Beer frees man from avalanche.

I was thrilled to read the news story about a Slovak man who freed himself from an avalanche by drinking 60 bottles of beer and peeing on the snow to melt it. Trapped in his car, in Slovakia's Tatra mountains, he opened a beer to think about his predicament. Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunkenly staggering down a mountain road, four days later.

Wow. After the story was carried by a number of news services, (tribune.uk, sun.uk, ananova and others in India, New Zealand, and the U.S.) snopes.com debunked it.

And here I thought I had an excellent excuse to add beer to my car's emergency kit.