Every year the Darwin Awards “commemorate those who improve our gene pool… by removing themselves from it.” The 2009 winners have been announced:
- Crushing Debt
Two bankrobbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM died when they overestimated the quantity of dynamite needed for the explosion. The blast demolished the building the bank was housed in and killed both criminals. - Double Dip (2009 runner up)
For the first time ever, a woman–yes, a member of the safer sex–made it into the year’s Top Darwin Awards Contenders! 2009 Antepenultimate Winner is the North Carolina woman who jumped into a swollen creek to rescue her drowning…moped. - Dying to Go (2009 runner up)
We’ve all been in his shoes, taking that fateful whiz at the side of the road. After all, “You don’t buy beer, you just rent it.” Traffic was deadlocked, so the waterlogged man climbed out, put his hand on the divider, and jumped over the low concrete wall… only to fall 65 feet to his death. “He probably thought there was a road, but there wasn’t,” said a Fort Lauderdale police spokesman. The car was idling on an overpass above the railroad lines.
that last one is just horrible.
just. just horrible.
and hilarious.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Darwin Awards. I mean, we are talking about real people who may actually have families who miss them … but at the same time, I laugh every time. If there were a hell, I’d be headed there.
when I was in the USCG in the 90s, we’d get these messages from the DOT/DOD about mishaps involving stupididy (they called them “GuidoGrams”; I think because the officer in charge was Guido Somebody).
Anyway, these were a lot like the Darwin awards, but from Navy/Marine sources. Also, they were not all fatal, which was somehow more disturbing. They were sent out as lessons to not be stupid.
Favorites:
1) A marine found some cool wire in a dumpster and used it for speaker wire. Too bad it was det cord and when power was applied it exploded
2) A government contractor who was part of a team dismantling an old water tower. Tasked with removing the caged ladder on the side of the tower, he climbed up with an oxy/ace set and proceeded to cut away the supports for the caged ladder; while actually being on the caged ladder at the time.
There were serious ones, too. The one I remember was of a carrier deckhand driving a tow tractor and tried to go under the tail boom of an SH-3, miscalculated the height and crushed herself between the tractor and the helo. That kind of stuff keeps you thinking.
I’m sure I read somewhere that there’s an official statistic for US forces personel killed every year by vending machines…
Yep, sometimes after the vending machine eats people’s money, people pound on the vending machine until it falls on top of them.
*gigglesnort*
I can’t stop laughing here
Or the large numbers of Russians who get drunk and pass out while outside in cold weather.
Pepsi 1.50
Snickers Bar .75
Instant Death Pull handle on top of machine.
I love the Darwin awards. I read the first book or two. The ones that didn’t involve death were disturbing. I remember one of my favorites being a couple who got in an argument in a hotel and the husband threw the wife off the balcony. They were a decent ways up so she would have been killed if she landed, but she was saved by the power lines. The husband didn’t like that so he went to finish the job (so the darwin awards claim) and jumped after her, but missed the power lines.
I work with someone who knew one of the Darwin award winners (or a knock-off). Apparently her sister and future brother in law were at the beach relaxing with alcohol and a shovel for sand castles. I don’t think of this as relaxing but apparently he decided to dig a hole in the sand. A really big hole.
Apparently the wet sand didn’t hold up and the sides of the hole collapsed around him trapping him under it.
My co-worker swears this is true and that it happened to her sister and fiance.
#3 is sad, if only because I could picture myself doing something that stupid while drunk.
I guess though, since I don’t drive drunk, I’d find it hard to get anywhere near an overpass.
Reminds me of my uncle who drowned when he fell into a vat of beer. He had to get out three times to go to the toilet.
yeah every now and then those overpasses freak me out. ill just be driving along and look out the passenger window and realize I’m 70 ft in the air over a river or a train yard.
I’m not scared of heights or anything, Its just the sudden realization that I’m racing along with other vehicles at 60mph several stories off the ground. I always think about those ridiculous moving walkways in the Jetsons, and how everyone was perfectly comfortable moving along this path with no railings suspended miles above the earth.
There but for the grace of Go–
Uh, anyway, I’ve gotta say that it could’ve been me more than once in my life.
LOL this guys name is going to be used for my next City of Heroes character.
Alexander Wang Sweatpants!