ES - fwd: 1997 Darwin Awards!

[Alan J. Boertjens]

These stories definitely qualify as stupid-squire-tricks by mundanes.

~Johan

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Original text

From: a831277 at lvmail1.dseg.ti.com (Royce Phillips), on 1/15/98 1:18 PM:
To: a0178443 at rlemail.dseg.ti.com, james.rabe at juno.com, a-boertjens1 at ti.com
Cc: tbro at chatter.com, a145827 at lvmail1.dseg.ti.com, a209763 at lvmail1.dseg.ti.com


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1997 Darwin Awards:

The Darwin Award is made each year to persons who have managed to kill
themselves (and therefore prevent the survival of their genes -- hence
Darwin)! in the most bizarre way imaginable.

Previous winners have included the man killed when the vending machine he   
was
trying to extract a can of Coke from fell on him, the aviator who   
strapped a
JATO module to his car and lit the blue touch paper, and last years lawn   
chair
aviator that tied 45 helium balloons to his lawn chair and cut himself   
loose.

NOMINATIONS:

#1 - [AP, Mammoth Lakes, CA] A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he hit   
a
lift tower at the mammoth mountain ski area while riding down the slope   
on a
foam pad, authorities said.  Matthew David Hubal, 22, was pronounced dead   
at
Centinela Mammoth Hospital.

The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's Department   
said.
 Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump   
Alley
and undid some yellow foam protectors from the lift towers, said   
Lieutenant
Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department.

The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit the towers.  The group
apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed   
into a
tower.  It has since been investigated that the tower he hit was the one   
with
its pad removed.

#2 - [AP, St. Louis, MO] Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being   
disorderly in
a St. Louis market.  When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo   
grabbed a
hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it.   
 Police
found him unconscious in front of the store: paramedics removed the   
six-inch
wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.

#3 - [UPI, Spain] To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing   
above
him on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell on him.

#4 - [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA] A man at a party popped a   
blasting cap
into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his   
lips,
teeth and tongue, state police said Wednesday.  Jerry Stromyer, 24, of
Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during a party late Tuesday   
night,
said Cpl. M.D. Payne.  "Another man had it in an aquarium, hooked to a
battery, and was trying to explode it," Payne said.  "It wouldn't go off   
and
this guy said, 'I'll show you how to set it off."

"He put it in his mouth and bit down.  It blew all his teeth off, his   
tongue
and his lips," Payne said.  Stromyer was listed in guarded condition   
Wednesday
with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesman at Charleston   
Area
Medical Division.  "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like   
that,"
Payne said.

#5 - [UPI, Portland, OR] Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said
Wednesday an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is   
lucky to
be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital.  Tony Roberts, 25,   
lost
his right eye last weekend during an initiation into a men's rafting   
club,
Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants Pass, Ore.

A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered
Roberts' right eye.  Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the   
left,
a major blood vessel would have cut and Roberts would have died   
instantly.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland   
said
the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding   
at the
rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels.

Delashaw also said had Robert tried to pull the arrow out on his own he   
surely
would have killed himself.  Roberts admitted afterwards he and his   
friends had
been drinking that afternoon.  Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this."   
 No
charges have been filed but the Josephine County district attorney's   
office
said the initiation stunt is under investigation.

#6 - [AP, Arkansas] A woman named Linda went to Arkansas last week to   
visit
her in-laws, and while there, went to a store.  She parked next to a car   
with
a woman sitting in it, her eyes closed and hands behind her head,   
apparently
sleeping.  When Linda came out a while later, she again saw the woman,   
her
hands still behind her head but with her eyes open.  The woman looked   
very
strange, so Linda tapped on the window and said "Are you okay?"

The woman answered "I've been shot in the head, and I am holding my   
brains
in."  Linda didn't know what to do; so she ran into the store where store
officials called the paramedics.  They had to break into the car because   
the
door was locked.  When they got in, they found that the woman had bread   
dough
on the back of her head and in her hands.  A Pillsbury biscuit canister   
had
exploded, apparently from the heat in the car, making a loud explosion   
like
that of a gunshot, and hit her in the head.

When she reached back to find what it was, she felt the dough and thought   
it
was her brains.  She passed out from fright at first, then attempted to   
hold
her brains in!

#7 - From a radio program, a true report of a happening in Michigan, USA.   
 A
guy buys brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000 and has $400+ monthly
payments.  He and a friend go duck hunting and of course all the lakes   
are
frozen.  These two Atomic Brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog,   
the
beer and of course the new vehicle.  They drive out onto the lake ice and   
get
ready.  Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for   
the
ducks, something for the decoys to float on.  In order to make a hole   
large
enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land   
on, it
is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill.

Out of the back of the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with   
a
short, 40-second fuse.  Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into
consideration that if they place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a
location far from where they are standing (and the new Grand Cherokee),   
they
take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse   
and
possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast.  So, they decide to   
light
this 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite.

Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the   
beer,
the guns and the dog?  Yes, the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for
retrieving, especially things thrown by the owner.  You guessed it, the   
dog
takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick   
of
dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice.

The two men yell, scream, wave arms and wonder what to do now.  The dog,
cheered on, keeps coming.  One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots   
the
dog.  The shotgun is loaded with 8 duck shot, hardly big enough to stop a
Black Lab.  The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused but continues   
on.
Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really   
confused &
of course scared, thinking these two Nobel Prize winners have gone   
insane.

He takes off to find cover, (with the now really short fuse burning on   
the
stick of dynamite)....  Under the brand new Cherokee.  BOOM!  Dog and   
Cherokee
are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large   
hole,
leaving the two candidates for Co-leaders of the Known Universe standing   
there
with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces.  The   
insurance
company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of   
explosives is
not covered.  He had yet to make the first of those $400+ a month   
payments.

AND THE WINNER:

John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington,
decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at Gorge,
Washington.  Having no tickets (but 18 beers among them) they sat in the
parking lot, and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy
enough to hop over the nine-foot high fence and sneak into the show.

The two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan   
was
for John -- 100 pounds heavier than Sal -- to hop over, and then assist   
his
friend over the fence.  Unfortunately for John, there was a  30 foot drop   
on
the other side of the fence.  Having heaved himself over, he found   
himself
crashing through a tree.  His fall was abruptly halted by a large branch   
which
snagged him by his shorts.

Dangling from the tree, with one arm broken, John looked down and saw a   
group
of bushes below him.

Figuring the bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife   
and
proceeded to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree.  When   
finally
free, John crashed below into Holly bushes.  The sharp leaves scratched   
his
entire body and now being without his shorts, he was the unwilling victim   
of a
holly branch penetrating his rectal cavity.  To make  matters worse, his
pocket knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his   
left
thigh.  Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to   
throw
him a rope and pull him to safety.

However, weighing about 100 pounds less, he decided the best course of   
action
would be to tie the rope to the pickup truck.  This is when things went   
from
bad to worse.  In his drunken state, Sal put the truck into the wrong   
gear,
pressed on the gas, crashed through the fence, dropped 30 feet and landed   
on
and killed his friend.  Sal was thrown from the truck, suffered massive
internal injuries and also died at the scene.

Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet   
from the
vehicle and upon moving the truck, a half naked man, with numerous   
scratches,
a holly stick up his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and a pair of shorts
dangling from the tree branches 25 feet in the air.



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z

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