The Darwin Awards

[WishOfNight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_awards

A Darwin Award is a tongue-in-cheek "honor" named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. Awards have been given for people who "do a service to Humanity by removing themselves from the Gene pool", i.e., lose the ability to reproduce either by death or sterilization in a stupid fashion. According to Wendy Northcutt, author of the Darwin Award books: "The Awards honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion."


Requirements

DarwinAwards.com logoNorthcutt has stated five requirements for her Darwin Award:


Inability to reproduce
Nominee must be dead or rendered sterile.
Sometimes this can be a matter of dispute. Potential awardees may be out of the gene pool due to age; others have already reproduced before their deaths. To avoid debates about the possibility of in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, or cloning, the original Darwin Awards book applied the following "deserted island" test to potential winners: If the person would be unable to reproduce when stranded on a deserted island with a fertile member of the opposite sex, he or she would be considered sterile. In general, winners of the award are either dead, become unable to use their sexual organs, or are imprisoned for life with no chance of escape.

Excellence
Astoundingly stupid judgment.
The candidate's foolishness must be unique and sensational, perhaps because the award is intended to be funny. A number of foolish but common activities, such as smoking in bed, are excluded from consideration. In contrast, self-immolation caused by smoking after being administered a flammable ointment in a hospital and specifically told not to smoke[4] is grounds for nomination. One 'Honorable Mention' (a man who attempted suicide by swallowing nitroglycerine pills, and then tried to detonate them by running into a wall) is noted to be in this category, despite being intentional and self-inflicted, which would normally disqualify the inductee.[5]

Self-selection
Cause of one's own demise.
Killing a friend with a hand grenade would not be eligible, but killing oneself while manufacturing a homemade chimney-cleaning device from a grenade[6] would be eligible. To earn a Darwin Award, the candidate must have injured or killed himself, rather than a third party.

Maturity
Capable of sound judgment.
The nominee must be at least past the legal driving age and free of mental defect.

Veracity
The event must be verified.
The story must be documented by reliable sources, i.e., reputable newspaper articles, confirmed television reports, or responsible eyewitnesses. If a story is found to be untrue, it is disqualified, but particularly amusing ones are placed in the urban legend section of the archives.

[WishOfNight]

(28 February 2000, Texas)

A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played

Russian roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

Rashaad, nineteen, was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game.
He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver,
automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked.
His chance of winning a round of Russian roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered.

:omg:

[WishOfNight]

(February 1998)

Matthew and his friends were sliding down a
Mammoth Mountain ski run on a foam pad at 3am,
when he crashed into a lift tower and died.

His makeshift sledge of yellow foam had been stolen from the legs of a lift tower on Stump Alley.
The cushion is meant to protect skiers who hit the tower,
and the tower Matthew ran into was the one from which he had created his sledge.

There's a moral in there somewhere... :rollefyes:

[WishOfNight]

Some men will got to extraordinary lengths to prove how macho they are.

Frenchman Pierre Pumpille recently shunted a stationary car two feet by headbutting it.
"Women thought I was a god," he explained from his hospital bed.

Deity or not, however, Pumpille is a veritable girl's blouse compared to
Polish farmer Krystof Azninski, who staked a strong claim to being Europe's
most macho man by cutting off his own head in 1995. :shocked:

Azninski, 30, had been drinking with friends when it was suggested they strip naked
and play some "men's games".
Initially they hit each other over the head with frozen turnips, but then
one man upped the ante by seizing a chainsaw and cutting off the end of his foot.
Not to be outdone, Azninski grabbed the saw and, shouting
"Watch this then," he swung at his own head and chopped it off.


"It's funny," said one companion, "when he was young he
put on his sister's underwear. But he died like a man."

[WishOfNight]

(2 February 2008, New York)

A 50-year-old man was bird hunting in Upstate New York
with his buddies and his faithful canine companion.
They stopped for a smoke, and his dog found a deer leg bone!

The man tried to take the bone away, but like any right thinking dog,
the animal would not relinquish its treasure.
He stayed just out of reach.
Frustrated with this blatant show of disobedience, the man grabbed his
loaded shotgun by the muzzle and began wielding it like a club.
Each time he swung it, the dog dodged.

Suddenly the "club" struck the ground and fired,
shooting the man in the abdomen.
He was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.
He did remain conscious long enough to confirm this account to police;
otherwise, his poor friends might now be under suspicion!

At least he didn't hit the dog. :drum:

[WishOfNight]

(21 May 2004, Texas)

Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary alcoholic,
but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor, well, rectally.
His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol
in this manner.

The machine shop owner couldn't imbibe alcohol by mouth
due to a painful throat ailment, so he elected to receive
his favourite beverage via enema.
And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party.
Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces,
right up the old address!

When the rest of us have had enough,
we either stop drinking or pass out.
When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out)
the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed.
The next morning, Michael was dead.

The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself.
According to toxicology reports, his blood alcohol level was 0.47%.

In order to qualify for a Darwin Award,
a person must remove himself from the gene pool via an
"astounding misapplication of judgment."

Three litres of sherry up the butt can only be described as astounding. :shocked:
Unsurprisingly, his neighbors said they were surprised to learn of the incident.

[WishOfNight]

(10 January 2007, Germany)

A 63-year-old man's extraordinary effort to eradicate moles from his property
resulted in a victory for the moles.
The man pounded several metal rods into the ground and connected them
--not to household current, which would have been bad enough--
but to a high-voltage power line,
intending to render the subterranean realm uninhabitable.

Incidentally, the maneuver electrified the very ground on which he stood.
He was found dead some time later, at his holiday property on the Baltic Sea.
Police had to trip the main circuit breaker before venturing onto the property.

The precise date of the sexagenarian's demise could not be ascertained, but the electric bill may provide a clue.

[WishOfNight]

:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop:

(13 January 2005, Croatia)

One fateful afternoon, 55-year-old Marko retreated to his semi-detached
workshop to make himself a tool for chimney cleaning.
The chimney was too high for a simple broom to work, but if he could attach
a brush to a chain and then weigh it down with something,
that would do the trick. But what could he use as a weight?

He happened to have the perfect object.
It was heavy, yet compact. And best of all, it was made of metal,
so he could weld it to the chain.

He must have somehow overlooked the fact that it was also a hand grenade
and was filled with explosive material. :bag:

Marko turned on his welding apparatus and began to create an arc
between the chain and the grenade. As the metal heated up,
the grenade exploded.

The force of the explosion killed poor Marko instantly,
blasting shrapnel through the walls of the shed and shattering
the windshield of a Mercedes parked outside.

Marko's chimney was untouched, however.

[WishOfNight]

:omg:

(26 May 2004, Wolfsberg, Austria)

The manager of an apartment house was surprised to find the legs of a
corpse sticking out an apartment window.
Police entered the apartment and found the deceased man's head
soaking in a sink full of hot water.

Apparently the out-of-work Austrian had returned home after a night
of drinking and drugs. He decided to slip in through the kitchen window.
The window was fixed at the base and tilted out, giving him just enough
room to squeeze his head through as far as the sink before he got stuck.
While flailing around trying to escape, he turned on the hot water tap.

Police were not sure why he had not turned off the water,
pulled the plug, or--perhaps most important--
entered through the front door,
since they found the keys in his pants pocket. :doh: