The Darwin Awards, for those not familiar, are for those
individuals who contribute to the survival of the fittest by eliminating
themselves from the gene pool before they have a chance to breed.
1. A young Canadian man from Newfoundland, searching for a way of getting drunk
cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with
milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the
fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his house down,
killing both him and his sister.
2. A 34-year-old male found dead in the basement of his home died of
suffocation, according to police. He was approximately 6'2" tall and
weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and white
saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared that he was trying to create a
schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask that had the
filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its place. The other end
of the hose was connected to one end of a hollow wooden tube approx. 12"
long and 3" in diameter. The tube's other end was inserted into his rear
end for reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation. Police found the
task of explaining the circumstances of his death to his family very awkward.
3. Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when
another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the occupants of
the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They were
all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.
4. A 27-year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway near
Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her passenger and killing
herself. As a commonplace road accident, this would not have qualified for a
Darwin nomination, were it not for the fact that the driver's attention had been
distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which had started urgently beeping for
food as she drove along. In an attempt to press the correct buttons to save the
Tamagotchi's life, the woman lost her own.
5. A 22-year-old Reston, VA man was found dead after he tried to use octopus
straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. Fairfax County police said
Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped
an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink
Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said
investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The
length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between
the trestle and the ground", Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause
of death was "Major trauma".
6. A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a friend
were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no
doubt, a future Darwin Awards candidate - was hospitalised.
7. Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of a
gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building, extinguishing all
potential sources of ignition lights, power, etc. After the building had been
evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering
the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their
frustration, none of the lights worked (you can see what's coming, can't you?).
Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his
pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon
operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending
pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but
the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected
of causing the blast had never been
thought of as 'bright' by his peers.
8.A guy buys a brand new Grand Cherokee for 30 thousand dollars and has 400+
dollar monthly payments. He immediately gets hold of his friend and they
go do some male bonding. They go duck hunting and as it is winter all the
lakes are frozen. These 2 atomic brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog,
the beer and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice
and get ready. They want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the
ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large
enough to look like something a wandering duck wants to fly down and land on, it
is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill. Out of the back of
the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40 second fuse.
Now these two rocket scientists do take into consideration that if they place
the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing
(and the new Grand Cherokee), they take the risk of slipping on the ice when
they run from the burning fuse and possibly going up in smoke with the resulting
blast. So, they decide to light this 40 second fuse and throw the dynamite
Remember the dog? A highly trained black lab used for retrieving, especially
things thrown by the owner. The dog takes off at a high rate of speed on
the ice and gets the stick of dynamite with the burning 40 second fuse. The dog
heads back towards its master with the stick of dynamite. Panicking his master
grabs a shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with #8 duck
shot, hardly big enough to stop a black lab on its appointed rounds. Dog
stops for a moment, slightly confused and continues on. Another shot and
this time the dog becomes really confused, and of course scared, and takes off
to find cover with the now really short short fuse burning on this stick of
dynamite. The cover the dogs finds? Underneath the brand new Grand
Cherokee 30 some thousand dollar, 400+ monthly payment vehicle sitting on the
lake ice.
BOOM!
Dog dies; it and the brand new Grand Cherokee 30 thousand dollar, 400+ monthly
payment vehicle sink to the bottom of the lake leaving the two candidates for
Co-leaders of the Known Universe standing there with this "I can't believe
this happened" look on their faces. Later, the owner of the vehicle calls
his insurance company which tells him that sinking a vehicle in a lake by
illegal use of explosives is not covered. He had yet to make the first of those
400+ dollar a month payments.