Rats!

The airport in Barranquilla, Colombia, was shut down for an hour after a power outage. Investigators found the problem: a rat short-circuited the airport’s power grid when it urinated on an electrical junction. “The rat was quite frazzled,” noted Civil Aviation director Ramon Emiliani. Meanwhile, a rat has been implicated in the deaths of 14 hospital patients in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The rodent chewed through electrical wiring, frying itself and cutting power to life support equipment. The deaths weren’t discovered until hours later, however, because “The hospital has very few employees on the weekends,” hospital Director Gustavo Zuniga explained. (Reuters, AP) ...I didn’t realize there were HMOs in Honduras.