One in the eye for the safety lobby

This is how the Health Service Journal covered the aftermath of the total eclipse of the sun that was visible from Cornwall in 1999:

Fears of mass retinal damage in the west of England came to nothing. The total eclipse that drew over a quarter of a million people to Cornish shores turned out to be one of the anti-climaxes of a lifetime.

"We only had one eye injury," said West Country ambulance service spokesman Darren Gibson, "and that was one of our own personnel who got dropped on by a seagull while he was looking up."

(Reprinted in the All Our Yesterdays feature in HSJ on 18 August this year.)