speaking of lobotomies....
1998 DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES
Once again it is time to start thinking about casting your vote for
the 1998 Darwin Award winner! As you may already know, the Darwin
Awards are for those nominees who contribute to the gene pool by dying
in spectacularly stupid ways before they breed (thankfully). The 1998
nominees are:
NOMINEE No. 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 No.2: [Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) 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 No.3: [Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger, 47,
accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC
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 No.4: [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 has conducted demonstrations of window strength according
to police reports. Peter Lawyers, 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 No.6: [The News of the Weird.] Michael Anderson Godwin made
News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting
South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having
his sentence reduced to life in prison. Whilst sitting on a metal
toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into
a wire and was electrocuted.
NOMINEE NO.7: ["The Indianapolis Star"]. A cigarette lighter may have
triggered fatal explosion - Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a
cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader 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 No.8: [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 No.9: [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 No.10: [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., MD. 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."
NOMINEE No.11: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man cleaning a
birdfeeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto
suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was
standing on a wheeled chair 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.
NOMINEE No.12: [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 during an initiation
into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants Pass, OR.
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 skull, yet somehow
managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said that if
Robert had tried to pull the arrow out 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."
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