It's that time again... The Darwin Awards are finally
out, the annual honor given to the persons 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.
This year's winner was a real rocket scientist....
HONEST!
Read on...And remember that each and every one of these is
a TRUE STORY.
And the nominees were:
Semifinalist #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 rushed to vomit into the fireplace in
his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his
house down, killing both him and his unfortunate sister.
Semifinalist #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 (HARD to control light airplanes when everyone moves
to one side).
Semifinalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston , VA man was found dead after he
tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot
rail road 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.'
Semifinalist #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.
Semifinalist #5
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. 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.
Now, to the winner of this year's Darwin Award
(awarded, as always, posthumously):
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering
metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road
at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of
an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was
unidentifiable at the scene. Police investigators finally
pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist ...
had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take
Off, actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give
heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for
taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy
Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight
stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the car,
jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!
The facts as best as could be determined are that the
operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a
distance of approximately 3..0 miles from the crash site.
This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at
that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum
thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds
well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for
an additional 20-25 seconds.
The driver, and soon to be pilot, would have experienced
G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under
full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the
remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on
the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds)
before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road
surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles
and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving
a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the
driver's remains were not recoverable. However, small
fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the
crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a
piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering
wheel.
Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a
ground speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his
voyage was not actually on the ground.
You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?
AND PEOPLE JUST LIKE THIS ARE ALL AROUND US TODAY -
AND THEY BREED & VOTE