Quote:
Darwin Awards - 2001. Hot off the press! The 2000-2001 Darwin Awards Are
Here!! The latest Darwin Awards update.... The Darwin Awards, for those
not familiar, are for those individuals who contribute to the survival
of the fittest by eliminating themselves from the gene pool before they
have a chance to breed.
>
>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 vomited
into the fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire
burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.
>
>2. A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home died
of suffocation, according to police. He was approximately 6'2" tall and
weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and
white saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared that he was trying to
create a schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas
mask that had the filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in
its place. The other end of the hose was connected to one end of a
hollow wooden tube approx. 12" long and 3" in diameter. The tube's other
end was inserted into his rear end for reasons unknown, and was the
cause of his suffocation. Police found the task of explaining the
circumstances of his death to his family very awkward.
>
> 3. 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.
>
>4. A police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no details
before arriving, except that someone had reported that his father was
not breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man face down on the
couch, naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start
CPR, she noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance
arrived and removed the man - who was declared dead on arrival at the
hospital - the police made a closer inspection of the couch, and noticed
that the man had made a hole between the cushions. Upon flipping the
couch over, they discovered what caused his death. Apparently the man
had a habit of putting his ***** between the cushions, down into the
hole and between two electrical sanders (with the sandpaper removed, for
obvious reasons). According to the story, after his orgasm the discharge
shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting him.
>
>5. A 27-year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway near
Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her passenger and
killing herself. As a commonplace road accident, this would not have
qualified for a Darwin nomination, were it not for the fact that the
driver's attention had been distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which
had started urgently beeping for food as she drove along. In an attempt
to press the correct buttons to save the Tamagotchi's life, the woman
lost her own.
>
>6. A 22-year-old Reston, VA. man was found dead after he tried to use
octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad 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".
>
>7. 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.
>
>8. 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 (you can see what's coming, can't you?). 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.
