The 1996 Darwin Awards nominees
You may recall last year's 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.
Darwin Awards are (by definition) granted posthumously.
The 1996 nominees are:
[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.
[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.
[Unknown, 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 sick and
one was hospitalized.
[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."
[UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of
windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with
his shoulder and plunged24 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
thefirm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy
was"one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
[ed. note - I think this guy should win, not only because he removed
some incredibly stupid genes from the pool, but he also eliminated a
lawyer in the process... :] (best and brightest? whatever does that
say about the rest of them?)
[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 first 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.
[Times of London] A thief who sneaked into a hospital was scarred for
life when he tried to get a suntan. After evading security staff at
Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and helping himself to
doctor's paging devices, the thief spotted a vertical sunbed. He
walked into the unit and removed his clothes for a 45-minute tan.
However, the high-voltage UV machine at the hospital, which is
renowned for its treatment of burns victims, has a maximum dosage of
10seconds. After lying on the bed for almost 300 times the
recommended maximum time, the man was covered in blisters.Hours later,
when the pain of the burns became unbearable, he went to Southampton
General Hospital, 20 miles away, in Hampshire. Staff became
suspicious because he was wearing a doctor's coat. After tending his
wounds they called the police. Southampton police said: "This man
broke into Odstock and decided he fancied a quick suntan. Doctors say
he is going to be scarred for life.
"More intelligence-challenged people"
45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a
mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed
in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the
mechanic for an oil change. According to police, Brasher later said
that she didn't realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood
to change the oil.
Portsmouth, R.I.Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of
vending machine robberies in January when he: 1. fled from police
inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine
and 2. later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
Karen Lee Joachimi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, for
robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel. She was armed with only an
electric chainsaw, which was not plugged in.
The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into Burger
King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 am, flashed a gun and demanded
cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the
cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings,
the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man,
frustrated, walked away.
In case you've forgotten about the 1995 awardees, some of them are
listed below:
* 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." [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]
* Same thing up here in MI. Seems some poor fella thought it
would be a good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car. Newspaper
reports it took a FULL MINUTE of neighbors whacking away at him with a
2x4 to free their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.
* Bowling Green, Ohio, student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head
bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train. He told police he was
trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head
without getting hit.
* In Wesley Chapel, Florida, Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the leg
with pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car.
When repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he
couldn't find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.
Nothing but Jokes by
Nauman Faridi
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