A Kansas mother is praising neighbor Nick Harris as "Superman" after her six-year-old daughter told her Harris somehow found the strength to lift a car off her. The girl escaped with minor injuries after she was pinned under the vehicle.
"He really is Superman," Kristen Hough, the child's mother, said Friday of Harris, the man who saved her daughter, Ashlyn.
Harris, 32, said he doesn't know how he managed to lift the Mercury sedan off the child. The 5-foot-7, 185-pound Harris said he tried later that day to lift other cars but couldn't.
"But somehow, adrenaline, hand of God, whatever you want to call it, I don't know how I did it," he said.
Harris was dropping off his eight-year-old daughter at school last week when he saw a driver backing out of a driveway and over Ashlyn.
Doctor David Banner studies incidents of people who, while in danger, somehow manage to summon superhuman strength in order to save their loved ones. He said that the likely cause of Harris' sudden surge of power was sunspots.
"High levels of gamma radiation from sunspots are the cause," Banner confirmed. "The emotional stress experienced in these situations, combined with the gamma radiation, can alter the body chemistry to cause an increase in strength."
To test these theories, Banner has bombarded his own body with gamma radiation in a clinical laboratory setting. When asked about the dangers of experimenting with radiation, Banner dismissed the risks with an anecdote from his own experiences.
"Well, there was this one time that the faculty had upgraded the equipment without telling me, and I inadvertently exposed myself to much higher doses than I had intended. But afterward, I tried to lift some of the heavy machines in the lab with no results."
Despite these fascinating events, the town has experienced other unique situations since the recent arrival of Banner. A former reporter for a local paper, Jack McGee, claims that Banner is not what he seems.
"The guy's a freak. Don't let him fool you. He can lift the shit of a car. And a tank. And a boat. I've seen him. He turns into a seven-foot tall, 330-pound, green-skinned savage sub-human with super strength." McGee spoke to reporters from his cell in a nearby asylum.
