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. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing
both him and his sister
2. A
34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home died of
suffocation, according to police. He
was approximately 6'2" tall and weighed 225 pounds. 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 one end of a hollow wooden tube approx. 12" long and
3" in diameter. The tube's other
end 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 very awkward.
3. 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.
4. A
police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no details before arriving, except that someone had
reported 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, she noticed burn marks around his
genitals. After the ambulance arrived
and removed the man - who was declared dead on arrival at the 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 electrical
sanders (with the sandpaper removed, for obvious reasons). According to the story, after his orgasm the
discharge shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting him.
5. Los Angeles - Police
officials would not release the name of a Pacoima man who was found dead after
complaints from neighbors that a bad smell was coming from his apartment. Upon entering, 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 (LAPD) 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 naked 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 as found nude with
his 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 apparently choked to death trying to
extricate himself.
6. A
27-year-old French woman lost control of 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.
7. A
22-year-old Reston, VA 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 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."
8. 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.
9. Employees
in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas 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 (you can see what's coming, can't
you?). 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 it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but
the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never been
thought of as "bright" by his peers.
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