The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction Part 5

12 APRIL 2008, FLORIDA Traffic was moving slowly on south-bound I-95. Shawn M. had recently left a Pompano Beach bar, and now he was stuck in traffic. As the saying goes, you don't buy beer-you just rent it, and Shawn couldn't wait another moment to relieve himself. "I need to take a leak," he told his friends.

Traffic was deadlocked, so the waterlogged man climbed out, put his hand on the divider, and jumped over the low concrete wall for a little privacy . . . only to fall sixty-five 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 overpa.s.s above the railroad lines.

His mother shared her thoughts. "Shawn didn't do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm, just like his father." Though his death was tragic, Shawn's downfall proves the old adage: Look before you leak! Look before you leak!

Reference: South Florida Sun Sentinel; The Miami Herald South Florida Sun Sentinel; The Miami Herald [image]

Reader Comments

"Guess he was dying to go."

"He shoulda peed in a bottle."

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"That's why they call it Flori-duh."

"Apparently it was just his time to go."

"Now here's a wee joke."

"I wonder if he wet his pants from fright!"

At-Risk Survivor: Look Before You Leak In a related story, a personal account, this time not fatal . . .

SUMMER 2003, USA "I hired several laborers to prepare a garden area for me. They needed some supplies, so I showed them the location of ice water and the bathroom, and left to obtain the supplies. Upon my return, I found an ambulance in front of my home, along with two police cars. The police informed me that the neighbor had dialed 911 to report a naked man screaming and running around the yard.

My yard!

As it turned out, one of the laborers had needed to answer the call of nature. Rather than use the indoor bathroom, he went into the woods behind the house, dropped his trousers, and squatted down-right on top of a nest of hornets! He was released from the hospital about a week later, having learned a very painful and nearly fatal lesson: Always watch Always watch where you go! where you go!

"Watch where you are going-and look before you leak!"

Reference: Cy Stapleton Darwin Award Winner: Short Circuit Confirmed by Darwin Featuring feces, a criminal, and electricity

MARCH 1989, SOUTH CAROLINA Michael Anderson G.o.dwin was a lucky murderer whose death sentence had been commuted to life in prison. Ironically he was sitting on the metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix the TV set when he bit down on a live wire-and electrocuted himself!

Ironie des Schicksals (Irony of Fate) Reference: News of the Weird, Gizmodo.com [image]

Reader Comments

"I suppose he ended up in the netherworld."

"His last name predicted his fate: G.o.d wins."

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Darwin Award Winner: m.u.f.fled Explosion Confirmed by Darwin Featuring gonads, explosions, machismo, and a living Darwin!

10 JANUARY 2009, PENNSYLVANIA An embarra.s.sed and seriously injured seventeen-year-old initially claimed that an explosive had been planted in his backpack by persons unknown. However, police investigators soon extracted the truth. He had found an M-80 explosive at his grand-mother's house, taken it to his room to "examine" it, and began to repeatedly light and extinguish the fuse.

Commonly thought to be a quarter stick of dynamite, M-80s (according to pyrouniverse.com) actually contain 1/50 the amount of explosive (3 grams) and use flash powder rather than TNT. Used by the U.S. military to simulate grenade explosions, M-80s were outlawed in 1966 under the Child Protection Act. They are not safe enough to be detonated by the average man on the average street, let alone by an average seventeen-year-old in an average bedroom.

During one of these cycles the fuse would notgo out, so he jammed the red cardboard tube between his thighs and covered it with his hand to m.u.f.fle the explosion. This plan was less successful than he had hoped.

One loud KABOOM! KABOOM! later, our junior pyrotechnics specialist had lost his right hand and right leg. It is not known whether the injury also affected his ability to reproduce, but if it had, the fellow would be eligible to compete for the honor of a living Darwin Award. later, our junior pyrotechnics specialist had lost his right hand and right leg. It is not known whether the injury also affected his ability to reproduce, but if it had, the fellow would be eligible to compete for the honor of a living Darwin Award.

Reference: WPXI News; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; pittsburghlive.com; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [image]

Reader Comments

"A new way to lose weight."

"Stupidity, thy name is teenager!"

"A glimpse of America's youth at its finest."

WEIRD SCIENCE: BAND-AIDS!Good news for compet.i.torsduring their Darwin Awards tryouts!Those competing for a Darwin Award often suffer a few nicks and dings along the way. Recently scientists designed medical sutures made from natural polymer excreted by helpful bacteria. Sutures made from these fibers are naturally absorbed by our bodies, so no more pulling st.i.tches! Doctors report favorably on the flexible and easy-to-work-with sutures.Bacterial polymers: a perfect human repair material"Those whom life does not cure, death will."-Cormac McCarthy [image]

Urban Legend: Bitter Biter Bit a Nitwit Unconfirmed-Suspected Urban Legend Featuring gonads and a racc.o.o.n!

Although this story was submitted dozens of times-citing news articles from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, j.a.pan, and Australia-we cla.s.sify this story as an urban legend, because the sole source of all these news reports is The Sun The Sun tabloid. If you have a reliable source confirming the story, please contact Darwin. tabloid. If you have a reliable source confirming the story, please contact Darwin. www.DarwinAwards.com/contact JANUARY 2009, RUSSIA ARAG - ING RACc.o.o.n HAS BITTEN OFF A PERVERT'S PRIVATES AS HE WAS TRYING TO RAPE THE ANIMAL, screams the headline. When most of us see a wild animal, raping it never enters our minds. Why would it?

Alexander, forty-four, was on a drunken weekend with friends in Moscow when he leapt on the terrified animal. "When I saw the racc.o.o.n I thought I'd have some fun," he told stunned casualty surgeons.

Although there was not much left to work with, plastic surgeons were trying to reconstruct his mangled manhood. If he is unable to procreate-he is eligible for a Darwin Award. But thus far no reports have "leaked" on the success of the shaft graft.

Reference: thesun.co.uk; FailBlog.org photo of a newspaper clipping photo of a newspaper clipping [image]

Reader Comments

"I hope it doesn't work-I'm an animal lover."

"Next time try a beaver."

URBAN LEGEND: RACc.o.o.n ROCKETRacc.o.o.ns seem to be nuclei around which Urban Legends condense. For example, in rural Pennsylvania a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms at a racc.o.o.n that was wandering by. The animal escaped into a three-foot-diameter drainage pipe. Determined to smoke the animal out, one man retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, the determined dude proceeded to slide feet first, fifteen feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled him back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile," according to a witness, with "a Doppler effect to his scream as he flew over his house, followed by a loud thud" as he landed on his own front lawn.Reference: Darwin Awards: Darwin Awards:Evolution in Action (Plume, 2001) (Plume, 2001) [image]

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At-Risk Survivor: Bench Press Confirmed by Darwin Featuring gonads!

6 AUGUST 2008 , HONG KONG It's raining. You're lonely. Why not? That was how forty-one-year-old Le Xing found himself facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night.

The lonely man had noticed that the steel sit-up benches in a local park had numerous ventilation holes and thought it might be possible to use them for s.e.xual gratification.

Once Le Xing became aroused, he found he was stuck and could not remove himself from the hole in the bench. Quite understandably, he panicked. Police received a call from a disturbed man and arrived to find him trapped facedown on the bench.

Facedown on a bench and calling for help in the middle of the night . . .

Doctors were summoned to the scene. They tried every thing, but eventually, emergency workers had to cut the entire bench free and take both it and him to the hospital.

Four painful hours later, doctors finally separated man from bench. It is certainly possible that the lack of blood flow easily could have caused sufficient damage to require doctors to remove his p.e.n.i.s. This is one bad date that Le Xing will never forget.

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Reference: telegraph.co.uk, weirdasianews.com, asylum.com, news.ninemsn.com.au [image]

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Reader Comments

"What a pre'dic'ament!"

"Wholly embarra.s.sing."

"A man from the country that invented the Chinese Finger Trap should have been able to figure out how to release his piece, ya think?"

"Apparently this man has never heard of Vaseline."

"Talk about a 'Man of Steel'!"

"Polis.h.i.+ng the bench."

"That's what happens when you the use services of a 'cheap ho.'"

A photograph of the man and his metal mistress: www.DarwinAwards.com/book/benchpress At-Risk Survivor: Pipe Cleaner Confirmed by Darwin Featuring gonads!

5 JANUARY 2010, SOUTHAMPTON, UK Oh dear. Yet another man has got his hoohaw stuck in a pipe, taking many precise maneuvers with a blowtorch and metal grinder to cut him loose from the steel-might as well say it-Iron Maiden. All told, seven firefighters and medics were involved in the delicate operation. "The crew was worried about things getting too hot during the cutting," said a tongue-in-cheek spokesman for Hamps.h.i.+re Fire and Rescue.

Reference: The Sun, Daily Telegraph The Sun, Daily Telegraph As long-time readers know, this isn't the first man caught laying pipe . . . but not all pipe incidents are lascivious. For instance, check out Mortar Fire, page 155.

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At-Risk Survivor: Single Bud Vase Confirmed by Reliable Eyewitness Featuring gonads!

2009 I am a nurse on a busy surgical unit. I received a report that a young patient was arriving with severe lacerations to his unmentionables. Try as I might, I could not imagine what this poor lad had done to injure himself.

"You stuck what where what where?"

The twenty-one-year-old patient confided to me that, upset by his girlfriend's unwillingness to have intimate relations, he had romanced a flower vase! Alas, in the heat of the moment, the bud vase shattered, lacerating his p.e.n.i.s. He required emergency surgery.

Afterward, the urologist told us that the boy would require a catheter for weeks, and he was unsure if his mojo would be functional. I felt sorry for the kid . . . but did laugh when I saw his girlfriend walking down the hall, bringing flowers!

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Reference: A Nurse who wishes to remain anonymous [image]

Reader Comments