...Or Was That A Towbar?

Eighty-two-year-old Mary Hornbrook of Auburn, WA went back inside her house Sunday to get a forgotten tool she needed to tend the plants on her porch. As she did, she heard a "boom" and the whole house shook.

"I wondered what it was and so I went out to look, and here was this thing sticking in the porch," Hornbrook said.

The "thing" in question was a 3-foot steel rod that had fallen through the roof of her porch -- and was now imbedded next to her plants!

The FAA says it was a wheel bar used to aid in the ground movement of helicopters. Someone apparently forgot to stow it before the helicopter departed Renton, WA a few minutes earlier.

The Schweizer 269C was on a training flight with a student an instructor aboard. Officials wouldn't say how they knew which aircraft the bar fell from.

Mary's husband Bill tells KOMO TV in Seattle that it's the craziest thing he's ever seen, and he's seen some crazy things in his 92 years.

For Mary's part, she's glad -- for a change -- her memory isn't what it used to be... as she isn't sure what would have happened if she hadn't forgotten that tool.

FMI: www.faa.gov