Chain-Reaction Crash With Minor Injuries, Except for the Slime Eels
We’re signing off for the evening, but I doubt we’ll sleep tonight because...#eels
Hagfish have been documented escaping from sharks by choking them with “enormous amounts” of slime, Dr. Thaler wrote, adding
that the slime is so tough that scientists are exploring ways to use it to create natural Lycra.
A truck hauling 7,500 pounds of hagfish, also known as slime eels, was traveling on Highway 101 around
noon, transporting the fish to be exported to South Korea, where some diners consider them a delicacy.
Picture the scene from the 1984 “Ghostbusters” movie in which Dr. Peter Venkman, played by Bill Murray, complains about being “slimed.” Then multiply
that a thousandfold, and you’ll get some idea of what happened on a coastal highway in Depoe Bay, Ore., about 100 miles west of Portland.
By CHRISTOPHER MELEJULY 14, 2017
If you thought you were enduring a “summer of hell” commute, consider the repulsive mess created
on an Oregon highway on Thursday in a collision of modern transportation and prehistoric fish.
The truck’s load shifted, causing one of the containers carrying the hagfish to “fly across the highway,” the Oregon State Police said.
Workers used bulldozers and hoses to clean up the wriggling fish, which coated the road and cars in a slime
that they produce copiously for protection and when they are stressed.
