Old Darwin Awards
These are nearly always granted posthumously. This citation is
bestowed upon (the remains of) that individual, who through
single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable
elements from the human gene pool.
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[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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[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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[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.
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[Unknown, 25 March 1993] A Vapid Death
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
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 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 rescue
workers got sick and one was hospitalized.
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[Unknown] A Rapid Death
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded
into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The
wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The
type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out
what it was and what had happened. It seems that a guy had somehow gotten
hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off - actually a solid fuel rocket)
that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for
taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into
the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached
the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the
JATO! The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of
the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site.
This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that
location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum
thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess
of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds.
The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners,
basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the
event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about
2.5 miles (15-20) seconds before the driver applied and completely melted
the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road
surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting
the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet
deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable;
however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the
crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris
believed to be a portion of the steering wheel...
Nothing but Jokes by
Nauman Faridi
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