1998 DARWIN AWARDS SUBMITTALS
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 headfirst 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 200-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 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 a bicycle shop he was burglarizing.
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.
8. In September, a 7-year-old boy fell off a 100-foot-high bluff near
Ozark, Ark , after he lost his grip swinging on a cross that marked the spot
where another person had fallen to his death in 1990.
DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS
1) In Guthrie, Okla , in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede
with a shot from his 22-caliber 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 favor of a propane torch
and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
3) Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized 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.
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