Seems like everybody's calling them the "2008 Darwin Awards..." Well, here's some
Current 2008 Darwin Awards I gathered for our entertainment, in no particular order. Don't nobody say I didn't contribute nothin' to fuggin' CP :angry: :
(Taken from
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008.html)
Not A Shred of Sense:
The ambulance responded to a frantic call concerning a neighbor's trip through an industrial tree shredder. It seems the individual had decided to prune his own trees, rather than hire a professional. Why not? After all, the local shop rented shredders that could make quick work of yard debris, including tree limbs up to 8 inches in diameter.
To save time (those fateful words) the neighbor had placed the shredder at the base of a great oak tree, where he could drop branches directly into the hopper. He intended to cut off the top third of the oak, since it had been killed by lightning.
With the shredder running wide open, the neighbor climbed his ladder to the first tree branch, stepped off the ladder, slipped, and fell. The paramedics found him very dead, half in and half out of the shredder's hopper, one leg shredded to the hip.
Not married, no kids, removed self from the gene pool.
Pining Away:
Three hale and hearty young men had finished their basic training. Before heading out to their respective assignments, they decided to spend their few days of leave with one's grandmother, who lived in the town where they had completed basic training. The privates descended upon Grandmother, who filled them with home cooking and gave them soft beds to sleep in. Grandmother had a swing job to make ends meet, so the privates were left alone late into the night.
How could they repay her for her kindness?
Grandmother had three children. To commemorate the birth of each child, a pine tree had been planted in the front yard. In the fifty years since the last tree was planted, the pines had grown considerably, and the middle tree now blocked the view from the living room window. The privates decided that they would cut down that tree, letting the sun and the view into the room.
A case of beer went into the planning.
To keep the 50-foot tree from crushing the house, the privates reasoned that they would tie a rope to the top of the tree and pull the rope away from the house as the tree was cut.
The middle pine tree, the doomed one, was slightly closer to the house than the other two. The privates climbed an end tree, wound a rope through its upper branches, and threw the rope to a private in the middle tree. He tied the rope around the trunk. By this device, they could pull the rope from the ground. The middle pine tree would fall away from the house, and the privates were also clear of the path of the falling tree.
Climbing a pine tree is very sappy work, and scrapes and gouges are infliced by the natural roughness of its bark. But the hale and hearty privates completed the preliminaries without complaint. The middle tree was lassoed and levered by the rope running through the end tree.
So far, so good.
Two privates were situated on the ground, each straining to pull the tree away from Grandmother's house. The third private revved his 20 HP chainsaw and started to cut. Lo and behold, the tree actually fell away from Grandmother's house! However...
The rope-pulling privates had wrapped the rope around their waists, not considering that the falling pine weighed several tons. As the middle pine tree fell, both privates were ripped off their feet and smashed through the branches of the end pine tree. At the height of their acceleration, they broke through the top branches of the tree, and were briefly airborne before being jerked toward the earth when the middle tree hit the ground. The privates entered into Darwin history, either on the way up through the branches or on the way down to the cold, hard ground.
The event spoke for itself.
Thou Shalt Not Steel:
(8 March 2008, Czech Republic) Steel is valuable, especially the high grade alloy used in steel cable. Scrap metal dealers do not ask questions. They pay in cash. And a good supply of cables can be found in elevator shafts.
This particular goldmine was a towering shaft inside an empty grainery near Zatec, 40 miles northwest of Prague. The cable was tightly fastened, and the far end of it disappeared into the shadowy distance above.
After substantial wear and tear on a hacksaw, our man finally cut through the strong steel cable. At that instant, the counterbalance, no longer held in check, started to move silently downwards, accelerating until it reached the bottom of the shaft.
Result: one proud winner of a "terminal velocity" Darwin Award.
R.I.P.
Merry Pranksters:
The telephone company was replacing above-ground telephone lines with buried lines. In one sparsely populated farming area, if lines crossed a country road they would dig a trench halfway across, so rural traffic could continue through. Then they would fill in the trench, and dig a trench on the other side.
One morning, local farmers called the sheriff to report a smashed-up pickup. Inside were two ranch hands who were last seen the previous night, heading home after last call. You see...
On their way to the bars, the men had decided to play a prank. They stopped their pickup, and moved the flashing warning signs from the trenched side to the good side of the country road. Crime scene analysis later confirmed that they were the culprits who moved the flashing stands. Investigations also revealed that at the time of the accident, they were driving at an excessive speed with an impressive amount of alcohol in their systems.
No crime scene analysis is capable of determining whether the ranch hands forgot their prank, or chose to see what would happen if they hit that trench at a high rate of speed in the middle of the night.
No good prank goes unpunished.
Boner!:
(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.
Wascally Wabbit:
Snowmobiles and alcohol are a dangerous mix. Then came the rabbit.
After a day spent partying and racing snowmobiles in the wilderness, a group of snowmobilers were headed back to their cabin, when up popped a jackrabbit! They gave chase. Several collisions were narrowly averted, and so all the snowmobiles backed off... except one.
This snowmobiler kept his eye on the quarry and rapidly closed in. The rabbit darted aside to save itself. The snowmobiler closed in again. The rabbit ran toward the road, where there was less snow. Trying to ram his rabbit before it crossed the road, the man accelerated to Mach 1.
But the rabbit had other ideas. It darted into the culvert beneath the road. Witnesses stated that the snowmobiler never even braked. There was a metallic crunch as the accelerating vehicle rammed into the culvert, followed by a blast that shattered the snowmobile into a thousand bits.
This brand of snowmobile had a fuel tank mounted in front. The culvert admitted the tip of the snowmobile, then cut into the cowling, spilling fuel over the hot engine. The body of the snowmobiler was blown twenty feet back into the field.
The rabbit's whereabouts was unknown.
Going to Seed:
(2008) Darren was dumb even for a junkie, but what he lacked in IQ he made up in creativity. In the supermarket, he notice a bag labelled "Birdseed 100% Poppy Seed." He seized his chance to circumvent the stranglehold of the International Drug Cartels with the following logic: 100% Poppy Seed = 100% Opium! Figuring he was onto something good, he bought a bag of birdseed, boiled it into a thick black paste, and proceeded to inject it into his vein.
Nothing happened, so he did it again.
An hour later, he was brought unconscious to our Emergency Department, as sick as it is possible to be. His chest X-ray showed thousands of tiny seed-like objects scattered throughout his lungfields. Our working diagnosis was Milary Tuberculosis, so-called because the TB deposits resemble millet seeds. Little did we know!
Only two weeks later, after he recovered from life-threatening septicaemia and multiple organ failure, did the true story emerge. Darren survived, but subsequently died of a garden variety overdose.
Pierced!:
(January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old man with various body piercings wondered what it would feel like to connect his workplace test equipment to his chest piercings. Several co-workers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to wire himself up to the electronic control tester, but he ignored their pleas.
He proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his piercings and hit the test button...
When the police and rescue personnel arrived, his co-workers were stiill trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing. They were not successful.
On the Piste:
(2 February 2008, Italy) David, 46, was sliding down an Italian ski slope one night, riding on padding that he had removed from the safety barriers at the bottom of the run. It did not occur to him that it might be dangerous to sled down the same slope from which he had stolen the protective padding.
Sauze d'Oulx is one of five villages that make up the "Milky Way" ski area in northern Italy. Hugely popular with British skiers, the resort is known for its party atmosphere. A ski resort spokesperson for Sauze d'Oulx said, "The men had all been drinking when they tore off the padding, and ironically..."
...careened straight into the bare barriers at the bottom of the piste (groomed slope). David died from head and chest injuries inflicted by the unpadded metal. Two of his friends survived with medical attention. Another Darwin Award candidate is still missing after he wandered away "bloodied and distressed."
Clotheslined!:
(13 January 2008, Florida) A 37-year-old man was killed trying to cross the Manasota Key drawbridge on his motorcycle. Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, the man was seen racing at high speed towards the gap as the bridge began to open.
Bridge designers had anticipated such lunacy and invented the crossing guard. The closing gates swept him off his Suzuki and over the side of the bridge, into the water and out of the gene pool. By a twist of fate, the motorcycle continued up the ramp and made it across to the other side!
Chemistry Went To Her Head:
(2 February 2008, Bulgaria) It was a cold but sunny February afternoon. Lidia, a biology teacher from Sofia, was driving two friends home from a memorial service. Suddenly the vehicle stopped. Bystanders saw all three occupants dash from the car to a nearby manhole, and start pouring down liquids and powders from various bottles and jars.
Apparently, the biology teacher had been performing chemistry experiments in her free time, and had some leftover noxious chemicals. It is still not entirely clear what the chemicals were, but two of the bottles were labelled diethyl ether and methanol, both highly flammable substances. The former is also used as a sedative, so one explanation for their actions is that they felt dizzy from the ether vapors and thought it was a good idea to pour them in the sewer.
As it turns out, a good idea it definitely was not. The cocktail of flammable substances in the enclosed space of the sewer caused an explosion so powerful that it launched the manhole cover into the air, decapitating the (briefly) surprised Lidia. Left without a head on her shoulders, she decided it was time to kick the bucket.
The other two people were not left unharmed, but were alive. They were taken to the hospital with burns on their faces. They may not regain their eyesight, but hopefully will be able to speak clearly enough to tell their children that tossing random chemicals down the drain is not as wise as it might at first appear.
Slippery When Wet:
(15 January 2008, Sweden) The Darwin Awards have celebrated many bone-headed things burglars do in the commission of their crimes. For instance, taking a shortcut down a 55-foot sheer rock face.
Early one morning, two men broke into a gymnasium (high school) east of Stockholm. After a profitable stroll through the building, they were startled by a janitor. They raced out of the building into the pre-dawn darkness. Fearing imminent detection, they took a shortcut to safety--down the face of a steep 55-foot rock escarpment. But in selecting this convenient shortcut, they failed to consider three crucial facts:
First, it was pitch black. Due to the northern latitude, the sun rises late in Sweden. Second, it had rained during the night. And third, the rock in eastern Sweden is granite, the type of rock that is polished into posh floors and fancy countertops. The danger of slippery granite is a well-known fact for residents of the area.
Escaping down a granite cliff, in the rain, in the dark? Try tilting a slab of polished granite, pouring water over it, and making a controlled descent while carrying a load of loot. This is the province of mountain goats, not humans hoping to pass on their genes. In short, one of the burglars slipped and fell head-over-heels to his death, bringing a new meaning to "the crack of dawn."
His worldly riches were scattered around him.
Into the Abyss:
An enterprising lumberman had felled a large tree, and needed to haul it up a steep embankment. So he jacked up the rear end of his pickup and swapped one of the rear tires for a bare rim. He attached one end of a rope to the rim, and the other end of the rope to the felled tree. He put the pickup into gear, expecting the rim to act as a makeshift rope crank that would pull the tree up the embankment, saving him lots of sweat.
A great idea? Not if you're reading it here! You see, the tree vastly outweighed the truck. The man was standing with one foot on the ground and the other foot on the accelerator. When he gunned the engine, the tree acted like an anchor, and the truck yanked itself backwards. The open door rammed into him, and he was swept over the embankment along with the pickup.
When the dust settled, our lumberman had entered the great beyond. But his escapade served as a warning to others. The next lumberman cut up the tree where it lay, and carried it off.
Shopping Cart Crash:
(8 March 2008, Florida) Just because you see it online does not mean it's a good idea. Cameron, 18, was joyriding in a shopping cart as he held onto a moving SUV. An eyewitness said, "It's irresponsible behavior, but what do you expect from kids?" The car and the cart went over a speed bump and the cart overturned, ejecting its occupant, who was not wearing the little seat belt. Cameron was pronounced dead at the scene.
Organ Donors:
(3 February 2008, California) Two dirtbikes, two drivers, two passengers. Zero helmets, zero headlights, and a new moon. Four friends were tearing around on private land, where helmets and lights are not required. The Highway Patrol said the two couples were killed when their bikes collided between 1:30 and 3:30 AM in Modesto.
Emergency room workers have a name for people who ride dirtbikes without a helmet. They're called 'Future Organ Donors' and that is the only career now possible for Thomas, 33, Michael, 33, Kelly, 30, and Cynthia, 29.
And there they are. Some of the writing is cheesy, but pour yourself another cup of coffee and prepare to spew it through your nose! I just :love: dark humor...
