To all:
Well, here are the latest Darwin awards. Not nearly as good as last year's
crop but still representative of Darwinian biology. Enjoy
Yes, the one we've all been waiting for... Darwin Award 2000 They
have finally been released! For those not familiar with the Darwin
Award, it's an annual honor given to the person who provided the Universal
human gene pool the biggest service by getting killed in the most
extraordinarily stupid way.
As always, competition this year has been keen again. Some candidates
appear to have trained their whole lives for this event!
DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES
1. In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in
two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer
grate to retrieve his car keys.
2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally
zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a
100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug
into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones,
21 dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in
a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him
beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their
hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of
Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy
equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on.
Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he
fell face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was
burglar-izing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in
his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he
hit the floor.
5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20,
was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who
was
trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flakvest Berrena was
wearing.
6. Sylvester Briddell, Jr, 26, was killed in February in Selbyville,
Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver
loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel
Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus
earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their
snowmobiles.
DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS
1. In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede
with a shot from his 22-calibre rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock
near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his
skull.
2. In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out
cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favour of a propane
torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his
house.
3. Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalised in Andover Township, NJ, in
September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of
dynamite that blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the
bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see
what would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that the window was
closed.
MORE ALSO RANS
TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several friends when
One of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma
Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated
and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30am. Upon
arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had
brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and
pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable
was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge.
His fall lasted 40 feet before the
cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He meraculously
survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby
fishermen. "All I can say," said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for
me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot
was never located.
*****************************************************************
AND THE WINNER:
1. PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his
constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a
bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally
let fly-and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop! Investigators
say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the Ailing elephant an
olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck
full of mud. "The sheer force of the elephant's
unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he
struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to
evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police
detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay
under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along,
and during that time he suffocated. "It seems to be just one of those freak
accidents that happen."
Have fun,
Phil |
