The tale of Haleigh Poutre is an amazing one. She suffered a massive head injury in 2005 and remained in a vegetative state for two years. And just when doctors were about to recommend she be taken off life support in December 2007, she started to breath on her own and regained consciousness and was able to give police startling details about what may have put her in the coma in the first place.

Interviewed in her bedroom at Franciscan Hospital for Children, Haleigh communicated to investigators that her adoptive mother and stepfather, Holli and Jason Strickland, regularly used physical discipline, such as spanking her or slapping her in the face.

When asked about being hurt during her childhood, she did not directly say anything about the weekend in September 2005 when she lapsed into a coma. Prosecutors have described her adoptive mother as the harshest of her abusers, but Haleigh expressed to police largely fond feelings toward Holli Strickland, who took care of the girl since she was 4.

In another key development in the case, Haleigh’s younger sister, Samantha Poutre, 11, has given police a new statement this year about how Haleigh suffered her traumatic brain injury, the sources said. She told police that Haleigh was kicked down the stairs in an episode involving Holli and Jason Strickland. Samantha had previously told police that Haleigh may have hurt herself practicing a back flip and accidentally hitting her head on a basement pipe, defense lawyers have said.

We know we’re going to sound old, but we just have to say that we get annoyed with the teens today always texting, texting, texting. Not to mention how just the noun-turned-verb word “texting” is an assault on the English language. But when we read this story about how a teen’s texting skills caught some bad guys, it softened our attitude a bit.

Lauren Durnbaugh, 13, didn’t go to school Tuesday and was home when she heard someone open an unlocked rear door. She climbed into bed and hid under the covers as the suspects began ransacking rooms in the house about 15 miles southeast of Columbus, authorities said.

“OMG. They’re in the house. I think we’re being robbed,” Durnbaugh said in a text message to her mother, Margo Roby, 53, who was working at a car dealership about 15 minutes away.

Racing home, Roby called 911. Back in the house, the intruders roamed from room to room, and at one point sat on Lauren’s bed, police said.

Good for you, Lauren! If it was us, with our uncoordinated giant thumbs, the message would have said something like “OMg thr nthe hrse roejfoskdffasd;fkasfd”.

OK, this story is all kinds of messed up.

A 12-year-old girl died of a methadone overdose after taking pills she bought from a 15-year-old boy, authorities said.

The boy has been charged as a juvenile with criminally negligent homicide, criminal sale of a controlled substance and endangering the welfare of a child, his lawyer said Wednesday.

The boy took the pills — knowing what they were — from his father’s drawer March 10 and brought them to the girl, Dana Marie Regan, police youth investigator Charles Lopez testified Wednesday in Family Court in Westchester County. Methadone is best known as a prescription drug that curbs heroin addiction, but it increasingly is prescribed as a painkiller.

A 15-year-old girl from the Philippines is undergoing surgery to fix her feet that are so clubbed they twist upside down and backwards. Doctors at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York are performing the surgery free of charge. How cool is that? And hot on the heels of the story we highlighted last week about a pro bono surgery to remove a large tumor from a Vietnamese girl’s face. Rock on, medical community!

[Jingle Luis] and her mother have journeyed from the Philippines to Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for surgery Thursday and follow-up treatment that will consist of slowly rotating her feet until she can walk normally.

Her case is more severe than those usually seen by doctors in industrialized countries.

“Generally speaking, with modern technology, it doesn’t get to this point,” said Dr. Terry Amaral, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who will perform the surgery at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

If you need an example of how different cultures in the world are vastly different, we’ve got a perfect one for you.

Worshippers at a Muslim shrine in western India drop babies from a tower for good luck. The babies are tossed from the tower onto a cloth sheet more than 50 feet below. The infants land and bounce on a bed-sheet held taut by men 50 feet below, and are quickly passed through the crowd to their mothers.

This 500-year-old ritual is thought to bring the children good health. Villagers say no babies have been injured during the ritual, which is practiced by Muslims and Hindus in Musti village in the district of Solapur, in the state of Maharashtra.

Be sure to click through to the full story to see pictures of the event that would terrify most American parents.

A mom as well as five others were arrested on Chicago’s South Side after they allegedly got into a tangle with police who had converged on the woman’s home. What makes the story even more interesting is that one of the people arrested was a part of the whole Ryan Harris murder mess from several years ago.

Sonya Crawford, 41, is charged with aggravated battery of a police officer for her alleged actions Tuesday night.

Police arrested six people, including two juveniles, at the Crawford home. At least one other person will face felony charges, Bond said. One of the people arrested, 18-year-old Elijah Henderson, has a difficult history with police.

As an 8-year-old, Henderson and a then-7-year-old friend were arrested and charged with killing 11-year-old Ryan Harris — charges that were later dropped.

In the end, Henderson’s family agreed to a $6.2 million settlement with the City of Chicago.

Sounds like the Hendersons haven’t received that check yet…