the darwin awards

RESURRECTION MODE ... Activated

I love this topic.

Steel is Gold
(8 March 2008, Czech Republic) Steel is valuable, especially the high grade alloy used in steel cable. Scrap metal dealers do not ask questions. They pay in cash. And a good supply of cables can be found in elevator shafts.

This particular goldmine was a towering shaft inside an empty grainery near Zatec, 40 miles northwest of Prague. The cable was tightly fastened, and the far end of it disappeared into the shadowy distance above.
After substantial wear and tear on a hacksaw, our man finally cut through the strong steel cable. At that instant, the counterbalance, no longer held in check, started to move silently downwards, accelerating until it reached the bottom of the shaft.
Result: one proud winner of a "terminal velocity" Darwin Award. R.I.P.

Pierced
(January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23 year old man with various body piercings decided to see what it would feel like to connect his workplace test equipment to his chest piercings. Several co-workers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to connect himself to the electronic control tester. He ignored their pleas and proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his piercings. He hit the test button...
When the police and rescue personnel arrived, his co-workers were stiill trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing. They were not successful.

Pulling a Boner
(2 February 2008, New York) A 50-year-old man was bird hunting in Upstate New York with his buddies and his faithful canine companion. They stopped for a smoke, and he noticed that his dog had found a bone. It was a deer leg! The man tried to take the bone away from the dog. Like any right thinking dog, the animal would not relinquish its treasure, and stayed just out of reach.

Frustrated with this blatant show of disobedience, the man grabbed his loaded shotgun by the muzzle and began wielding it like a club. Each time he swung it, the dog dodged. Suddenly the "club" struck the ground and fired, shooting the man in the abdomen. His friends called 911 and he was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.
He did remain conscious long enough to confirm this account to police; otherwise, his poor friends might now be under suspicion of murder. At least he didn't hit the dog!

Wascally Wabbit
Snowmobiles and alcohol are a dangerous mix. Then came the rabbit.

After a day spent partying and racing snowmobiles in the wilderness, a group of snowmobilers headed back to their cabin. Up popped a jackrabbit! The snowmobilers gave chase. Several collisions were narrowly averted, and all snowmobiles backed off... except one.
This snowmobiler kept his eye on the quarry and rapidly closed in. The rabbit darted aside to save itself. The snowmobiler closed in again. The rabbit ran toward the road, where there was less snow. Trying to ram his rabbit before it crossed the road, the man accelerated to Mach 1. But the rabbit had other ideas. It escaped into the culvert beneath the road.
Witnesses stated that the snowmobiler never braked. There was a metallic crunch as the accelerating vehicle rammed into the culvert, followed by a blast that shattered the snowmobile into a thousand bits.
This brand of snowmobile had a fuel tank mounted in front. The culvert admitted the tip of the snowmobile, then cut into the cowling, spilling fuel over the hot engine. The body of the snowmobiler was blown twenty feet back into the field.
The rabbit's whereabouts was unknown. Moderator Bruce speculates, "Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd?"
Alternate title: "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow"

Pining Away
(Date Omitted) Three hale and hearty young men had finished their basic training. Before heading out to their respective assignments, they decided to spend their few days of leave with one's grandmother, who lived in the town where they had endured basic training. The privates descended upon Grandmother, who filled them with home cooking. Grandmother had a swing job to make ends meet, so the privates were left alone late into the night.

Grandmother had three children. To commemorate the birth of each child, a pine tree was planted in her front yard. In the fifty years since the last tree was planted, the pines had grown considerably. The middle tree now blocked the view from the living room window. To repay Grandmother for her kindness, the privates decided that they would cut down that tree, letting the sun and the view into the room.
A case of beer went into the planning.
To keep the 50-foot tree from crushing Grandmother's house, the privates reasoned that they would tie a rope to the top of the tree and pull the rope away from the house as the tree was cut.
The middle pine tree was slightly closer to the house. The privates climbed the end tree, wound a rope through its upper branches, and threw the rope to a private in the middle pine tree. He tied the rope to the middle tree. By this device, they could pull the rope from the ground, and the middle pine tree would fall away from the house. And the privates were also clear of the path of the falling tree.
Climbing a pine tree is a very sappy event, and scrapes and gouges are infliced by the natural roughness of its bark. But the hale and hearty privates completed the preliminaries, and the middle tree was lassoed and levered by the rope running through the end tree.
So far, so good.
Two privates were situated on the ground, each straining to pull the pine tree away from Grandmother's house. The third private revved his 20 HP chainsaw and started to cut. Lo and behold, the tree actually fell away from Grandmother's house! However...
The rope-pulling privates had wrapped the rope around their waists, not considering that the falling pine weighed several tons. As the middle pine tree fell, both privates were ripped off their feet and smashed through the branches of the end pine tree. At the height of their acceleration, they broke through the top branches of the tree, and were briefly airborne before being jerked toward the earth when the middle tree hit the ground. The privates entered into Darwin history, either on the way up through the branches, or on the way down to the cold, hard ground. The event spoke for itself.

Chemistry Went Over Her Head
(2 February 2008, Bulgaria) It was a cold but sunny February afternoon. Lidia, a biology teacher from Sofia, was driving home from a memorial service, accompanied by her husband and a friend. Suddenly, the vehicle stopped. Bystanders saw all three occupants dash from the car to a nearby manhole, and start pouring down liquids and powders from various bottles and jars.

Apparently, Lidia had been doing chemistry experiments in her free time, and had some noxious chemicals left over. It is still not entirely clear what the chemicals were, but two of the bottles had labels: diethyl ether and methanol, both highly flammable substances. The former is also used as a sedative, so one explanation for their actions is that they felt dizzy from the ether vapors, and thought it was a good idea to pour them in the sewer.
As it turns out, a good idea it definitely was not. The cocktail of flammable substances in the enclosed space of the sewer caused an explosion so powerful that it launched the manhole cover into the air, decapitating the (briefly) surprised Lidia. Left without a head on her shoulders, she decided it was time to kick the bucket. The other two people were not left unharmed, but were alive. They were taken to the hospital with burns on their faces. After several hours in the operating room, it appeared unlikely that they will regain their eyesight, but hopefully are able to speak well enough to tell their children that tossing random chemicals down the drain is not as wise as it might at first appear.

Into the Abyss
(Date Omitted) An enterprising lumberman jacked up the rear end of his pickup, and swapped one of the rear tires with a tire rim. He attached one end of a rope to the rim, and the other end to a large felled tree. He put the pickup into gear, apparently expecting the rim to act as a makeshift rope crank that would pull the tree up the steep embankment, saving him lots of sweat.

A great idea? Not if you're reading it here! You see, the tree vastly outweighed the truck. The man was standing with one foot on the ground and the other foot on the accelerator. When he gunned the engine, the tree acted like an anchor, and the truck yanked itself backwards. The open door rammed into him, and he was swept over the embankment along with the pickup. When the dust settled, our lumberman had entered the great beyond. But his escapade served as a warning for others. The next lumberman cut up the tree where it lay, and carried it off.

On the Piste
(2 February 2008, Italy) David, 46, was sliding down an Italian ski slope one night, riding on padding that he had removed from the safety barriers at the bottom of the run. It did not occur to him that it might be dangerous to sled down the same slope he had stripped of protective padding.

Sauze d'Oulx is one of five villages which make up the "Milky Way" ski area in northern Italy. Hugely popular with British skiers, the resort is known for its party atmosphere. A ski resort spokesperson for Sauze d'Oulx said, "The men had all been drinking when they tore off the padding, and ironically..." ...careened straight into the bare barriers at the bottom of the piste (groomed slope). David died from head and chest injuries inflicted by the unpadded metal. Two of his friends survived with medical attention. A third Darwin Award candidate is still missing after he wandered away "bloodied and distressed."

Taken from http://www.darwinawards.com/

__________________

Has anyone seen the movie The Darwin Awards? It's out on DVD and it's hilarious. Rent it if you can.

Saw The Darwin Awards movie a few months ago was very funny, definitely watch it if you haven’t already!

http://darwinawardsdvd.com/

His second great idea was to wiggle through the small window to the front seat of the patrol car.
His third great idea? He drove off in the patrol car, nevermind the State Patrol officers and deputies from two counties. Naturally, Anthony wished to elude pursuit. He did so by driving 90 mph, passing some cars and forcing others off the road. He was rapidly approaching the city of Lakeview when he encountered spike strips placed in his way by the police. But not even the setback of flat tires slowed him down. He could still control the disabled car and outrun the police! We will never know what he might have done if he had reached Lakeview. Following standard procedure, a state patrolman rammed the rear quarter panel of the stolen police cruiser, a move designed to spin and slow the car. But due to the flat tire and Anthony's erratic driving, the vehicle spun off the road and rolled.
Anthony's final mistake? He had neglected to fasten his seat belt. He was thrown from the car, and died a week later. Whether or not he managed to learn anything during that final week of reflection, one hopes that others will.

13 January 2008, Florida - Clothlined
A 37-year-old man was killed trying to cross the Manasota Key drawbridge on his motorcycle. Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, the man was seen racing at high speed towards the gap as the bridge began to open. Bridge designers had anticipated such lunacy and invented the crossing guard. The closing gates swept him off his Suzuki and over the side of the bridge, into the water and out of the gene pool. By a twist of fate, the motorcycle continued up the ramp and made it across to the other side!

2008 - Poppy Seeded
Darren was dumb even for a junkie, but what he lacked in IQ he made up in creativity. In the supermarket, he notice a bag labelled "Birdseed 100% Poppy Seed." He seized his chance to circumvent the stranglehold of the International Drug Cartels with the following logic: 100% Poppy Seed = 100% Opium! Figuring he was onto something good, he bought a bag of birdseed, boiled it into a thick black paste, and proceeded to inject it into his vein.
Nothing happened, so he did it again.
An hour later, he was brought unconscious to our Emergency Department, as sick as it is possible to be. His chest X-ray showed thousands of tiny seed-like objects scattered throughout his lungfields. Our working diagnosis was Milary Tuberculosis, so-called because the TB deposits resemble millet seeds. Little did we know! Only two weeks later, after he recovered from life-threatening septicaemia and multiple organ failure, did the true story emerge. Darren survived, but subsequently died of a garden variety overdose.

Near Miss - 1999, Scotland - Caulker Burner
The shipyard at Port Glasgow used a plasma cutter to cut steel for boats according to plans. For smaller holes, the plasma torch would just cut out the hole. But for larger holes, it was programmed to leave sections of uncut steel to make sure that no one could accidentally fall through. Once the steelwork had been positioned on the ship, a caulker burner would use an oxy-acetylene blowtorch to burn through the six-inch sections, thereby creating the properly-sized hole in the steel.
Enter our hero. Crawford was a caulker burner, and he had been tasked with the job of going onto the ship and cutting away these sections. The piece in question had been designed to allow a large exhaust pipe to come through the deck. Crawford began his task of burning away the steel. But Crawford had decided to stand in the middle of the hole he was burning out, which lead to a rather nasty fifteen-foot fall onto scaffolding below. He escaped with a few broken ribs and a month off work. Luckily for him, neither the blowtorch nor the large steel plate fell on top of him, therefore denying him a gloriously well-deserved Darwin Award.

Near Miss - Roundabout Rocket
Two boys were playing with miniature rockets that they had acquired goodness-knows-where. Between the two of them, the idea was formed to tie a string around the rocket, tether it to the backyard birdbath, and thereby cause it to whirl around the sky. Since no sturdy string was at hand, one had the brilliant idea to swipe some freely available yarn from his mother.

The scheme was laid.
They lit the rocket and skittered back from the wheel of sparks they expected. But their expectations were dashed. Instead of watching the rocket spin around its tether, a different experience was in store for them. The flame of the rocket propulsion quickly burnt through the yarn, and the rocket found a new trajectory straight into a vulnerable stomach.
The boy was alternately clutching his gut in pain, and smacking it to remove the rocket and extinguish the flames. He came away from the experience with a large bruise and a ruined, and hastily hidden, shirt. The boys never told their parents what they did. Here's the kicker: They had graduated from high school the day before!

28 July 2006, Australia - Footloose and Footwell
Police wished to question Gareth, 38, in connection with a stabbing. But he evaded that unpleasant business by driving his car into a power pole. It was initially assumed that he had simply lost control of the vehicle, but Victoria police soon determined that the fatal crash was caused by an accidental shot to the groin. Apparently the deceased had been driving along with a loaded firearm that he kept handy in the footwell of the car.

Near Miss - 26 January 2007, Texas - He Kicked the Bucket
In a world full of wonders, man invented boredom. So work time becomes play time. If you work in an office, you reproduce your naughty bits on the copy machine. If you work for an arc welding company? A plastic bucket, welding materials, and a single spark can combine for a play date with a bang.

"I was on the computer when I heard the boom," said a resident of the trailer park adjacent to the welding shop. "It shook my house. The whole neighborhood could feel it!"
Just for kicks, a 30-year-old welder and four co-workers had attempted to blow up a plastic bucket. Our man placed a striker, a spark-generating device used to start a welder's torch, in the plastic bucket and sealed it. Then he filled the bucket with acetylene, an explosive gas used for welding. The plan was to toss the bucket in the air, and watch it explode when the striker sparked.
Before that happened , however, our Darwin wannabe inadvertently kicked the plastic bucket, and the striker struck a spark. BOOM. The explosive force turned the lid of the bucket into a whirling saw that flew through the air and struck the man in his right arm, nearly severing it. He also sustained lacerations to his right leg. No one else was injured in the blast, and no charges were filed, as it was felt that the perpetrator of the incident had already been sufficiently punished.
I actually know a wanabee who would do this ... I refer to him as a Walking Darwin Award