THE DARWIN AWARDS
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, MI, 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 buildings 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 A person has to wonder what the dimmer members of this law firm are like.
Nominee No. 5: [The News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin 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. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]: A Dunkirk, IN man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader, 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 at 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 gunpowder ignited.
Nominee No. 7: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. "Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheelchair when the accident occurred," said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. "It appears that the chair moved, and he went over the balcony," Honer said.
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-catching 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 rounds or cartridges from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon inserting a round, the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the round apparently overheated, discharged and the bullet of the round struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement, and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended. 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 be dead," stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for 10 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, Poole's wife Lavinia asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.
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Another fun article emailed to me by my brother. Some of these are probably pretty old, but they are probably all true, because I know that number 4 about the Toronto lawyer who pushed himself through a high floor window to his death happened in 1993, and is absolutely true. It was quite a sensational news story at the time.
At least she's being practical.
Of course, first things first. LOL
She has priorities and one of those is Friday night dinner
Those good old boys in Arkansas deserve to win the award.
Absolutely.
I know where this happened. I used to drive that way all the time for work. And I think they meant Cotton Plant not Cotton Patch. There's no such town of that name over that way
When Hélène or I see some particularly stupid behavior, we just say "Darwin!"
And to think that people like that are allowed to propagate (mind you, that guy in Arkansas is done with that, eh?).
Actually, the guy in Arkansas did fulfill the purpose of the Darwin Awards by effectively removing himself from the gene pool. I read about that one a few years ago when vehicles still had the old style fuse boxes that took tubular style fuses.
Last year's winner was a double award. Two guys driving across a drawbridge over the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The bridge opened and they tried jumping over the gap.....in a 100 horsepower Chevy Cruze. The local people said they were from Texas. They were double dumb. My wife owns a Cruze. You have to reach out the door and push with your foot to get it above 70 mph. By the way Buzz, you're going to have to start being extra careful crossing streets again. My wife just got her driver's license back after having it expire last year when she was in the hospital. It's a long way from Michigan to China but you can never tell; she might get lost.
Number 1, the guy with the shotgun reminded me of an incident during the Chicago Riot in 1968. The police were moving in two lines and one of the officers used a buttstroke from his shotgun on a rioter. The piece went off and shot the guy behind him in the face. We were actually warned about that one at the police academy some years later..
Thank for that removal from the gene pool info - it clarifies why that idiot was the winner. I'm not too good at checking the traffic when I cross the road so your wife could do me in. When I was in London, I was going to cross to get to Harridges, so I did what I always do, looked to my left to make sure it was clear, stepped off the curb and damn near got flattened by a taxi coming from the right. That confusion was the cause of the death of the Woody Allen character in the movie Scoop - he couldn't get used to driving on the left side of the road instead of the right.
I am guessing the last two were the winners because they actually lived...
I thought it strange that the Darwin award would go to anyone still living - I thought it was only for those who died due to their own stupidity. However, I guess since they were SO stupid they deserved it.
Actually the rule is that you cannot be able to breed anymore, so death isn't a requirement
Yeah, thanks, Rock pointed that out to me as well. .
will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended.
If this means he will not be able to reproduce then that is a good thing.
Exactly.