Die Darwin Awards 2007 wurden vergeben
Ein paar besonders erwähnenswerte Fälle folgen:
Es ist ein Haufen Holz, aber lohnt sich zu lesen
(20 June 2007, South Carolina) A passing cabbie found a 21 year-old couple Znaked and injured in the road an hour before sunrise. The two people died at the nearest hospital without regaining consciousness. Authorities were at a loss to explain what had happened. There were no witnesses, no trace of clothing, and no wrecked cars or motorcycles.
Investigators eventually found a clue high on the roof of a nearby building: two sets of neatly folded clothes. Safe sex takes on a whole new meaning when you are perched on the edge of a pyramid-shaped metal roof. "It appears as if [they] accidentally fell off the roof," Sgt. Florence McCants said.
This is a true Darwin Award trifecta: TWO people die, WHILE in the act of procreation, due to an ASTONISHINGLY poor decision. Bottom line: If you put yourself in a precarious "position" at the edge of a pointy roof, you may well find yourself coming and going at the same time.
Ironically, one of the deceased was named "Tumbleston."
(21 May 2004, Texas) Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor... well, rectally. His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol in this manner. The result was the same: inebriation.
The machine shop owner couldn't imbibe alcohol by mouth due to a painful throat ailment, so he elected to receive his favourite beverage via enema. And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party. Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces, right up the old address!
When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or pass out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out) the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed. The next morning, Michael was dead.
The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself. According to toxicology reports, his blood alcohol level was 0.47%.
In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove himself from the gene pool via an "astounding misapplication of judgment." Three litres of sherry up the butt can only be described as astounding. Unsurprisingly, his neighbors said they were surprised to learn of the incident.
(27 July 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico) 24-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel's gym when she realised she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.
So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow, she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up towards her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, if she was looking down, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?
Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let's just say, the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.
"Gravity still works."
(28 July 2007, Czech Republic) A pack of thieves attempted to steal scrap metal from an abandoned factory in Kladno. Unfortunately for them, they selected the steel girders that supported the factory roof. When the roof supports were dismantled, the roof fell, fatally crushing two thieves and injuring three others.
(21 June 2007, Philippines) Three entrepreneurs planned to profit from stolen scrap metal. They entered a former US military complex and approached the prize: an abandoned water tank. Bedazzled by the potential upside, the three threw logic to the wind, and began to cut the metal legs out from under the tank. Guess where it fell? Straight onto the thieves. Their flattened bodies have not yet been identified.
(31 July 1997) Two teens were disassembling an electric tower with wrenches when it toppled to the ground. They apparently wanted to sell its aluminum supports for scrap, but they failed to realize the essential role the aptly named "support" plays in a 160-foot tower. One of the men was crushed by the collapse of the ten-thousand-pound tower, while the other dug himself out from under, a sadder but wiser man from his close brush with a Darwin Award.
Rare Double Darwin.
(12 September 2007, Tampa, Florida) The setup: A woman wins two concert tickets from a local radio station. She can't believe her luck. The Dave Matthews Band, live! She invites her friend to join her. But they are in for more than a concert experience.
Flash forward to the next morning. My buddy, head of operations at the amphitheater, looks like hell. He tells me that two women were killed the previous night at the concert. I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened at the amphitheater. I ask for details.
Flash back to the previous evening, 8:30pm and pouring rain. The show is delayed. Two women leave the venue to escape the rain. They pass multiple free shuttle buses that run directly to the parking lot. Instead, they opt for a shortcut across a 7-lane Interstate.
They run a hundred yards through wet grass, and jump a six-foot fence that borders the road. Ahead are 3 lanes of freeway traffic, a 100' median, and another 4 lanes of traffic. Beyond that is another six-foot fence, the maze of an 'under construction' garage, and a long hike around a casino.
All in all, the 'shortcut' to their vehicle covers a distance of about a half mile. And the women are in a torrential thunderstorm. Free shuttle bus, or mad dash across dangerous territory?
My buddy was an eyewitness when the first vehicle struck the women at 8:30 pm. Oddly, this was in the first lane of traffic, on a straightaway where one can see headlights for miles in either direction. The impact hurled the women farther into traffic, and each was struck by a second car. They did not survive the collisions.
Ironically, one of the women was an "energetic and gifted athlete" who won two national championships in gymnastics. Physical prowess is no substitute for the homespun maxim:
"Stop. Look. Listen. Or tomorrow you'll be missing."
(19 August 2007, Serbia) It's well known that alcohol impairs judgement. It's well known that carnivorous wild animals and humans don't mix. What happens when we combine all three? One might expect men, beer, and bears to combine with lethal consequences. Such was the case for a 23-year old man who inadvertently fed himself to Masha and Misha at the Belgrade Zoo.
The Zoo director said of the incident,
"Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked, mauled corpse was found inside the bear habitat, along with several mobile phones, bricks, and plenty of beer cans. His clothes were completely undamaged, suggesting that he approached the bears bare-naked by choice. The bears, fearing that his intentions were as dishonorable as they were ill-informed, meted out a summary justice.
Later, Masha and Misha "reacted angrily" when keepers tried to recover the man's corpse, but were eventually persuaded to give up their tasty prize. We await word on how many beers were bartered for the body.
(10 January 2007, East Germany) A 63-year-old man's extraordinary effort to eradicate a mole from his property resulted in a victory for the mole. The man pounded several metal rods into the ground and connected them to a high-voltage power line, with the intent of rendering the subterranean realm uninhabitable.
Incidentally, the maneuver electrified the very ground he stood upon. He was found dead at his holiday property on the Baltic Sea. Police had to trip the main circuit breaker before venturing onto the property.
The precise date of the sexagenarian's demise could not be ascertained, but the electricity bill may provide a clue.
(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 Sharky, he was a can-do guy, not afraid to take risks to get the job done. He was a loose gun in a company of cowboys, and he seemed destined to make an original 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 fortives me for submitting him for a Darwin Award! He died doing what he always did... having a go.
(24 June 2007, Colorado) If you get "Footloose" and cut the rug on an oil tank, be careful not to light a cigarette or bong of weed, else you may soon be climbing the proverbial "Stairway to Heaven".
After smoking marijuana and liquoring themselves up at a popular party spot in Routt National Forest, the teens decided that it would be fun to leap and cavort upon a mostly-empty oil tank.
Mostly empty...
"There were several ignitions sources," according to the sheriff. Teenagers were smoking, and there was a bonfire nearby. The energetic gyrations of the dancers caused fumes to leak from the relief valve, and an ignition source sparked a "flashdance" as the crude oil storage tank exploded, hurling two teens 150 yards to their deaths.
(23 June 2007, Illinois) Two Valparaiso men tested their reflexes by playing "chicken" with a train. Which man could stay on the rail longest in the path of an oncoming train? At the stroke of midnight, the contest was decided. The winner, aptly named Patrick Stiff, lost his life.
The train continued on, as the conductor was unaware it hit anyone.
(2007, India) Increased mining and recent rains in southeast India have unsettled the wildife. In the past few months, migrating elephants have killed eleven people in southeast India. A team of four journalists decided to interview this herd of rogue elephants.
And they went into the forest in search of the rogues -- on foot.
Elephants are big, and elephants are fast. As the recent deaths illustrate, a person can't out-run an elephant. But these intrepid journalists apparently assumed that a press pass grants immunity.
With a nose for news, the journalists sniffed out the herd. Once located, it was only natural that they should capture the photogenic animals on film. Unfortunately, the elephants were camera shy. Angered by the flash, the irritated herd charged the paparazzi, miraculously killing only one of the four.
His remains could not be retrieved.
(14 January 2007, Augusta, West Virginia) Raising a new barn is an endeavor that brings a community together. Demolishing a barn is another question. A trio of friends set out to dismantle a dilapidated structure one bracing winter afternoon. Speaking of bracing...
One industrious friend fired up his chainsaw and ripped through a crucial support post. Carrying the weight of a full barn roof, those wooden beams were all that stood between the demolition workers and structural collapse.
With a little 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.
(1 January 2007, Netherlands) The first Darwin Award of 2007 goes to Serge Sluijters, 36, who thought it reasonable to hover over an illegal professional firework and light the electronic ignition with an open flame. But this was not a traditional wick; it was a device designed for precision timing. The flame triggered an immediate launch, and the fireworks catapulted upwards, killing our amateur pyrotechnician enroute to a spectacular burst across the night sky.
(October 2007, UK) John, 71, used wood and rope to make a traction device to ease his wife's neck pain. But applying traction to the neck takes a delicate touch. His DIY (do-it-yourself) medical device turned out to be a gallows, as John found out when he tested it and hung himself.
The Coroner's verdict: Death by Misadventure.
(26 February 2007, California) 29-year-old Oscar was driving on Highway 99 near Yuba City, when his Honda Accord crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a Hummer. The occupants of the Hummer were not seriously injured. California Highway Patrol officers found Oscar's laptop still running, and plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. Investigators believe that he was using it when his car crossed the center line.
"Driving is not a time to be practicing your multitasking skills," remarked CHP spokesman Tom Marshall.
Oscar is not alone. Last year, 510 California drivers were charged with reckless driving because they were using a TV, video, or computer monitor. A 2001 CHP study cites cell phone use as the top cause of crashes involving distracted drivers, followed by fiddling with music. "Anything that distracts you can kill you, whether it's eating lunch or working on a computer," an AAA spokesman said.
Oscar was a computer tutor. Hopefully his fatal lesson will teach others to surf on the information superhighway, not the asphalt superhighway.
(19 April 2007, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) Unwanted amorous advaces on a heifer resulted in a man's death at the hooves of the violated bovine. Sounds of a scuffle culminated in the discovery of his naked body lying beneath the frightened family cow. Injuries to his head and genital area were consistent with being kicked to death.
Why did he do it?
The man's divorce had become final a mere 10 days prior to his fateful final fling. In the divorce, and also a previous divorce, his ex-wives cited his insatiable desire as the cause of the dissolution.
Police concluded that the man died in a rape gone wrong. They do not plan to take action against the cow, which appeared to have been acting in self-defense.
(10 March 2007, Scotland) James, 26, was working on a new house when he was unexpectedly confronted by a malfunctioning cannister of insulating foam. "The operative picked up one of the cans and gave it a shake as recommended. A pressure explosion occurred when the can burst (and) the bottom section hit him on the chest. The impact was so severe that the bottom section crumpled and wrinkled to some six inches, resulting in his death."
A safety alert was issued, warning of the potential for cans of Evo-Stik Expanding Foam to undergo lethal decompression. But the warning was retracted when it was discovered that James had, for reasons unknown, applied a blowtorch to the pressurized 500-ml cannister.