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Text File | 2002-11-09 | 7KB | 156 lines

It is once again time to vote for the Darwin Award nominees for 1997

 As you  know these nominees will not be contributing to the gene
 pool (thankfully). You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner:
 The man who found out moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an
 Arizona cliff that the JATO (jet assist take off) rocket he'd
 strapped to his car could not be turned off once it was turned on....

 The 1997 nominees are:

 NOMINEE #1 [San Jose Mercury News]

  An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former
  girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when
  the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

 NOMINEE #2 [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]

  James Burns, 34, of Alamo,Mich., was killed in March as he was trying
  to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns
  got a  friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung
  underneath so  that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise.
  Burns's clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found
  Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."


 NOMINEE #3 [Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92]

  Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December
  in Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone
  beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a
  Smith&Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his
  ear.


 NOMINEE #4 [UPI, Toronto]

  Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a
  downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder
  and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry
  Hoy,39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower
  early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the
  building's windows to visiting law students.  Hoy previously had
  conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police
  reports.

  Peter Lawyers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told
  the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and
  brightest"  members of the 200-man association.


 NOMINEE #5 [Bloomburg News, 25 March]

  A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed
  for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no
  mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in
  his system.  His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage
  (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of
  foods.  It appears that the  man died in his sleep from breathing the
  poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or
  had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal.  But the
  man  was shut up in his near air tight bedroom.  According to the
  article,

  He was a big man with a huge capacity  for creating "this deadly gas."
  Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.


 NOMINEE #6 [1/29/96 The News of the weird.]

  Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously in 1989.
  He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair
  on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in
  prison.  In March 1989, sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and
  attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was
  electrocuted.


 NOMINEE #7["The Indianapolis Star", Wed., Dec. 4, 1996].

  Cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion Dunkirk,
  Indiana.

  A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a
  muzzle loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in
  his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died
  in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m.  Investigators
  said Pryor was cleaning a .54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been
  firing properly.  He was using the lighter to look into the barrel
  when the gunpowder ignited.


 NOMINEE #8 [AP, St. Louis]

  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 found him unconscious in front of the store:  paramedics
  removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him
  to death.


 NOMINEE #9 [Unknown]

  To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an
  overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell on him.


 NOMINEE #10 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]

  Blasting Cap Explodes in Man's Mouth at Party.  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. "


 AND FINALLY, NOMINEE #11!!! [Arkansas Democrat Gazette], July 25, 1996:

  Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck
  left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38
  early Monday morning.  Woodruff County deputy  Dovey Snyder reported
  the accident shortly after midnight  Monday.  Thurston Poole, 33, of
  Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious
  condition at Baptist Medical Center.  The accident occurred as the
  two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an
  overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights
  malfunctioned.

  The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck
  had  burned out.  As a replacement fuse was not available,  Wallis
  noticed that the .22 caliber  bullet from his pistol fit perfectly
  into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting
  the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two
  men proceeded on east-bound toward the White River bridge.  After
  traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the
  river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole
  in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right
  exiting the  pavement and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor
  cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to
  repair the other wound.  Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was
  treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when
  Thurston shot his _____ off or we might both be dead" stated Wallis.

  "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but
  this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit
  how this accident happened", said Snyder.  Upon being notified of
  the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had
  caught and did anyone get them from the truck.