1999 Darwin Awards
It's that time of year again!! Latest Darwin
Award nominees: (the Darwin
award, for those not familiar, are for those
individuals who contribute
to the survival of the fittest by eliminating
themselves from the gene
pool before they have a chance to breed).
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A young Canadian man, searching for a way
of getting drunk cheaply
because he had no money 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.
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A 34 yr. old white male found dead in the
basement of his home died of
suffocation, police said. He was approximately
6' 2" and 225 lb. 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
hollow wooden section of
bedpost approximately 12 inches long and
3 inches in diameter. This
bedpost
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
members very awkward".
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Three Brazilian men were flying in a light
aircraft at low altitude when
another plane approached. It appears they
decided to "moon" the
occupants of the other plane, but lost control
of the plane and
crashed.
They were all found dead in the wreckage
with their pants around their
ankles.
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A police officer in Ohio responded to a call
that was made to 911. She
had no details before arriving except that
someone was reporting 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 if necessary, she noticed
burn marks around his
genitals.
After the ambulance arrived and removed
the man (who turned out to be
dead on
arrival at 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 electric sanders (with the
sandpaper removed for obvious reasons).
According to the story, after his orgasm the... ahem...
dis
charge
shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting
him to death.
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LOS ANGELES - Police officials would not
release the name of a Pacoima
man who was found dead yesterday after responding
to complaints from
neighbours that a bad smell was coming from
his apartment.
Upon entering the apartment, 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 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 nude
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 was found nude with this
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 allegedly
choked to death trying to extricate himself
from his predicament.
According to his apartment manager, the
white male in his mid-30's never
left his apartment, and had food delivered
weekly. Funeral services are
planned
for next week.
His next of kin requested that his name be withheld.
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A 27 year-old French woman lost control over
her car on a highway near
Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously
injuring her passenger and
killing her. 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.
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A 22-year-old Reston man was found dead yesterday
after he tried to use
occy straps (the stretchy little ropes with
hooks on each end) to bungee
jump
off a 70-foot railroad trestle, police said.
Fairfax County police said
Eric A. 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." An autopsy
is scheduled for later in the week.
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A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites.
Big deal you may say, but
there's a twist here that makes him a candidate.
It seems he and a
friend were playing catch with a rattlesnake.
You can guess what
happened from here. The friend (a future
Darwin Awards candidate) was
hospitalized.
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Several years ago, in a west Texas town,
employees in a medium-sized
warehouse 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.
Witnesses later described
the
vision of one of the technicians reaching
into his pocket, and
retrieving an object that resembled a 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
that was suspected of causing
the explosion had never been thought of
as "bright" by his peers.