The following about the Darwin Awards - the annual
award given to the person who died the dumdest way possible.
So NEVER feel you've done something STUPID again!
You may recall the 1995 Darwin Award winner: The man who
found out moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff
that the JATO (jet assist take off ) unit he'd strapped to his car
could not be turned off once it was turned on. (still he achieved his
dream of having the fastest chevy in the world)
And 1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine
which toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda
out of it.
The 1996 nominees are:
NOMINEE #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.
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NOMINEE #2 [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]
James Burns, 34, 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."
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NOMINEE #3 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]
Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death. A man cleaning a bird
feeder on his balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto
suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death, police said Monday.
Stefan Macko, 55,was standing on a wheeled chair Sunday 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."It's one of those freak accidents. No foul
play is suspected."
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NOMINEE #4 [Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92]
Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death 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.
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NOMINEE #5 [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, 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 Lauwers, managing partner of the
firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was
"one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #6 [AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)]
Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that
had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18-year-old farmer was
the irst to descend into the 60-foot well. He drowned, apparently
after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said.
His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went
in one by one to help him, but also drowned.
Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were
pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later
pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south
of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #7 [Bloomburg News Service, 25 March]
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 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 from 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. He was ". .. a big man with a huge capacity
for creating [this deadly gas]." Three of the rescuers got ick
and one was hospitalized.
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NOMINEE #8 [Bloomburg News Service] withdrawn
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NOMINEE #9 [18 May 93, San Jose Mercury News]
A 24-year-old salesman from Hialeah, Fla., was killed near
Lantana, Fla., in March when his car smashed into a pole in the median
strip of Interstate 95 in the middle of the afternoon. Police said
that the man was traveling at 80 MPH and, judging by the sales manual
that was found open and clutched to his chest, had been busy
reading.
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NOMINEE #10 [1/29/96 The News of the weird.] JOINT NOMINEE
Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously in
1989. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric
chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to
life in prison. In March 1989, sitting on a metal toilet in his cell
and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was
electrocuted.
On Jan. 1, 1997, Laurence Baker, also a convicted murderer once
on death row, but later serving a life sentence at the state prison in
Pittsburgh,Pa., was electrocuted by his homemade earphones as he
watched his small TV while sitting on his metal toilet.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #11["The Indianapolis Star", Wed., Dec. 4, 1996].
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 Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home
about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54-caliber
muzzle loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the
lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #12 [AP, Mammoth Lakes]
A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he hit a lift tower at the
Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad,
authorities said.
Matthew David Hubal, 22, was pronounced dead at Centinela Mammoth
Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County
Sheriff's Department said. Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked
up a ski run called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors
from the lift towers, said Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth
Lakes Police Department.
The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit the towers. The
group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal
crashed into a tower. It was not clear if the tower he hit was one
with its pad removed. "With the cold temperatures, the snow
was probably pretty fast," said Donnelly.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #13 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland, 5 May 1995]
A poacher electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland fell
into the water and suffered the same fate as his quarry, police said
Thursday The 24-year-old man was one of four who went fishing
with a cable, one end of which they attached to a net and the
other to a high-voltage electricity supply line, the PAP news
agency quoted a police official in Wloclawekas saying. "For a
while everything went according to the poachers' plan and they
had fish in their bags. But at a certain moment the man holding
the net tripped and fell into the water," the agency said. The
other poachers tried in vain to revive him, it said.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE #14 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St.
Louismarket. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo 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 15 [Unknown]
The poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on
an overhanging rock -- and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
--------------------------------------------
NOMINEE 16 [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. ``I just can't imagine anyone doing something
like that,'' Payne said.
--------------------------------------------
AND FINALLY, NOMINEE #17 [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1-1-93]
In December near Mineral Wells, Tex., three men who were
attempting to steal copper wire off live electrical lines for resale
were electrocuted.
Copper wiring is a valuable scrap metal in Texas but is usually
stolenfrom electric cables that are not being used.
******************************************************************
Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners, but
still haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"
[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 last weekend during an
initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in
Grants Pass, Ore.
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
Portlandsaid 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 bloodvessels. Delashaw also said had Roberts tried to
pull he arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself.
Roberts admitted afterwards 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.
-------------------------------------------- Arkansas Democrat
Gazette, July 25, 1996:
Two Local Men Injured in Freak Truck Accident, Cotton Patch, Ark.
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 Rockare 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 WhiteRiver 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 nuts 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.
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rinny at dynamite.com.au
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Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
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