THIS LAST YEAR'S DARWIN AWARDS

From; Pat Crosby




THIS LAST YEAR'S DARWIN AWARDS



#1 award is facinating.....


It's that time again... The Darwin Awards are finally out, the annual
honor given to the persons who did the gene pool the biggest service
by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's
winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled
over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out. This year's
winner was a real rocket scientist... HONEST! Read on...And
remember that each and every one of these is a TRUE STORY.

And the nominees were:

*Semifinalist #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.

*Semifinalist #2*
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.

*Semifinalist #3*
A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after he tried to use
octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot rail road trestle. Fairfax
County police said Eric Barcia, a fast food worker, taped a bunch of
these straps together, w rapped 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." [not to mention ?Major Stupidity?]

*Semifinalist #4
*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. [for once I'm on the snake's side!]

*Semifinalist #5
*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. 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.

*Now ladies and gentleman*, the winner of this year's Darwin Award
(awarded, as always, posthumously):
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a
curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it
was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. Police
investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket
scientist... had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take
Off, actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields.
He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long,
straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the car,
jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the
1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0
miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and
melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust
within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of
350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds.
The driver, and soon to be pilot, would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20
seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface,
then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the
cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet
deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable.
However, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from
the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of
debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground
speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not
actually on the ground.

You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?





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