THE DARWIN AWARDS
Date: December,1997
The Darwin Award Is Made Each Year To The Person
Who Has Managed To Kill Themselves (and Therefore
Prevent The Survival Of Their Genes - Hence
Darwin!
THE DARWIN AWARDS
Date: December,1997
The Darwin Award is made each year to the person
who has managed to kill themselves (and therefore
prevent the survival of their genes - hence
Darwin!) in the most bizarre way imaginable.
Previous winners have included the man killed when
the vending machine he was trying to extract a can of
Coke from fell on him, and last years aviator who
strapped a JATO module (rocket) to his car and lit
the blue touchpaper.
This year's runner-ups
#1 - [AP, Mammoth Lakes, CA] A San Anselmo man
died yesterday when he hit a lift tower at the
Mammoth mountain ski area while riding down the
slope on a foam pad, authorities said. Matthew
David Hubal, 22, was pronounced dead at Centinela
Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3
a.m. The Mono County Sheriff's Department said
Hubal and his friends had apparently hiked up a
ski run called Stump Alley and undid some yellow
foam protectors from the lift towers. Lieutenant
Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police
Department said the pads are used to protect
skiers who might hit the towers. The group
apparently used the pads to slide down the ski
slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It has
since been investigated that the tower he hit was
the one with its pad removed.
#2 - [AP,St. Louis, MO] Robert Puelo, 32, was
apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market.
When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo
grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and
walked out without paying for it. Police later
found him unconscious in front of the store:
paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his
throat, Where it had choked him to death.
#3 - [UPI, Spain] A poacher Marino Malerba, shot a
stag standing above him on an overhanging rock-and
was killed instantly when it fell on him.
#4 - [Associated Press,Kincaid, W. VA] A man at a
party popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit
down, triggering an explosion that blew off his
lips, teeth and tongue, state police said
Wednesday. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the
blasting cap as a prank during a party late
Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man
had it in an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and
was trying to explode it," Payne said. "It
wouldn't go off and this guy said, "I'll show you
how to set it off." "He put it in his mouth and
bit down. It blew all his teeth off, his tongue
and his lips," Payne said. Stromyer was listed in
guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial
injuries, according to a spokesman at Charleston
Area Medical Division. "I just can't imagine
anyone doing something like that," Payne said.
#5 -
[UPI,Portland, OR] Doctors at Portland's
University Hospital said Wednesday an Oregon man
shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky
to be alive, and will be released soon from the
hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye
last weekend during an initiation into a men's
rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants
Pass,Ore. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off
his head, but the arrow entered Roberts' right
eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter
to the left, a major blood vessel would have cut
and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University
Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8
to 10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding at
the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss
all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had
Robert tried to pull the arrow out on his own he
surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted
afterwards he and his friends had been drinking
that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel so
dumb about this." (I would feel 'dumb' too if that =
much of my brain had been skewered - KEB) =
No charges have been filed but the Josephine County =
district attorney's office said the initiation stunt =
is under investigation.
#6 - [AP, Arkansas] A woman named Linda went to Arkansas last week to visit
her in-laws, and while there, went to a store. She parked next to a car with
a woman sitting in it, her eyes closed and hands behind her head, apparently
sleeping. When Linda came out a while later, she again saw the woman, her
hands still behind her head but with her eyes open. The woman looked very
strange, so Linda tapped on the window and said "Are you okay?" The woman
answered "I've been shot in the head, and I am holding my brains in." Linda
didn't know what to do; so she ran into the store where store officials
called the paramedics. They had to break into the car because the door was
locked. When they got in, they found that the woman had bread dough on the
back of her head and in her hands. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had
exploded, apparently from the heat in the car, making a loud explosion like
that of a gunshot, and hit her in the head. When she reached back to find
what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She passed
out from fright at first, then attempted to hold her brains in!
#7 - From a radio program, a true report of a happening in Michigan, USA. A
guy buys a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000 and has $400+ monthly
payments. He and a friend go duck hunting and of course all the lakes are
frozen. These two Atomic Brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog, the
beer and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get
ready. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the
ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large
enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land on,
it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill. Out of the
back of the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with a short,
40-second fuse. Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration
that if they place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from
where they are standing (and the new Grand Cherokee), they don't want to
take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and
possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. So, they decide to light
this 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite.
Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the
beer,the guns and the dog? Yes, the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for
retrieving, especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog
takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick of
dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The
two men yell, scream, wave arms and wonder what to do now. The dog, cheered
on, keeps coming. One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The
shotgun is loaded with 8 duck shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab.
The dog stops for a moment,slightly confused but continues on. Another shot
and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused & of course
scared,thinking these two Nobel Prize winners have gone insane. He takes off
to find cover, (with the now really short fuse burning on the stick of
dynamite).... under the brand new Cherokee. BOOM ! Dog and Cherokee are
blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole,
leaving the two candidates for Co-leaders of the Known Universe standing
there with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces. The
insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of
explosives is not covered. He had yet to make the first of those $400+ a
month payments.
AND THE WINNER
John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington,
decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at George,
Washington. Having no tickets (but 18 beers among them) they sat in the
parking lot, and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy
enough to hop over the nine-foot high fence and sneak into the show. The two
friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was for
John--100 pounds heavier than Sal-to hop over, and then assist his friend
over the fence. Unfortunately for John, there was a 30 foot drop on the
other side of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself
crashing through a tree. His fall was abruptly halted by a large branch
which snagged him by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm
broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him. Figuring the
bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife and proceeded to
cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. When finally free, John
crashed below into Holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his entire body
and now being without his shorts, he was the unwilling victim of a holly
branch penetrating his rectal cavity. To make matters worse, his pocket
knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his left
thigh. Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to
throw him a rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds
less, he decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the
pickup truck. This is when things went from bad to worse. In his drunken
state, Sal put the truck into the wrong gear,pressed on the gas, and crashed
through the fence, landing on and killing his friend. Sal was thrown from
the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and also died at the scene.
Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet from
the vehicle and upon moving the truck, a half naked man, with numerous
scratches, a holly stick up his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and a pair of
shorts dangling from the tree branches 25 feet in the air.
