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.As he accelerated onto Interstate 290, the highway that cuts through Worcester, Murray heard a scraping sound on the roof of his car."You could hear it slide," Murray said of his son and the car seat."I looked to where he should have been.Then in the rear view mirror, I saw him sliding down the highway."Fortunately, the driver following Murray does not believe in tailgating."I was coming over Route 290 South about noon," said James Boothby, 67, a retired antiques dealer from Worcester."I saw something in the air.I thought it was garbage, something somebody had tossed out.Then I thought it was a doll.Then I saw the doll open its mouth.I couldn't believe it.It was a little baby."At this point, I290 is three lanes in each direction, and Mathew landed on "the driver's side of the middle lane," Boothby said.If Boothby had swerved, the Murrays believe their story would have had an unhappy ending.Instead, he came to a stop in the middle lane, halting the flow of traffic.Boothby said he was driving the speed limit—about 50 mph—when he caught sight of Mathew and his car seat."It just landed on the road," Boothby said of the car seat."It bounced a couple times, but it never tipped.It just sat right down."Page 153Murray, who estimated that Mathew was on the roof for a total of about 1 mile, said he stopped his car about "25 to 50 yards" past the point where his son had become airborne.With his car blocking traffic, Boothby got out to investigate.What he found was a baby uninjured and a car seat undamaged."I picked the little fellow up, and he looked all around," Boothby said."When he started crying, I knew everything was all right.He looked at me as if to say, 'Who are you?' He knew I wasn't daddy or mama.That's when he started to cry.""Thank God for him," Deanna Murray said of Boothby."I can't thank him enough."Commenting on the heavy traffic that had come to a sudden halt behind them, Boothby said, "It's amazing there weren't any fenderbenders."When Michael Murray reached Boothby, he snatched up his son, telling him, "When the police show up, tell them I went to the hospital."At the hospital, Mathew was deemed to be uninjured, though he was kept overnight for observation.While doctors scanned the son, the father was cited for driving to endanger.State Trooper Mario Tovar, who issued the citation, said, "I have never seen or heard of anything like this.It was kind of shocking, the whole thing.""He was a very happy kid, all smiles," Tovar said of Mathew at the hospital."The doctor gave him a good bill of health.He's a miracle baby.What a Mother's Day gift! The result was one in a million."Michael Murray noted that "the doctors said that with the shape of the car seat, it actually flew like an airplane."Murray's car is a hatchback, and its shape may have helped put Mathew into a glide path."We're definitely writing to the car seat company," said Deanna Murray.The seat was identified as a Gerry Guard with Glide, manufactured by Gerry Baby Products of Denver.Page 154When not used as a car seat, it can be converted into a mini rocking chair, hence the word "glide" in the chair's name, said company spokeswoman Stephanie Aragon.The seat is designed for infants weighing less than 20 pounds, she said.Said a grateful Deanna Murray: "The Gerry Glider—it certainly lived up to its name." (Reidy, 1992, pp.1, 18) Reprinted with permission of The Boston Globe.As in this story, the key to telling these stories is the human element.This is a people story.There must be plenty of emotion experienced by the primary characters/subjects in the article, as well as emotion experienced by the reader: horror, amusement, excitement, joy, depression, sympathy, sadness, and anger.Your assignment as a humaninterest article writer is to make your readers a vicarious participant in the drama.You react.You hope the baby survived without injury.You root for the child's careless father to make amends with the mother.Your readers' personal involvement in the news draws them further into what you have written and into the publication generally.These articles are most often the odd and unusual stories about people.Newspapers occasionally publish humaninterest articles in sidebar format to accompany other articles on the same subject.Magazines like these articles to contrast with other types of articles, such as travel articles, interview articles, hardhitting investigations, and regular departments and columns.The time element is of secondary importance in many humaninterest articles.In fact, some humaninterest subjects are really timeless and could be published anytime.Articles such as any of those sprinkled throughout this chapter are as interesting to read now as they were when was originally published.Often, the material that forms the story takes years, or even a lifetime, to evolve into the story.Only when the series of events culminates does the writer enter and begin to chronicle it for readers.Writer Donna Boetig recently told stories about "the cutest American heroes" for readers of McCall's magazine.She could not write this article until the episodes that she describes had run their courses.Her article focused on Bruno, Flopsy, and Ringo—courageous pets, she wrote—that helped their owners through tough times.One story in the three segments focused on a cat named Ringo.Here's how that section began:Page 155One morning in August 1995, Carol Steiner, a piano teacher, and her husband Ray, a math professor, could barely open their eyes.For the past five months, the Bowling Green, Ohio, couple had been sleeping 20 hours a day, so weak and fatigued they could barely care for Ringo, their 26pound red tabby Manx.They suffered from fierce headaches, nausea, high blood pressure—even memory loss.Their friends were deeply concerned, and their doctors were stymied.No one guessed the culprit: A deadly methane gas leak was building below the foundation of the Steiners' home, slowly poisoning the couple.Then something incredible happened—and the Steiners believe it saved their lives.Ringo, who'd just come from the yard, began flinging himself against the front door.Carol opened it, but Ringo just sat there meowing."What's your problem, boy?" she asked."Want me to come out?" Ringo jumped up and tilted his ears forward as if to say, "Finally.''Carol followed him into the yard.There, hidden behind some bushes next to the house, was the gas meter.Ringo began digging in the ground beside it."Suddenly he stopped, opened his mouth, curled his lips and pulled his nose up," she says."I bent down and nearly was overcome by fumes." (Boetig, 1998, p.70) Writing humaninterest articles requires a unique touch on the part of the writer.You have to have the right frame of mind to find the story and you need the right strategy to handle it.Approach the usual story in a certain way and it is still only a routine news item.If you take that same story and tell it with a human angle, it comes alive and becomes a better overall story, a humaninterest story [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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