DOKAN 6/Dokan 06.iso/Webs/128.120.24.39/tidbits/darwin1.txt

Text File | 1998-09-05 | 13KB | 258 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) unit he'd strapped to his car
could not be turned off once it was turned on.

And 1995's winner was the fellow who was killed
by a Coke machine which toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a
free soda out of it.

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]
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' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found
Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."



NOMINEE #3 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]
Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death.  A man
cleaning a bird feeder on his balcony of his condominium apartment in
this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death, police said
Monday. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair
Sunday when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel
regional police. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the
balcony,"  Honer said. "It's one of those freak accidents.  No foul play is
suspected."



NOMINEE #4 [Hickory Daily Record]
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 #5 [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 Lauwers,
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 #6 [AP, Cairo, Egypt]
Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue
a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An
18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well.  He drowned,
apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police
said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went
in one by one to help him, but also drowned.  Two elderly farmers then
came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent.
The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of
Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled
out.  It survived.



NOMINEE #7 [Bloomburg News Service, 25 March]
A terrible diet and a 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 from 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
airtight bedroom. 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 #8 [San Jose Mercury News]
A 24-year-old salesman from Hialeah, Fla., was
killed near Lantana, Fla., in March when his car smashed into a pole in the
median strip of Interstate 95 in the middle of the afternoon. Police
said that the man was traveling at 80 MPH and, judging by the sales
manual that was found open and clutched to his chest, had been busy
reading.



NOMINEE #9 [The News of the weird.]  JOINT NOMINEE
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. On Jan. 1, 1997, Laurence Baker, also a convicted
murderer once on death row, but later serving a life sentence at the state
prison in Pittsburgh, Pa., was electrocuted by his homemade earphones
as he watched his small TV while sitting on his metal toilet.



NOMINEE #10 ["The Indianapolis Star"]
Cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion
Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the
barrel of a muzzleloader 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 #11 [AP, Mammoth Lakes]
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 apparently had hiked up a ski run
called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from the lift
towers, said Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police
Department.  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 was not clear if the tower he hit
was one with its pad removed.  "With the cold temperatures, the snow was probably
pretty fast," said Donnelly.



NOMINEE #12 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland]
A poacher electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland fell into the
water and suffered the same fate as his quarry, police said Thursday.
The 24-year-old man was one of four who went fishing with a cable, one
end of which they attached to a net and the other to a high-voltage electricity
supply line, the PAP news agency quoted a police official in Wloclawek
as saying. "For a while everything went according to the poachers' plan
and they had fish in their bags. But at  a certain moment the man holding
the net tripped and fell into the water," the  agency
said. The other poachers tried in vain to revive him, it said.



NOMINEE #13 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Puelo, (a.k.a. Don Burger) 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 #14 [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 #15 [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."
I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.



AND FINALLY, NOMINEE #16
In December near Mineral Wells, Tex., three men who were attempting to
steal copper wire off live electrical lines for resale were electrocuted.
Copper wiring is a valuable scrap metal in Texas but is usually stolen
from electric cables that are not being used.



Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners, but still
haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"

[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." No charges have
been filed but theJosephine County district attorney's office said the
initiation stunt is under investigation.



[Arkansas Democrat Gazette, July 25, 1996]
Two Local Men Injured in Freak Truck Accident, Cotton Patch, Ark.  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 nuts 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.



[Calgary Sun: Low blow for gunman VANCOUVER (CP)]
 A man arguing over a love triangle accidently shot himself in the groin,
taking off his testicles and part of his penis.  Police said the man
was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting
match early yesterday.  But when he stuffed it back in his pants the gun went
off.  Police were called to the hospital after the man in his 20's was
brought in by friends.  Charges are pending against the victim,
who is expected to survive.