More Darwin Awards

Rowland Croucher

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Jan 12, 2009, 1:49:02 AM1/12/09

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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.

Now some of these are bogus, or semi-bogus... Check 'em out if you need
to (I'm not gonna do your snopesing for you :-) - but why spoil a good
story with some factuality? If some of these aren't true, they ought to
be :-)

*****

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 no min ees 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 deter min ed 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 beco min g 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 steeringwheel.

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, TOO...
--

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ (20,000 articles 4000 humor)

Blogs - http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/

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