◎羅彥傑

A 72-year-old man has credited his pet cockatiel with saving his life after raising the alarm by making a "heck of a noise" when he had a stroke.

一名72歲男子把自己能撿回一命，歸功於所養的寵物雞尾鸚鵡，因為鸚鵡在男子中風時，製造出「夠大的噪音」示警。

Brian Molineaux, a night porter, collapsed at his home in Chelmsford, Essex, before he could feed his 17-year-old pet, called Budgie.

布萊恩．莫里尼克斯是夜間門房，在還沒餵食17歲大、叫作「布吉」的寵物前，就在艾塞克斯郡切姆斯福市的家中昏倒。

The bird made "such a fuss" that it alerted his wife, Shirley, 68, who called for help.

這隻鳥「聒噪抱怨」，驚動到他68歲的妻子雪莉呼救。

Mrs Molineaux, who was in bed at the time, said her "sixth sense" alerted her to the fact that something "wasn’t quite right" on the morning of March 2.

當時在床上的莫里尼克斯太太說，她的「第六感」讓她驚覺到，3月2日這天上午有些「不太對勁」。

"Budgie is a free-flying bird in the house and when Brian gets up he always changes her feed," she said. "This morning he didn’t and she was waiting, as if to say：Where’s my food?"

「布吉在屋內是一隻自由飛翔的鳥，當布萊恩起床時，他總是會替她換飼料，」她說。「這天上午他沒有這麼做，而她正等著，就像是在說：我的食物呢？」

"She started making a lot of noise and a sixth sense made me come downstairs."

「她開始製造一堆噪音，第六感讓我下樓。」

新聞辭典

to credit~with …：片語，把…歸功於～；認為～有（某種優點或成就）。herbs credited with healing powers.（被認為具有治療疾病功能的草本植物。）

a heck of a~：片語，指極度的、糟糕的。heck是hell的委婉用語，用來加強語氣或咒罵。例句：They had a heck of an argument.（他們爭執不下。）

fuss：名詞，緊張、急躁、大驚小怪、抱怨或反對。例句：Don’t make such a fuss over losing money.（別為掉錢一事大驚小怪的。）