WARNING THE FOLLOWING PIECE DEALS WITH EXTREMELY FUNNY WAYS PEOPLE HAVE...PASSED ON. So if you do not have a morbib sense of humor, perhaps you should skip this post.
On the other hand I hurt myself laughing at some of them especially the last one. Oh and one deals with Farts.
I did not correct any spelling mistakes, so don't flog me, I didn't write it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Truth is More Horrifying Than Fiction:
The Darwins
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 1995's winner: 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.
Well, now it's time to introduce the Darwin Award nominees for 1997. The
list is a rather long one, so be patient. As you know these nominees will
not be contributing to the gene pool (thankfully).
They 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 stomach.
NOMINEE #2 ["Kalamazoo Gazette"]
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]
Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death. A man cleaning a bird feeder on
the 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"]
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 Torontom Sun newspaper that Hoy was ''one of the best and
brightest'' members of the 200-man association.
NOMINEE #6 [AP, Cairo, Egypt]
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]
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 hi 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 ["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 ["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"]
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 probably pretty fast,'' said Donnelly.
NOMINEE #13 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland]
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
assaying.''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]
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.
And finally,
NOMINEE #17 ["Fort Worth Star-Telegram"]
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 the stories of two people that may be future nominees/winners, but
fell just short of dropping from the gene pool this year, and couldn't be
included on the 1997 ballot:
[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 Roberts
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.
["The Calgary Sun"]
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.
AND THE WINNER:
John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington,
decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at Gorge,
Washington. Having no tickets (but 18 beers among them) they sat in the
parking lot, and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy
enough to hop over the nine-foot high fence and sneak into the show. The
two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was
for John--100 pounds heavier than Sal--to hop over, and then assist his
friend over the fence. Unfortunately for John, there was a 30 foot drop on
the other side of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself
crashing through a tree. His fall was abruptly halted by a large branch
which snagged him by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm
broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him. Figuring the
bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife and proceeded to
cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. When finally free, John
crashed below into Holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his entire body
and now being without his shorts, he was the unwilling victim of a holly
branch penetrating his rectal cavity. To make matters worse, his pocket
knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his left
thigh. Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to
throw him a rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds
less, he decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the
pickup truck. This is when things went from bad to worse. In his drunken
state, Sal put the truck into the wrong gear, pressed on the gas, and
crashed through the fence, drops 30 feet landing on and killing his friend.
Sal was thrown from the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and also
died at the scene. Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver
thrown 100 feet from the vehicle and upon moving the truck, a half naked
man, with numerous scratches, a holly stick up his rectum, a knife in his
thigh, and a pair of shorts dangling from the tree branches 25 feet in the
air. |
