THE
2001 DARWIN AWARDS
It's
that time again! The awards this year are classic. These awards are given
each year to bestow upon
(the remains of) that individual, who through
single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove
undesirable elements from the human gene
pool. In other words, only the most anal and idiotic people
and events are selected for this prestigious
award.
5th RUNNER-UP
Goes
to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at the
Mammoth Mountain
ski area while riding down the slope on a
foam pad. The 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth
Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 am., the Mono CountySheriff's department
said.Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump
Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift towers, said Lt.
Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are used
to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the pads
to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It has since
been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one with its
pad removed.
4th RUNNER-UP
Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without paying. Police found him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat where it had choked him to death.
3rd RUNNER-UP
Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
2nd RUNNER-UP
"Man loses face at party."A man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas who used the .22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup truck) popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M. D. Payne."Another man had it in an aquarium hooked to a battery and was trying to explode it." "It wouldn't go off and this guy said I'll show you how to set it off." Payne said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.
1st RUNNER-UP
Doctors
at Portland University Hospital said an Oregon man shot through the skull
by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive and will be released soon from
the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during
an initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous (probably
known now as Stupid Mountain Men Anonymous)in Grant's Pass, Oregon. A friend
tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Robert's
right eye. Doctors said that had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left,
a major blood vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon Doctor Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland
said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain with the tip protruding
at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels.
Delashaw also said that had Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on his
own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards that
he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel
so dumb about this." No
charges have been filed, but the Josephine
County district attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
Now THIS YEAR'S WINNER
(The
late) John Pernicky and his friend, (the late) Sal Hawkins, of the great
State of Washington, decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the
George Washington amphitheater. Having no tickets(but having had 18 beers
between them), they thought it would be easy to "hop" over the nine foot
fence and sneak into the show. They pulled their pickup truck over to the
fence and the plan was for Mr. Pernicky, who was 100-pounds heavier than
Mr. Hawkins) to hop the fence and then assist his friend over. Unfortunately
for (the late)Mr. Pernicky, there was a 30-foot drop on the other side
of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself crashing through
a tree. His fall was abruptly halted (and broken, along with his arm) by
a large branch that snagged him by his shorts. Dangling from the tree with
a broken arm, he looked down and saw some bushes below him. Possibly figuring
the bushes would break his fall, he removed his pocket knife and proceeded
to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. Finally free, Mr.
Pernicky crashed into holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his ENTIRE
body and now, without the protection of his shorts, a holly branch penetrated
his
rectum. To make matters worse, on landing,
his pocket knife penetrated his thigh. Mr. Hawkins, seeing his friend in
considerable pain and agony, threw him a rope and tried to pull him to
safety by tying the rope to the pickup truck and slowly driving away. However,
in his drunken haste/state, he put the truck into reverse and crashed through
the fence landing on his friend and killing him. Police arrived to find
the crashed pickup with its driver thrown 100feet from the truck and dead
at the scene from massive internal injuries. Upon moving the truck, they
found John under it half-naked, scratches on his body, a holly stick in
his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and his shorts dangling from a tree branch
25-feet in the air. Congratulations gentlemen, you win...
THE
1998 DARWIN AWARDS
~DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES~
1. In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, age 21, from Woodridge VA, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom, Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5' of sand. People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, but could not reach him.. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on ... Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burgling. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena,
20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23,
who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest
Berrena was wearing.
6. Sylvester Briddell, Jr , 26, was killed in February in Selbyville,
Delaware as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver
loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont , Daniel Kolta,
27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie
in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
~DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS~
(Not eligible for the Darwin
Award because they did not actually succeed in self-extermination)
1) In Guthrie, Okla , in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a shot from his 22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head fracturing his skull.
2) In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out cob-webs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
3) Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, in Sept. 96 and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of dynamite that blew up in their car . While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen,but they apparently failed to notice that the window was closed.
4) Taking "Amateur Night" Too Far: In Betulia, Colombia, an annual festival in November includes five days of amateur bullfighting. This year, no bull was killed, but dozens of matadors were injured, including one gored in the head and one Bobbittized. Said one participant, "It's just one bull against a thousand Morons."
THE
1997 DARWIN AWARD
NOMINEE No.1 [San Jose Mercury News]
An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.
NOMINEE No.2 [Kalamazoo Gazette]
James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."
NOMINEE No.3 [Hickory Daily Record]
Ken Charles Barker, 47, accidentally shot himself in December in Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson.38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.
NOMINEE No.4 [UPI, Toronto]
Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39-years of age, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports.
Peter Lawyers, managing partner of the firm Golden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
NOMINEE No.5 [Bloomburg News Service]
A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.
NOMINEE No.6 [The News of the Weird.]
Michael Anderson Goldwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. Whilst sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
NOMINEE NO.7 ["The Indianapolis Star".]
A cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion - Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle-loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Prior, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Prior was cleaning a .54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.
NOMINEE No.8 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Pule, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When
the clerk threatened to call police, Pule grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store; paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.
NOMINEE No.9 [Unknown]
To poacher Marino Malaga, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
NOMINEE No.10 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]
Blasting Cap Explodes in Man's Mouth at Party. A man at a party popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police said Wednesday. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during a party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and was trying to explode it," Payne said. "It wouldn't go off" and this guy said, "'I'll show you how to set it off."
NOMINEE No.11 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario.]
A man cleaning a birdfeeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel regional police. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said.
NOMINEE No.12 [UPI, Portland, OR]
Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said Wednesday, an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye during an initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous,in Grants Pass, OR. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Roberts' right eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said that if Robert had tried to pull the arrow out he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards that he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this."
NOMINEE No.13 [The Calgary Sun, Saturday, December 28, 1996 VANCOUVER
(CP)]
A man arguing over a love triangle accidentally shot himself in the groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said the man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting match early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants the gun went off. Police were called to the hospital after a man in his 20s was brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the victim, who is expected to survive.
AND FINALLY, NOMINEE No.14!!! [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]
Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center. The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on east-bound toward the White River bridge. After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right exiting the pavement and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his _____ off or we might both be dead" stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened", said Snyder. Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.
THE
1997 DARWIN AWARD
(1) Los Angeles, CA. Ani Saduki, 33, and his brother decided to remove a bees' nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a pineapple. A pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards, seriously lacerating Ani. Deciding Mr. Saduki need stitches, the brothers headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards their car, Ani was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to either brother,Ani was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation enroute to the hospital.
(2) Derrick L. Richards, 28, was charged in April in Minneapolis with third-degree murder in the death of his beloved cousin, Kenneth E. Richards. According to police, Derrick suggested a game of Russian roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol (instead of the more traditional revolver) to Ken's head and fired.
(3) Phillipsburg, NJ. An unidentified 29 year old male choked to death on a sequined pastie he had orally removed from an exotic dancer at a local establishment. "I didn't think he was going to eat it," the dancer identified only as "Ginger" said, adding "He was really drunk."
(4) In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
(5) MOSCOW, Russia-A drunk security man asked a colleague at the Moscow bank they were guarding to stab his bulletproof vest to see if it would protected him against a knife attack. It didn't, and the 25-year-old guard died of a heart wound. (It's good to see the Russians getting into the spirit of the Darwin Awards.)
(6) In France, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea.The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he died of hypothermia.
(7) RENTON, Washington, USA. On February 3, 1990, a Renton, Washington man tried to commit a robbery. This was probably his first attempt, as suggested by the fact that he had no previous record of violent crime, and by his terminally stupid choices as listed below:
1. The target was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gun shop.
2. The shop was full of customers, in a state where a substantial portion of the adult population is licensed to carry concealed handguns in public places.
3. To enter the shop, he had to step around a marked Police patrol car parked at the front door.
4. An officer in uniform was standing next to the counter, having coffee before reporting to duty. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, removing him from the gene pool. Several other customers also drew their guns, but didn't fire. No one else was hurt.
1997 DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS (I.E. Non-fatalities)
Gulf Breeze, Florida, three unidentified teenage males were using a home video camera to film an action/adventure "movie" one of the boys had written. In a scene that called for each character to be ignited by fire, the "special effects coordinator,"age 15, prepared the "stunt" youth by dousing lighter fluid onto his clothes. The intentional fire, which proved unexpectedly difficult to extinguish, left the young man with third degree burns on his left arm, torso, and both legs. It was all captured on film.
In Bradford, PA, J. Cruwe, 28, caught a small snake in a container which he handed to his wife. She opened the container and, startled to see the snake, dropped it. The excited and poisonous snake immediately bit Mr. Cruwe on the shin. Mr Cruwe survived the wound and recovered after a short visit to the local emergency room.
In rural Carbon County, PA, a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms from the rear deck of a home owned by Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim and, despite of the estimated 35 shots the group fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter drainage pipe some 100 feet away from Mr.Michaels' deck. Determined to terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the entire 5 gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no avail. Not one to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a submarine," according to witness Joseph McFadden, 31. Mr. Michaels was launched directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends, onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "followed by a loud thud." Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries. It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said, "Like when they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I'd do it again if I was sure I wouldn't get hurt."
TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the middle of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30a.m. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and pulled his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the frigid waters of the Tacoma Narrows and Puget Sound and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. All I can say," said Bingham, "Is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's severed foot was never located.
Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese trawler were plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. To a man they claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amid ships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes. They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargoplanes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily taken off for home. Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a now rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Larry Waters of Los Angeles -one of the few Darwin winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment. Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard.
One day, Larry, had a bright idea. He decided to fly. He went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium. The weather balloons, when fully inflated, would measure more than four feet across.
Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn chair. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with the helium.
He climbed on for a test while it was still only a few feet above the ground.
Satisfied it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches and a six-pack of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun-figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was time to descend and went back to the floating lawn chair.
He tied himself in along with his pellet gun and provisions. Larry's plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard after severing the anchor and in a few hours come back down.
Things didn't quite work out that way. When he cut the cord anchoring the lawn chair to his jeep, he didn't float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn't level of at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet.
After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 11,000 feet.
At that height he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting, cold and frightened, for more than 14 hours.
Then he really got in trouble. He found himself drifting into the primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport.
A United pilot first spotted Larry. He radioed the tower and described passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. Radar confirmed the existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the airport. LAX emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was dispatched to investigate. LAX is right on the ocean. Night was falling and the offshore breeze began to flow. It carried Larry out to sea with the helicopter in hot pursuit.
Several miles out, the helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew determined that Larry was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a rescue but the draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they neared.
Finally, the helicopter ascended to a position several hundred feet above Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was hauled back to shore.
The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by the helicopter crew. As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked why he had done it. Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly,
"A man can't just sit around."
THE
1996 DARWIN AWARD
An air force sergeant who attached a JATO (rocket) unit to his car and crashed into a cliff several hundred feet above the roadbed.
THE
1995 DARWIN AWARD
A fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
MORE
DARWIN AWARDS
A recent suicide was found as follows: 34 yr. old white male found in the basement of his home died of suffocation. He was approximately 6'2" and 225 lb. He was wearing a pleated skirt, wig, white bra, black and white saddle shoes and a woman's wig.
It appeared that he was trying to create a school girls uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask that had the filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its place. The other end of the hose was connected to a hollow wooden piece of a bed post approximately 12 inches long and 3 inches in diameter. This bedpost was inserted into his rear end for reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation. It was difficult to explain the circumstances of his death to his family members.
Better be careful Bambam!
Apparently, in Brazil, 3 people were flying in a plane at low altitude, when another plane approached. For a lark, they decided to "moon" the other plane. Somehow, in the execution of this maneuver, they lost control of the plane and crashed. They were all found dead with their pants around their ankles.
A police officer in Ohio responded to a call that was made to 911. She had no details before arriving except that someone was reporting that his father was not breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found this man face down on the couch, naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start CPR if necessary she noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance arrived and removed the man (who was and still is dead) the police made a closer inspection of the couch and noticed that the man had made a hole between the cushions. After flipping the couch over they discovered what caused his death. Apparently the man would put his penis between the cushions, down into the hole and between 2 ELECTRIC SANDERS (with out the sand paper obviously). According to the story, after he had his orgasm the, ahem, discharge shorted out the sander electrocuting him to death.
(AP) LOS ANGELES Police officials would not release the name of a Pacoima man who was found dead yesterday after responding to Complaints from neighbors that a bad smell was coming from his apartment. Upon entering the apartment, officers were surprised to see that every square inch of the apartment, including appliances and even the inside of the toilet, were covered with pornographic images cut from magazines. "The visual effect was very unsettling," said Officer Hradj of the Pacoima Police. "Because everything looked the same, You could not tell where one wall ended and a doorway began." The surprises did not end there, however. Police described the man as having "concocted a wire frame around his head" upon which the man had taped various pornographic images, apparently so he could freely move about his apartment without ever losing his close up view of nude bodies. Small slits had been cut into the paper so he could find his way, but according to Hradj, "he had almost no peripheral vision. He could barely see a thing." The man was found nude with this wire frame entangled in a hanging lamp "We think he had been dusting," said another police officer, "because a feather duster was lying nearby, and his head gear had somehow become caught in the lamp, which was chained to the ceiling." The man allegedly choked to death trying to extricate himself from his predicament. According to his apartment manager, the white male in his mid 30's never left his apartment, and had food delivered weekly. Funeral services are planned for next week. His next of kin requested that his name be withheld.
In an Inuit village, a young man was searching for a way of getting drunk for free because he had no money to buy alcohol. So he mixed gasoline with milk to get his buzz. After he drank it he became ill and vomited on the fireplace in his house which in turn ignited his vomit and burned his house down killing him and his sister.
A 27 year old woman from France lost control over her car on a Highway near Marseilles and crashed into a tree seriously injuring her Co-driver and killing herself. Accidents like this occur quite often and Usually don't qualify for a Darwin Award nomination. This accident is special because the drivers attention for the road was distracted by her Tamagotchi which hang on the car keys and beeped for food. Wanting to save the Tamagotchis life the French woman ignored the road and killed herself.