Darwin Awards 2004

[Amazon 7]

2004 Darwin Awards...our gene pool declines



They're finally out again. . . the Darwin Awards are an annual honor given to the person(s) who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine that toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

This year's nominees are:

1. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.
2. Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the
occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.

3. A 22-year-old Reston, Virginia, man was found dead after he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped one 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."

4. A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend, no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate, was hospitalized.

5. An employee in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of gas and presumed a 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 sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of the warehouse up to three
miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter, being at the exact center of the resulting melee, was virtually untouched by the explosion. The "technician" suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of by his peers as "all there."



And the Winner . .

Based on a bet by the other members of his golfing threesome, Everett Sanchez tried to wash his own "balls" in a ball washer at the local golf course. Proving once again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix, Sanchez managed to straddle the ball washer and dangle his scrotum in the machine. Much to his dismay, one of his buddies upped the ante by spinning the crank on the machine with Sanchez's scrotum in place, thus wedging them solidly in the mechanism. Sanchez, who immediately passed his threshold of pain, collapsed and tumbled from his perch. unfortunately for Sanchez, the post of the ball washer was more than strong enough to support his body weight, and his sack was the weakest link. Sanchez's scrotum was ripped open during the fall, and one testicle was plucked from him forever and remained in the ball washer, while the other testicle was compressed and flattened as it was pulled between the housing of the washer and the rotating machinery inside. To add insult to injury, Sanchez then broke a new $300, graphite shaft driver that he had just purchased from the pro shop, and was attempting to use as a cane. Sanchez was rushed to the hospital for surgery, and the remaining threesome was asked to leave the course.

This wouldn't normally count, because the golfer didn't die. But because he can no longer reproduce, as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity, we have allowed it.

[SeaKev 0]

Job security for me.

[champu 1]

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And the Winner...

/edited to add, that smiley kinda looks like me <-

[jimbarry 0]

This story's from 2001. Snopes says 'false'.

[Kennedy 0]

Congratulations. You are about to induce the 10,000th rendition of Tuna's "snopes is not a reliable source of anything" rant.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[jimbarry 0]

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Congratulations. You are about to induce the 10,000th redition of Tuna's "snopes is not a reliable source of anything" rant.

understood, but, truth or fiction, the story's still from 2001. no, i can't prove snopes is reliable, but i'm pretty sure it hasn't invented the 'way back' machine.

(ed: google'd it. it's all over the place in 2001.)

[metalslug 31]

The gas explosion story is an old one too, definitely way before 2004.

There's an increasing number of "rogue" Darwin Award stories going around that seem to be a mix of urban legend and resurrected newsprint.

[mr2mk1g 10]

It's a pity as it means they've lost all credability. In the begining it was a genuinly amusing comment on society. No it's just bunkem.

[yoink 321]

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No it's just bunkem.

good word! You don't get a lot of 'bunkem' nowadays!

[mjosparky 3]

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This story's from 2001. Snopes says 'false'.

So what? They were still funny. Who are you going to believe, Snopes or Amazon?

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[Casurf1978 0]

You have to read lawn chair Larry. I almost chocked as I was taking a sip of water. This ones freaking funny:

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(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend.

Larry's plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.

When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He didn't level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.

At that height he felt 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 with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.

Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed."

[kingbunky 3]

the "offical" darwin awards site, but who actually acredits them?

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001