It is once again time to vote for the Darwin Award nominees for 1996. As
you know these nominees will not be contributing to the gene pool
(thankfully). 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.
And 1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
The 1996 nominees are:
NOMINEE &1 [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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NOMINEE &2 [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]
James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he
was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-typetruck."
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."
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NOMINEE &3 [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."
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NOMINEE &4 [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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NOMINEE &5 [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 Torontom Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the
best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
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NOMINEE &6 [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.
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NOMINEE &7 [Bloomburg News Service, 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.
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NOMINEE &9 [18 May 93, San Jose Mercury News]
A 24-year-old salesman from Hialeah, Fla.., was killed near
Lantana, Fla.., in March when his car smashed into a pole in
the median strip of Interstate 95 in the middle of the
afternoon.
Police said that the man was traveling at 80 MPH and, judging by the
sales manual that was found open and clutched to his chest, had been
busy reading.
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NOMINEE &10 [1/29/96 The News of the weird.] JOINT NOMINEE
Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously
in 1989. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's
electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence
reduced to life in prison. In March 1989, sitting on a metal
toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit
into a wire and was electrocuted.
On Jan. 1, 1997, Laurence Baker, also a convicted murderer
once on death row, but later serving a life sentence at the state
prison in Pittsburgh, Pa., was electrocuted by his homemade
earphones as he watched his small TV while sitting on his metal
toilet.
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NOMINEE &11["The Indianapolis Star", Wed., Dec. 4, 1996].
Cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion
Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to
check the barrel of a muzzleloader was killed Monday night when the
weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said.
Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about
11:30 p.m.. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54-caliber
muzzleloader
that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to
look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.
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NOMINEE &12 [AP, Mammoth Lakes]
A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he hit a lift tower
at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a
foam pad, authorities said. Matthew David Hubal, 22, was pronounced
dead at Centinela Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m.,
the Mono County Sheriff's Department said. Hubal and his
friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley and
undid some yellow foam protectors from the lift towers, said
Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department.
The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit the
towers. The group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski
slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It was not clear if the tower
he hit was one with its pad removed.
"With the cold temperatures, the snow was probably pretty fast,"
said Donnelly.
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NOMINEE &13 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland, 5 May 1995]
A poacher electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland
fell into the water and suffered the same fate as his quarry,
police said Thursday. The 24-year-old man was one of four who went
fishing with a cable, one end of which they attached to a net and
the other to a high-voltage electricity supply line, the PAP news
agency quoted a police official in Wloclawek as saying. "For a while
everything went according to the poachers' plan and they had fish
in their bags. But at a certain moment the man holding the net tripped
and fell into the water," the agency said. The other poachers tried
in vain to revive him, it said.
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NOMINEE &14 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St.
Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo
grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without
paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store:
paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it
had choked him to death.
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NOMINEE 15 [Unknown]
To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an
overhanging rock --and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
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NOMINEE 16 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]
Blasting Cap Explodes in Man's Mouth at Party. A man at a party
popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an
explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police
said Wednesday.
Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a
prank during a party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D.Payne.
`Another man had it in an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and was
trying to explode it,'' Payne said. ``It wouldn't go off and this
guy said, `I'll show you how to set it off.
``I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that,''
Payne said.
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AND FINALLY, NOMINEE &17 [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1-1-93]
In December near Mineral Wells, Tex., three men who were
attempting to steal copper wire off live electrical lines for resale
were electrocuted. Copper wiring is a valuable scrap metal in
Texas but is usually stolen from electric cables that are not being
used.
*********************************************************************
Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners,
but still haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"
[UPI, Portland, OR]
Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said Wednesday an
Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to
be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital.
Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an
initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in
Grants Pass, Ore. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head,
but the arrow entered Roberts' right eye. Doctors said had the arrow
gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have cut
and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital
in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of
brain, with the tip protruding at the rear of his skill, yet somehow
managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had
Robert tried to pull the arrow out on his own he surely would have
killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had
been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, ``I feel so dumb about
this.''
No charges have been filed but the Josephine County district
attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
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from The Calgary Sun Saturday, December 28, 1996:
Low blow for gunman VANCOUVER (CP) -
A man arguing over a love triangle accidentally shot himself in the
groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said
the man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting
match early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants the
gun went off. Police were called to the hospital after the man in
his 20's was brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the
victim, who is expected to survive.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette, July 25, 1996:
Two Local Men Injured in Freak Truck Accident, Cotton Patch, Ark.
Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left
the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38
early Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported
the accident shortly after midnight Monday.
Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little
Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.
The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a
frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck
headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight
fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse
was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet
from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering
wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again
began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on east-bound
toward the White River bridge.
After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before
crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated,
discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved
sharply to the right exiting the pavement and striking a tree.
Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the
accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis
sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we
weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his nuts off or we might
both be dead" stated Wallis. |
