Viral videos of the week: A dramatic fire rescue, a dog rescued, and a train derails

30 Mar 2014

The theme for this week’s collection of viral videos appears to be disasters, both occurring and prevented, as a man makes a dramatic escape from a burning building and a train derails at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. If only a tiny superhero was around …

About 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, 500 years of video watched on Facebook every day, and more than 700 YouTube videos shared on Twitter each minute, ensuring there is always video trending on the web.

With so much video available for viewing, we take a look at some of the viral videos that have caught our eye this week.

Fire near AIG Campus

Being trapped in a burning building is easily one of the worst fears a person can think of. Unfortunately for one construction worker he had to face being stuck on a four-storey balcony with an inferno behind him.

I must stress, listen to this video on mute as the person filming it can only make you fear for the human race as her and her colleagues expressions of “OMG” take away from the man’s horrible situation. Thankfully, he was able to make his escape with the help of local firefighters.

 

Uploaded: 25 March 2014

Dog saved from torrential river

 A man certainly has a new best friend in the form of a local dog who was filmed struggling to cope with flooding and had become trapped in a torrential river. Thanks to the quick actions of the man, and a reluctant dog, the mutt was rescued from the river before it drowned.

The dog’s reaction to reaching dry land is priceless as he jumps up and down on the man and wags his tail in appreciation.

 

Uploaded: 25 March

Chicago train derails

An out-of-control train de-railing and stopping just inches away from the hero is a common scene in a Hollywood disaster film, but for two patrons of Chicago O’Hare’s Airport train station, this almost became a reality.

Raw footage of the crash was caught on camera as two men talking at the top of a stairway suddenly find themselves in the path of a de-railed train as it crashed up the stairs and stopping a few feet from the two men. Despite the lack of audio, you can almost hear the ‘phew’ coming from them.

 

Uploaded: 25 March 2014

Worst ‘panenka’ penalty of all time

While arguably a disaster, for the sport of football, one player facing off against Dublin team Lorcan Celtic decided to attempt one of the worst ‘panenka’ penalty kicks, that involves the player trying to chip the ball into the goal, ever seen.

Most shockingly, not a single laugh can be heard from the crowd at this bizarre spectacle.

 

Uploaded: 22 March 2014

Dogs don’t do magic

And back to dogs. Hardly known for the cleverness, it might be a bit of a given to assume that a dog is pretty incapable of understanding magic tricks.

That wasn’t going to stop Finnish magician Jose Ahonen at least attempting to see if they prove him wrong. Spoiler alert: dogs don’t do magic.

 

Uploaded: 21 March

Kevin Bacon’s Footloose Entrance

The word ‘Footloose’ alone sends almost anyone into an embarrassing attempt to replicate the dancing cult classic and star Kevin Bacon decided to whip out his old moves to ‘defy’ Jimmy Fallon’s decree of banning dancing on The Tonight Show. Old twinkle toes seems to still have the moves as he dances backstage before the grand finale.

 

Uploaded: 21 March 2014

Action Kid

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a kid dressed as Superman! A dad with some serious video editing skills hasdecided to make his kid the star attraction in a video series called Action Kid. This week, Superman uses his toy grappling gun to shoot up the ceiling. Damn he’s good.

 

Uploaded: 25 March 2014

Hearing-impaired woman hears for the first time

For those of us lucky enough, and most likely take for granted, our ability to hear the world around us, spare a thought for Jo Milne who, at the age of 40, was able to hear for the first time after being born with Usher’s syndrome, a condition that has her unable to hear.

Thanks to the wonders of science, the previously incurable condition was solved with the help of bilateral cochlea implants. Go science!

 

Uploaded: 26 March 2014

Mika Brzezinski shuts down co-host’s missing Malaysia jet speculation

It’s good to see that there are still some good journalists left in the mainstream news media as MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski gets fed up with her co-host’s idle speculation on the missing Malaysian airliner, MH370.

After she demands that they move on from the discussion, her co-host Joe Scarborough engages in what could possibly be the most patronising attempt to get Brzezinski to calm down, even to the point of ‘shushing’ her a number of times. Good on you, Mika.

 

Uploaded: 24 March 2014

Stay informed – get daily updates on the latest happenings in technology directly to your inbox.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com