right."
Camden was taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital (search), where he was in fair condition Tuesday afternoon, spokeswoman Robyn Zimmerman said.
"I thank the Lord I was able to help him," Slagle said. "I just hope he's gonna be all right."
— Thanks to Out There reader Jeep B.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A man who added "rob bank" to his to-do list pleaded guilty to robbing six banks in suburban Kansas City.
John Sarver pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to six counts of bank robbery.
Sarver, 47, of Kansas City, Kan., admitted robbing the banks in suburban Leawood, Prairie Village, Shawnee and Olathe between January 2002 and December 2003.
In each case, Sarver handed a teller a note demanding money.
After his arrest on Jan. 2, officers searching his home found the list reminding him to rob a bank.
Sarver could get 20 years without parole on each count when he is sentenced July 12.
Hex Placed on Australian Prime Minister
COLAC, Australia (AP) — An Aboriginal woman clad in possum skins put a traditional curse on Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday, apparently in retaliation for government plans to abolish Australia's top indigenous elected body.
Howard, whose likely election opponent recently graced the pages of Out There, encountered the woman on a visit to Colac, an outback town with 500 people in the state of Victoria.
Supporters turned up to greet the prime minister, but so did angry Aboriginal protesters, among them the woman known only as Moopor.
Painted in traditional tribal makeup, Moopor stood silently and cast the curse by pointing an inch-long bone at Howard as he climbed into a waiting car. Howard smiled and waved at Moopor before leaving.
Moopor refused to speak with reporters, citing unspecified Aboriginal cultural reasons. It was not clear what effect the curse was intended to have on the prime minister.
Geoff Clark, the chairman of the soon-to-be scrapped Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (search), said the curse was a warning for Howard.
"Mr. Howard can ... ignore the message at his own peril and be put under a curse up until the next federal election," Clark told reporters.
Forbidden Fish Fry Nets Frat Boys
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — Two former fraternity brothers Friday were sentenced to community service — but escaped jail — for stealing and eating a jumbo goldfish at the University of California, Santa Cruz (search).
The men were drunk when they snatched the 18-inch koi fish, which was referred to as both Midas and Goldie, that lived in a university-owned pond. The men fried the fish and fed it to fraternity pledges last year.
Casey Loop, 23, and Matthew Cox, 22, last month pleaded no contest to misdemeanor grand theft and vandalism.
On Friday, a judge sentenced Loop to 300 hours of community service. Cox, who apologized for the prank immediately after the incident, was sentenced to 200 hours. They also received a combined five years probation. They could have received up to two years in jail.
As part of their sentences, each man will have to work 40 hours at a Japanese institute that has a pond filled with koi.
The incident was filmed for the MTV series "Fraternity Life," but never aired. Prosecutors used subpoenas to obtain out-takes.
Compiled by Foxnews.com's Paul Wagenseil.
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