Groom left floating in the fjord
www.aftenposten.no ^ | 27 Jun 2006, 16:02 | Aftenposten English Web Desk
aftenposten.no
June is high season for weddings in Norway, like many other places in the world. And bachelor parties can sometimes get out of hand.
Such was the case with a would-be bridegroom in Trondheim earlier this month. His buddies thought they'd come up with a brilliant bachelor-party plan, but most of it went awry.
It all started when the 31-year-old bridegroom was picked up at his home in Trondheim's Bakklandet district. His friends took him down to the harbor, they all boarded a sailboat and off they sailed to the middle of the Trondheims Fjord.
Fortunately, the men dressed up the unsuspecting bridegroom in a survival suit before they dropped him into the water. "They were about two kilometers from land," Birgit Monsås of the Sør-Trøndelag Police District told newspaper Aftenposten.
The bridegroom's buddies had chartered a seaplane that was supposed to pluck him out of the water. But the waves got too high for the plane to land, and then the party on the sailboat lost sight of their man.
"So they called us," said Monsås. That set off a major search and rescue operation, complete with two police boats, a helicopter and a special rescue vessel, while more police and an ambulance waited on the shore.
Meanwhile, the bridegroom floated in the water in his survival suit, unaware of his own emergency. Suddenly he was surrounded by rescuers in the sea and in the sky, but assumed they were all part of his party.
"He was eventually taken home after lying in the water for about an hour," said Monsås. His best man was expected to be hit with a strong reprimand and fine. |
