The Darwin Awards are a never ending source of amusement for me. For those who don't know what they are, here is a short explanation:
The Darwin Award is awarded to people who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it in a spectacularly stupid manner. Normal persons with a smidgen of common sense would avoid situations that the winners have not. Winners are awarded the Darwin posthumously of course, the rare exception being those who eliminate their ability to procreate and thus avoid bringing more idiots into the world - thereby ensuring the survival of the human race for a while longer.
Here are some examples:
- When his brakes failed while driving down a steep mountain road, Marco bailed out on his eight passengers and leapt from his Dodge van. Too bad Marco didn't alert the others to the problem before he took flight so precipitously. Another passenger was able to bring the vehicle to a stop a short distance away. Marco struck his head on the pavement and died at the scene. No one else was injured.
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Woman attempts to make a bigger ass of herself -- and succeeds.
(26 March 2001, Florida) Many women try to reduce the size of their posteriors, but a few scrawnier specimens attempt the opposite. After exhausting a range less invasive home remedies such as wearing padded layers of underwear, a 53-year-old Fort Lauderdale woman persuaded an unlicensed underground "plastic surgeon" to boost her butt size by pumping it full of silicone in the comfort of her own living room. Hospital officials contacted police to report the suspicious death of the needle-marked woman, who had been delivered to the emergency room by rescue workers after suffering breathing difficulties in her apartment. -
(14 January 2007, Augusta, West Virginia) Raising a new barn is an endeavor that brings a community together in a working celebration. Demolishing a barn, on the other hand, is a job more or less for an individual.
There was wood to be cut, so it seemed sensible for one industrious friend to fire up his chainsaw. It was less sensible for him to set about severing crucial support posts. Carrying the weight of a full barn roof, those wooden beams were all that stood between the demolition workers and structural collapse.
With minimal forethought, this ill-fated lumberjack could have anticipated his soon-to-be deadly problem. It was all fun and games until the roof succumbed to the pull of gravity. As a consolation prize, the deceased was indeed successful at demolishing the barn.
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(Broome, Australia) When you work as a diver on a pearl farm, there are many ways to "buy the farm. " Mitchell Ether was my head diver for a couple of years. Known as exit.
One example happened in Roebuck Bay. He miscalculated the amount of fuel needed for the air compressor, which pumps air to the divers below. Instead of following standard procedure, bringing everyone up and refuelling during a surface interval, he surfaced alone mid-dive to top up the fuel tank while the compressor was still running.
The deck was unsteady, and naturally he spilled some petrol. The compressor had been running for hours. Its red-hot exhaust ignited the spilled fuel, and the flames followed the fuel into the half-filled tank.
The dive boat was brand-new, and worth $200, 000 fully kitted out for the pearl farm, including an oxygen bottle for resuscitations. The resulting mushroom cloud explosion from the oxy bottle startled observers all the way back in town, 5 kilometers away.
Luckily Sharky jumped back into the water before the big explosion, and he and his crew were picked up by another dive boat.
Despite this incident, Sharky was promoted to skipper of one of the larger vessels. He still found excuses to don the old dive gear, however. One such excuse was when a mooring rope tangled around the boat's propellor. Instead of asking an outfitted diver's assistance, Sharky chucked on his dive gear, started the compressor, clipped on his dive hose, and jumped off the back of the boat. But he neglected to take the boat out of gear. . .
The spinning prop soon entangled his dive hose and started reeling him in. His "lifeline" pulled him through the prop, and he died on the way to hospital. Sharky didn't have any children (that he knew of) but he did have a wicked sense of humour. I hope he forgives me for submitting him for a Darwin Award! He died doing what he always did. . . having a go.
