Darwin Awards

[LEEW480]

Subject: Darwin Awards

They are finally out again. You all know about the Darwin Awards - Its an Annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

And the nominees are:

1.) A young Canadian man, 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.) 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.

3.) A 22-year-old, Glade Drive, 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 one 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."

4.) 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 hospitalized.

5.) Employee in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of a gas presumed a 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. 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 the warehouse up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter, being at the exact center of the resulting blast, was virtually untouched by the explosion. The "technician" suspected of causing the blast, had never been thought of by his peers as "all there."

And the Winner:

6.) Based on a bet by the other members of his golfing threesome, Everett Sanchez tried to wash his own "balls" in a ball washer at the local golf course. Proving once again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix, Sanchez managed to straddle the ball washer and dangle his scrotum in the machine. Much to his dismay, one of his buddies upped the ante by spinning the crank on the machine with Sanchez's scrotum in place, thus wedging them solidly in the mechanism. Sanchez, who immediately passed his threshold of pain, collapsed and tumbled from his perch. Unfortunately for Sanchez, the post of the ball washer was more than strong enough to support his body weight, and his sack was the weakest link. Sanchez's scrotum was ripped open during the fall, and one testicle was plucked from him forever and remained in the ball washer, while the other testicle was compressed and flattened as it was pulled between the housing of the washer, and the rotating machinery inside. To add insult to injury, Sanchez then broke a new $300.00 graphite shaft driver that he had just purchased from the pro shop, and was attempting to use as a cane. Sanchez was rushed to the hospital for surgery, and the remaining threesome was asked to leave the course.

This last one wouldn't normally count, because the golfer didn't die. But because he cannot reproduce as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity, we have allowed it.