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Newsgroups: alt.tasteless.jokes
Subject: The Darwin Awards
From: "Tom Drouillard" <drouitm@kent.net>
Date: 6 Feb 1997 04:51:19 GMT

The Darwin Awards

You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner:  The man who found out
moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the JATO (jet
assist take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned off once
it was turned on.

Darwin Awards are (by definition) granted posthumously.  This citation is
bestowed upon (the remains of) that individual, who through single-minded
self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the
human gene pool.

The 1996 nominees are:

[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.

[Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92]  Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot
himself to death in December in Newton, N.C., when, 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.

[Unknown, 25 March] 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 but 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 from 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.  But the man was shut up
in his near airtight bedroom. He was ". . . a big man with a huge capacity
for creating [this deadly gas]." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was
hospitalized.

[Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]  Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death. 
A man cleaning a bird feeder on his balcony of his condominium apartment in
this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death, police said
Monday.  Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair Sunday 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."It's one of those freak accidents.  No foul play is suspected."

[UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windowsin 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 had conducted demonstrations of window
strength according to police reports.  Peter Lauwers, managing partner of
thefirm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one
of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.

[AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)] Six people drowned Monday
while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern
Egypt.  An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot
well.  He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him
down, police said.His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim
well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned.  Two elderly
farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same
undercurrent.The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the
village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo.The chicken was also
pulled out.  It survived.

[Times of London] A thief who sneaked into a hospital was scarred for life
when he tried to get a suntan.  After evading  security staff at Odstock
Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and helping himself to doctor's paging
devices, the thief spotted a vertical sunbed.  He walked into the unit and
removed his clothes for a 45-minute tan.  However, the high-voltage UV 
machine at the hospital, which is renowned for its treatment of burns
victims, has a maximum dosage of 10seconds.  After lying on the bed for
almost 300 times the recommended maximum time, the man was covered in
blisters.Hours later, when the pain of the burns became unbearable, he went
to Southampton General Hospital, 20 miles away, in Hampshire.  Staff became
  
suspicious because he was wearing a doctor's coat.  After  tending his
wounds they called the police. Southampton police said: "This man broke
into Odstock and decided he fancied a quick suntan.  Doctors say he is
going to be scarred for life.

"More intelligence-challenged people"

45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a
mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed in
the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the mechanic for
an oil change. According to police, Brasher later said that she didn't
realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood to change the oil.

Portsmouth, R.I.Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of vending
machine robberies in January when he:  1.  fled from police inexplicably
when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine and 2.  later
tried to post his $400 bail in coins.

Karen Lee Joachimi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, for robbery of
a Howard Johnson's motel.  She was armed with only an electric chainsaw,
which was not plugged in.

The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into Burger King
in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 am, flashed a gun and demanded cash.  The
clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register
without a food order.  When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said
they weren't available for breakfast.  The man, frustrated, walked away.

In case you've forgotten about the 1995 awardees, some of them are listed
below:

*       James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was
trying to repair what police described 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."

 [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95] 
*       Same thing up here in MI.  Seems some poor fella thought it would
be a good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car.  Newspaper reports it
took a FULL MINUTE of neighbors whacking away at him with a 2x4 to free
their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.

*       Bowling Green, Ohio, student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head
bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train.  He told police he was
trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head without
getting hit.

*   In Wesley Chapel, Florida, Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the leg with
pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car.  When
repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he couldn't
find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.