Darwin awards

I never know if these are true or not but I tend to get sent them at this time of year, so after chuckling through them I thought I`d share.


2013 DARWIN AWARDS

You've been waiting for them, so without further ado, here are the 2013 Darwin Awards:

Eighth Place:

In Detroit , a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head-first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

Seventh Place:

A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran", accidentally jogged off a 100-foot high cliff on his daily run.

Sixth Place:

While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom, when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fifth Place:

Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth to keep his hands free rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

Fourth Place:

Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

Third Place:

After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol.

The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop.

The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Paul Stiller, 47, and his wife Bonnie were bored just driving around at 2 AM. so they lit a quarter stick of dynamite to toss out the window to see what would happen. Apparently they failed to notice that the window wasclosed.

RUNNER UP:

Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from a local bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more excited, and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge, they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. They secured one end around Bingham's leg and then tied the other to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER IS....

Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn , Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.

Investigators say the ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded.

The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves. . . 'Shit happens!'

IT ALWAYS SEEMS IMPORTANT TO THANK THESE PEOPLE FOR REMOVING THEMSELVES FROM THE GENE POOL

Excellent stuff. There are so many stupid people in the world, I believe every one... oh does that make me stupid?

I like number 5

Dont seem possible I wouldn't even expect our plonkes to do any of those LOL not even the pink panther

Sadly entertaining and makes the gene pool comment relevant.

Brilliant...Doug
Like #3, thank god the americans bear arms over there......

O...M...G! I need to go change my underwear ...

Thought I had heard of dear departed Friedrich before, he featured in the 1998 awards, they have long since cleared off the shit and laid him to rest. I have just come back from the Post Office where I have posted my latest order to........ Paderborn in Germany!!

There is a website dedicated to the Darwin Awards, my favourite is an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph, got it somewhere, which related the tale of someone who closed the Los Angeles air space at 22,000 feet on a deck chair, I'lll dig it out.

I remember that. He used weather balloons and a b.b. gun to pop the balloons so he could come down, but the b.b.s wouldn't break the balloons, if I remember correctly. Number 3 is my favorite, too.

Got it in one Sharon, it was hilarious, but he was disqualified from receiving the award for that outbreak of stupidity as he survived. However he did go on to kill himself in an unrelated act of stupidity and was given the award later.

FOUND IT!!!!!

Its a cracker!

A failed pilot who took to the air in a garden chair strapped to 45 weather balloons has won the 1997 Darwin award for “outstanding contributions to natural selection through self-sacrifice”.
Larry Walters, one of the few winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment, brought Los Angeles to a standstill in July 1982 when he decided to realise his dream to fly.
Having been disqualified from the US Air Force because of poor eyesight, he became frustrated at watching jets fly over his back garden.
He bought the heavy duty balloons, each more than four feet across when inflated, and several tanks of helium from an Army-Navy surplus store. He attached the balloons to a garden chair he had anchored to his Jeep.
After testing the machine to make sure it could fly, he planned to spend the afternoon sunning himself 30 ft above his girlfriend’s garden in San Pedro, California.
He made sandwiches and loaded on board a six-pack of Miller Lite and some Coca-Cola. He filled water balloons for ballast and loaded his airgun so that he could burst the gas-filled ones to descend.
Then taking his Timex watch and a two-way radio, he tied himself to the chair and loosened the rope.
Within seconds, he passed the 30ft altitude he had hoped to reach, quickly rising to 100ft and then 1,000ft. He eventually levelled of at 11,000 ft, frightened to shoot any of the balloons in case he unbalanced his makeshift aircraft.
For 14 hours he floated above the city, cold and frightened, before drifting into primary approach corridor of Los Angeles airport.
Fortunately, both a United Airlines and a Pan Am flight passed him and radioed air traffic control to say they had spotted a man with a gun at 11,000 ft on a garden chair.
Radio confirmed the existence of an object floating above the airport. Emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was scrambled.
However as night fell off-shore breezes blew mr Walters out to sea.
Wind from the helicopter blades blew the balloon further away, forcing the crew to position themselves several hundred feet above him. A rope was then lowered for Mr Walters to grab and the helicopter towed him to safety.
Mr Walters was arrested by the Los Angeles police for invading Los Angeles International Airport airspace.
He later told reporters; “A man can’t just sit around.” The stunt cost the former lorry driver £1,ooo in a settlement with the federal Aviation Administration, which said he operated too close to the airport, flew in a reckless manner and failed to maintain contact with the control tower. “I only did it because it was my lifelong dream of flight.” He said.
Mr Walters was later approached by Timex, which featured him in an advertising campaign about ordinary people facing unusual obstacles.
The 1997 Darwin award is the first to be given to someone some time after they have committed the act that has gained them notoriety. Normally it is given to someone who has ‘benefited the gene pool’ by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way before procreating.
The 1996 award went to a man who embedded himself in a cliff after strapping himself to a solid fuel rocket normally used to give heavy military transport aircraft assistance when taking off from short runways.
In 1995, a man won the award after he died when he pulled a Coca-Cola machine on top of himself in an attempt to gain a free drink.
Mr Walters, who did volunteer work for the US Forest Service after his release, died on Oct 6, 1996, said his mother.
“He would want to be remembered as the lawn chair pilot,” she said at her home in Mission Viejo, California.

Here's the link to the website Darwin Awards. Homo sapiens decline; Neo Sapiens rise! February 2013

There's even an award for someone from Newcastle