The Runner-Up to this year's Darwin Award is one of my recent favorites!
The Darwin Award, as you may know, is the annual honor given
to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by the Coke machine, which toppled over on him as he was attempting to tip it for a free soda.
THIS YEAR'S RUNNER UP:
Although this contestant did not kill himself (this time), we
expect to be amused with the details of his demise in
the near future. This man was injured in an accident and was therefore
required to fill out an insurance claim form. As the cause of the accident, he put "poor planning." When the insurance company contacted him and asked for additional information, this was his response:
"You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I
trust the following details are sufficient. I am an
amateur radio operator and on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80-foot tower. When I had completed my work I discovered that I had, over the course of many trips up the tower, brought up some 300 pounds of tools and spare hardware. Rather than carry the now un-needed tools down by hand, I decided to lower the items down in a small barrel by using a pulley, which
was fortunately attached to the gin pole at the top of the tower.
Securing the rope at ground
level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the
tools and materials
into the barrel. Then I went back down and untied
the rope, holding it
tightly to ensure a slow descent of the barrel.
You will note in Block Number 11 of the accident reporting form that I weigh only 155 pounds. Due to my
surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly,
I lost my presence of
mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to
say, I proceeded at a
rather rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower.
In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel
coming down. This
explains my fractured skull and broken collarbone.
Slowed only slightly, I
continued my rapid
ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right
hand were two knuckles
deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time, I
had regained my presence
of mind and was able to hold onto the rope in spite
of my pain. At
approximately the same time, however, the barrel of
tools hit the ground and
the bottom fell out of the barrel. Devoid of the
weight of tools, the
barrel now weighed approximately 20 pounds. I refer
you again to my weight
in Block Number 11. As you might imagine, I began a
rapid descent down the
side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot
level, I met the barrel
coming up. This accounts for the two fractured
ankles, and the lacerations on my legs and lower
body. The encounter with
the barrel slowed me down enough to lessen my
injuries when I fell onto the
pile of tools and, fortunately, only three vertebrae
were cracked. I'm
sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the
tools, in pain,
Unable to stand, and watching the empty barrel
80 feet above, I again
lost my presence of mind. I let go of the rope
and..."
>This year's Darwin Award 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.
>
>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-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."
>
>NOMINEE #3 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]
>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."
>
>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. 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 Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was
>"one of the best and
>brightest" members of
>the 200-man association.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>NOMINEE 16 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]
>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.
>
>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.
>
>>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.
>
>Arkansas Democrat Gazette, July 25, 1996:
>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. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this
>part of the world, but
>this is a first for me. I can't believe that those
>two would admit how this
>accident happened", said Snyder. Upon being notified
>of the wreck, Lavinia,
>Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught
>and did anyone get
>them from the truck.
>
>AND THE WINNER IS:
>
> There are many transmission lines that cross
>Connecticut. These are held
>up by Transmission Towers of various construction.
>Those most commonly
>installed near urban areas are called "metal
>ornamental towers". Sometimes
>adventurous folks climb the towers in order to enjoy
>the view and the night
>air. Most stay away from the wires, and when they get
>bored, climb back down.
>
> Apparently, a man who was forlorn after a spat with
>his girlfriend needed
>some fresh air to clear his head and decided to climb
>a tower. He stopped
>for a six pack to help clear his thoughts, went to a
>tower south of
>Hartford, next to I-91, and climbed it. Public
>Service employees later
>pieced the story together. The man sat there 60 feet
>above the highway,
>drank his beer and consoled his bruised ego. After 5
>beers, he needed to do
>what people often need to do after 5
>beers. It being such a long hike down, he unzipped
>and did his business
>right there off the tower.
>
> Electricity is a funny thing. One doesn't need to
>touch a wire in order to
>get shocked. Depending on conditions, 115,000 volt
>lines, like those
>supported by the tower, could shock a person as far
>away as 6 feet. When
>the man relieved himself near the conductor, the
>power arced up his stream
>to his private parts and blew him off the tower.
>The guys at the power
>company noted a momentary outage on this line and
>sent repairmen to see if
>there was any damage. When they got to the scene,
>they found avery dead
>person, his fly down, what was left of his private
>parts smoking, and a
>single beer on top of the tower.
>
> |
