2005 Darwin Awards

In case you have been waiting breathlessly for this year's
Darwin Awards, here they are; The awards this year are, once again,
truly classic.



These awards are given each year to bestow upon (the remains or
estate of) that individual, who through single-minded self-sacrifice,
has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene
pool. Just think... until these events, these same people were walking
the streets like normal people.



5th RUNNER-UP:



Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a
lift tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope
on a foam pad. 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central
Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about
3:00 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 lift towers, said Lt. Mike
Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are used to
protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the pads
to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It has
since been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one with
its pad removed.



4th RUNNER-UP:



Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a
St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo
grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without
paying. 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.



3rd RUNNER-UP:



Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag
standing above him on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when
it fell on him.



2nd RUNNER-UP:



"Man loses face at party." A man at a West Virginia party
(probably related to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas who used
the.22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup truck) popped a blasting
cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off
his lips, teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the
blasting cap as a prank during the 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. It wouldn't go off and this guy said I'll
show you how to set it off." He put it into his mouth, bit down and it
blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue off Payne said. Stromyer
was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial
injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical
Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that,"
Payne said.



1st RUNNER-UP:



Doctors at Portland University Hospital said 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 (probably known now as Stupid Mountain Men Anonymous) in
Grants Pass, Oregon. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head,
but the arrow entered Robert's right eye. Doctors said that had the
arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have
been cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon, Doctor
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 had Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on his
own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards
that 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.



Now, THIS YEAR'S WINNER: (The late) John Pernicky and his
friend, (the late) Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington,
decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the George Washington
amphitheater. Having no tickets (but having had 18 beers between them),
they thought it would be easy to "hop" over the nine foot fence and
sneak into the show. They pulled their pickup truck over to the fence
and the plan was for Mr. Pernicky, who was 100 pounds heavier than Mr.
Hawkins, to hop the fence and then assist his friend over.



Unfortunately for (the late) Mr. Pernicky, 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
(and broken, along with his arm) by a large branch that snagged him by
his shorts. Dangling from the tree with a broken arm, he looked down
and saw some bushes below him. Possibly figuring the bushes would break
his fall, he removed his pocket knife and proceeded to cut away his
shorts to free himself from the tree. Finally free, Mr. Pernicky
crashed into holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his ENTIRE body
and now, without the protection of his shorts, a holly branch penetrated
his rectum. To make matters worse, upon landing his pocket knife
penetrated his thigh. Hawkins, seeing his friend in considerable pain
and agony, threw him a rope and tried to pull him to safety by tying the
rope to the pickup truck and slowly driving away.



However, in his drunken haste, he put the truck into reverse and
crashed through the fence landing on his friend and killing him. Police
arrived to find the crashed pickup with its driver thrown 100 feet from
the truck and dead at the scene from massive internal injuries. Upon
moving the truck, they found John under it half-naked, scratches on his
body, a holly stick in his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and his shorts
dangling from a tree branch 25 feet in the air.



Congratulations gentlemen! You win! And some more idiots have
been removed from the gene pool.

You realise, of course, that the idiots who live are automatically excluded from the Darwin awards? The whole idea is to celebrate idiots removing themselves from the gene pool.
The sole exception was the guy who attempted to abduct a young girl from a school playground (don't ask me which city in the USA, I only remember reading it in the paper), by threatening her with a handgun, and then dragging her, screaming to his car.
He apparently pushed her into the car, stuffed his handgun into the front of his pants. Whereupon she reached up and pulled the trigger, thereby performing a radical bilateral orchidectomy (castration). Since this idiot is effectively out of the gene pool, as I recall he made it into the finals but didn't win.



Cheers, Dave.

You may also like to know that all of these were in the "Darwin Book" at l;east 5 years ago.

Some days I think we need to remove more people from the gene pool but in our safety concious world it is getting harder and harder for these indivuduals to remove themselves "naturally" as Darwin would have like.

At least we still have ye old tried and true Alcohol to help speed up some peoples removal before they can do too much harm.

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck32:
Some days I think we need to remove more people from the gene pool but in our safety concious world it is getting harder and harder for these indivuduals to remove themselves "naturally" as Darwin would have like.

At least we still have ye old tried and true Alcohol to help speed up some peoples removal before they can do too much harm.

The only problem there is that the drunks usually take other, innocent people with them.

Cheers, Dave.

Another set - can any of these people be real?????

Surprise Attack Surprise

(3 January 2005, St. Maurice, Switzerland) It was the first week of a weapons refresher course, and Swiss Army Grenadier Detachment 20/5 had just finished training with live ammunition. The shooting instructor ordered the soldiers to secure their weapons for a break.

The 24-year-old second lieutenant, in charge of this detachment, decided this would be a good time to demonstrate a knife attack on a soldier. Wielding his bayonet, he leaped toward one of his men, achieving complete surprise.

But earlier that week, the soldiers had been drilled to release the safety catch and ready their guns for firing in the shortest possible time. The surprised soldier, seeing his lieutenant leaping toward him with a knife, snapped off a shot to protect himself from the attack.

The lesson could not have been more successful: the soldier had saved himself and protected the rest of the detachment from a surprise attack. The lieutenant might have wished to commend his soldier on his quick action and accurate marksmanship. Unfortunately, he had been killed with one shot.

And this, kiddies, is why we don't play with knives or guns. Ever. Even if we are trained professionals, and especially if our target is a trained professional.


***


"Plug Me In"


(7 March 2005, Vietnam) Nguyen, 21, had been drinking with friends in Hanoi, when he pulled out an old detonator he had found. It was about six centimeters long and eight centimeters in diameter, with two wires hanging out. Because it was old and rusty, Nguyen said, it couldn't explode. His friends disagreed.

To prove his point, Nguyen put the detonator in his mouth and asked his friend to plug the dangling wires into a 220-volt electrical receptacle.

Turns out Nyugen was wrong!

The victim had little time to reflect on his mistaken, or whether 220 volts alone could have been fatal. According to police, "the explosion blew out his cheeks and smashed all his teeth." He died on the way to the hospital.


***


Shoot 'em Off


(7 May 2002, Wisconsin) [CHANGED NAME] Lantern, 30, enjoyed playing a private game with his wife. He would pull down his pants, place the barrel of a shotgun against his scrotum, and tell her to pull the trigger. They had played this game frequently, to his immense pleasure. The gun was unloaded, of course.

On this pleasant Friday, he was excited to try again. The thrill was even larger because his wife's girlfriend was pulling into the driveway at the time. "Shoot 'em off before she gets here!" Lantern told his wife. She pulled the trigger. But this time, the gun was loaded.

Emergency crews arrived to find Lantern bleeding profusely from his groin, wearing shoes and socks, with his pants down around his ankles. The police were told it was an accident, and the couple didn't know the gun was loaded. Lantern was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, where he survived to earning the infrequent, but indisbutible, right to the rarest of honors: the Living Darwin Award.



***


Chimney-Cleaning Grenade


(13 January 2005, Croatia) One fateful afternoon, 55-year-old Marko retreated to his semi-detached workshop to make himself a tool for chimney cleaning. The chimney was too high for a simple broom to work, but if he could attach a brush to a chain and then weigh it down with something, that would do the trick. But what could he use as a weight?

He happened to have the perfect object. It was heavy, yet compact. And best of all, it was made of metal, so he could weld it to the chain. He must have somehow overlooked the fact that it was also a hand grenade and was filled with explosive material.

Marko turned on his welding apparatus and began to create an arc between the chain and the grenade. As the metal heated up, the grenade exploded. The force of the explosion killed poor Marko instantly, blasting shrapnel through the walls of the shed and shattering the windshield of a Mercedes parked outside. Marko's chimney was untouched, however.


***


Unsafe and Insane


(2003, Australia) Mothers often warn that firecrackers can blow your hand off, but as a 26-year-old Australian learned, they can also remove your gonads from the gene pool.

An ambulance rushed to an Illawarra park, after receiving reports that a man was hemorrhaging from his behind. The mercifully unidentified man had placed a lit firecracker between the cheeks of his buttocks, stumbled, and fell upon it. Emergency surgeon Dr. McCurdie said the resulting wound looked like "a war injury."

The explosion was forced upward, "blasted a great hole in the pelvis, ruptured the urethra, and injured muscles in the floor of the pelvis," rendering the man incontinent as well as sexually dysfunctional. This making him eligible for his first Darwin Award, while still living.

The accident resembled a scene from the MTV-inspired film, Jackass, although in the film, the firecrackers shoot into the air. It is unknown whether the victim was inspired by the film. "We do caution people against these acts," said Acting Senior Sergeant John Klepczarek of the local police.

RARE STILL-LIVING DARWIN AWARD!


***

Cigarettes Kill You


(17 June 2003, between Shap and Penrith, United Kingdom) National Express runs bus services throughout the UK. The service between Aberdeen and London takes approximately 12 hours. There's no smoking on the coach, making it a long trip for smokers. Sandra, 43, was riding south from Glasgow to visit her family, and she was getting more and more desperate for a cigarette.

The coach stopped at Carlisle. Finally she could satisfy her craving! But no, she was not allowed to get off the coach. Sandra sat in the bus, becoming more agitated by the mile. She was craving a cigarette. She needed it now.

Fellow passengers said she became increasingly anxious as the journey continued, and started shouting that she wanted to get off. However, the coach was on a motorway at the time, and was not allowed to stop except for an emergency. They saw Sandra push her hands against the passenger door in the middle of the lower deck. Surely she couldn't be trying to get off the coach to have that cigarette she'd been dreaming of, could she?

Oh yes she could!

Police concluded that she fell out of the coach, which was traveling at approximately 60mph, and was crushed under its wheels. At that point, the coach made that hoped-for emergency stop, but it was too late for Sandra. She died at the scene and
never did get to enjoy that cigarette.


***

White Russians


(11 June 2004, Siberia) Khabarovsk is as far east as you can get in Siberia without falling into the Sea of Japan. It's home to military installations which conducted top-secret operations the Cold War.

A few soldiers were poking around in the dump at their base and found a can full of a white powdery substance. At least 25 servicemen began using the handy substance, adding it to their tobacco when they rolled cigarettes, dusting it on their sweaty feet, and even snorting it. Within a short time, many of them became mysteriously ill and their hair began falling out.

Tests showed that the alluring white powder was thallium, an element once used as rat poison, but found to be so toxic that it is banned in the United States and several other countries. Extensive thallium exposure can cause liver and kidney damage, and organ failure.

Several soldiers were airlifted in serious condition to the St. Petersburg Academy of Military Medicine. They may not have earned a medal for their creative recycling efforts, but they did earn an Honorable Mention from the Darwin Awards.

So there is more than one living Darwin award member?
Wow!
But putting a shotgun against your nuts? And getting your wife to pull the trigger?

Now THAT is trusting (or stupidity, not sure which?), isn't it?

Cheers, Dave.

O my, I can't believe this one.

quote:

(16 January 2005, Florida) Two North Fort Myers residents, 23-year-old Molly and her husband, had rented a room in a local motel for some unspecified activity, perhaps involving perpetuation of the species. As Molly entered the second-floor room, she went straight for the lanai, which overlooked a concrete patio. Most guests would have seen the railing on the edge of the lanai as a safety feature, but for Molly it brought to mind fond memories of her youthful gymnastic abilities.

Molly called out to Todd, "Watch to see what I can still do." These would be her last words. She did a flip onto the railing for a handstand, just the way she used to do, then toppled over the other side, slamming into the patio 15 feet below. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

About 10 years ago we (me, 4 friends and our girlfriends) went to a newyears party at a local Hilton. One friend was on the second flore. She did the exact thing. She landed in the bushes though and only broke her back.