It's that time of year again!! Latest Darwin Award nominees:
(the Darwin award, for those not familiar, are for those
individuals who contribute to the survival of the fittest by
eliminating themselves from the gene pool before they have a
chance to breed).
A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk
cheaply because he had no money to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline
with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and
he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting
explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and
his sister.
A 34 yr. old white male found dead in the basement of his
home died of suffocation, police said. He was approximately 6'
2" and 225 lb. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black
and white saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared that he
was trying to create a schoolgirl's 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 section of bedpost
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. Police found the task of
explaining the circumstances of his death to his family
members very awkward".
Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low
altitude when another plane approached. It appears they decided
to "moon" the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of
the plane and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage
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 the 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 turned out to be
dead on arrival at hospital), the police made a closer
inspection of the couch, and noticed that the man had made a
hole between the cushions. Upon flipping the couch over they
discovered what caused his death. Apparently the man had a
habit of putting his penis between the cushions, down into the
hole and between two electric sanders (with the sandpaper
removed for obvious reasons). According to the story, after his
orgasm the... ahem... discharge shorted out one of the sanders,
electrocuting him to death.
LOS ANGELES - Police officials would not release the name of
a Pacoima man who was found dead 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 he
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.
A 27 year-old French woman lost control over her car on a
highway near Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously
injuring her passenger and killing herself. As a commonplace
road accident, this would not have qualified for a Darwin
nomination were it not for the fact that the driver's attention
had been distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which had
started urgently beeping for food as she drove along. In
attempting to press the correct buttons to save the
Tamagotchi's life, the woman lost her own.
A 22-year-old Reston man was found dead yesterday after he
tried to use occy straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks
on each end) to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle,
police said. Fairfax County police said Eric A. Barcia, a fast-
food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an
end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at
Lake Accotink Park, jumped ...and hit the pavement. Warren
Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia
was alone because his car was found nearby.
"The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than
the distance between the trestle and the ground" Carmichael
said.
Police say the apparent cause of death was "major trauma." An
autopsy is scheduled for later in the week.
A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. Big deal you
may say, but there's a twist here that makes him a candidate.
It seems he and a friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake.
You can guess what happened from here. The friend (a future
Darwin Awards candidate) was hospitalized.
Several years ago, in a west Texas town, employees in a
medium-sized warehouse noticed the smell of a gas leak.
Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all
potential sources of ignition - lights, power, etc. After the
building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas
company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found
they had difficulty navigating in the dark.
To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses
later described the vision of one of the technicians reaching
into his pocket, and retrieving an object that resembled a
lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in
the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles
away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was
virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician that was
suspected of causing the explosion had never been thought of
as "bright" by his peers.
