The 2005 Darwin Awards Back to Goofy Stuff / Back Home
The Darwin Awards are made for
"ingenious" ways that people mortally delete themselves from the gene pool.
This list is for 2005
This year's nine nominees are:
Nominee No. 1:
[San Jose Mercury News]:
An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a
former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when
the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.
Nominee No. 2:
[Kalamazoo Gazette]:
James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, Mich., was killed in
March as he was
trying to repair what police describe as a "farm type
truck." Burns got a
friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns
hung underneath so
that he could ascertain the source of a troubling
noise. Burns'
clothes caught on something, however, and the other man
found Burns
"wrapped in the drive shaft."
Nominee No. 3:
[Hickory Daily Record]:
Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in
December in Newton,
NC. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside
his bed, he reached
for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38
Special, which
discharged when he drew it to his ear.
Nominee No. 4:
[UPI, Toronto]:
Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a
downtown Toronto
skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and
plunged 24 floors
to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into
the courtyard of
the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was
explaining the
strength of the building's windows to visiting law students.
Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength
according to
police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm
Holden Day Wilson,
told the Toronto
Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and
brightest" members
of the 200-man association.
Nominee No. 5:
[Bloomberg News Service]:
A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed
for the death of a
man who was killed by his own gas emissions.
There was no mark on his body and an autopsy showed large
amounts of methane
gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of
beans and cabbage
(and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination
of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from
breathing the
poisonous cloud
that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his
windows been
opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near
airtight bedroom.According to the article, "He was a big man
with a huge capacity
for creating this
deadly gas."
" Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized."
Nominee No. 6:
[The News of the Weird]:
Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird Posthumously.
He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric
chair on a
murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in
prison
While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix
his small TV set,
he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
Nominee No. 7:
[The Indianapolis Star]:
A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in
Dunkirk,
Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the
barrel of a muzzle
loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his
face,
sheriff's investigators said.
Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home
about
11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber
muzzle loader that
had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look
into the barrel
when the gun-powder ignited.
Nominee No. 8:
[Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]:
A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium
apartment in
this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death.
Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair when the
accident
occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel Regional
Police.
"It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer
said.
Finally, THE WINNER!!!:
[Arkansas Democrat Gazette]:
Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road
and struck
a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday.
Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident
shortly after
midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray
Wallis, 38,
of Little Rock were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging
trip.
On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights
malfunctioned.
The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model
truck had
burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis
noticed that the
.22
caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box
next to the
steering
wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again
began to operate
properly and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White
River Bridge.
After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before
crossing the
river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck
Poole in the
testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the
pavement and
striking a
tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the
accident, but will
require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles,
which will
never operate as intended.
Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released.
"Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his
balls off or we
might both be dead" stated Wallis.
"I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world,
but this is a
first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how
this accident
happened," said Snyder.
Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole's wife) asked
how many
frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the
truck??
(Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their
misadventure as
normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be
argued that
Poole DID, in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene
pool.)
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