Thread: Darwin awards

DARWIN AWARDS 2002 (winner is #9 at end)

Hard to believe, but another year has passed (for those who don't know
it) and we have once again found the Darwin Award Winning Nominees. The
Darwin's are awarded every year to the persons who died (or almost died)
in the most stupid way. Named Darwin Awards because it is hoped that
"Survival of the Fittest" means something. Hopefully these idiots
haven't passed along their stupidity.

This year's 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
describe 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 Lawson, 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. 5: [Bloomberg 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 and an autopsy showed large
amounts of methane gas in his 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 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.
However, the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the
article, "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 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. While sitting on a metal toilet in \
his cell 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 a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a
cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader was killed Monday
night when he weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said.
Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about
11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54 caliber muzzle
loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look
into
the barrel when the gun powder ignited.

Nominee No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: 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. 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.

Finally, Nominee No. 9, The Winner!!!: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two
local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a
tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County
deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock
were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast
Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men
concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out.

As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22
caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the
steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again
began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward
the White River Bridge.
After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the
river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the
right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement and
striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the
accident, but will require surgery to repair the testicle.
Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released.

"Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off or
we might both be dead" stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years
in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that
those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder. Upon being
notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole's wife) asked how many frogs the boys
had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.