The Darwin Awards

[Guiness]

From this year's crop...

DARWIN AWARD (19 March 2006, Belize)Benjamin Franklin is said to have flown a kite in a lightning storm, to discover whether lightning is the same as electricity. However, there are certain precautions one must take to avoid electrocution.

Kennon, 26, recently replicated the conditions of Franklin's experiment, sans precautions, while flying a kite for his niece. The string was too short, so he attached a length of thin copper wire...

The copper wire made contact with a high tension line, sending a bolt of "artificial lightning" down the wire.

Kennon's father told the media his son should have known better, as he's an electrician.

Kennon is survived by his parents, six sisters and five brothers.

[Homer Jay]

As i read these I can almost hear Doyle Redland reporting on the Onion Radio News.

[Guiness]

The Dog and the Jeep
1999 Urban Legend
Classic Urban Legend

Not Darwin material - these guys are still in the gene pool.

You don't have to kill yourself to win one, but minimum you have to be unable to reproduce!

[Tarlam!]

Tyler, I had not heard of that guy. I have another guy that really may not qualify:

Fire authorities in California found a corpse in a burned out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with scuba tanks on his back, flippers, and face mask. A post-mortem revealed that the person died not from burns, but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification.

Investigators set about to determine how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire. It was revealed that on the day of the fire, the person went for a diving trip off the coast some 20 miles from the forest. The fire-fighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, called in a fleet of helicopters with very large dip buckets.
Water was dipped from the ocean and then flown to the forest fire and emptied. You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next he was doing the breast stroke in a fire dip bucket 300 feet in the air.

Apparently he extinguished exactly 5'10" of the fire. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed - This article was taken from the California Examiner, March 20, 1998

[Tarlam!]

A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle when it accidentally slipped into gear. The man, still holding onto the handle bars, was dragged through the glass patio doors and along with the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house. The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room and found her husband lying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle lying next to him, and the shattered patio door. The wife ran to the phone and summoned the ambulance. Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of stairs to the street to escort the paramedics to her husband.

After the ambulance arrived and transported the man to the hospital, the wife righted the motorcycle and pushed it outside. Seeing that gas was spilled on the floor, the wife got some paper towels, blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet. The man was treated and released to come home. Upon arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle.

He became despondent, went to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl, while seated. The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard the loud explosion and her husband screaming.

She ran into the bathroom and found her husband lying on the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs, and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone to call the ambulance. The very same paramedic crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the street. The paramedics loaded the husband on to the stretcher and began carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them slipped and tipped the stretcher, dumping the husband out. He fell down the remaining stairs and broke his arm - Taken from a Florida Newspaper.

[Tarlam!]

O.K. They don't qualify, but they were funny...

[jack's smirking revenge]

Hell yeah they were funny. I almost felt sorry for scuba guy. But, hey, if we were meant to be fish, we would've evolved gills.

tyler

[Guiness]

Hey Tar - couple of good ones there. If true, the second one qualifies if he burnt off enough 'groin' to make reproduction impossible!

The scuba one is false.

[jack's smirking revenge]

Hey Tar - couple of good ones there. If true, the second one qualifies if he burnt off enough 'groin' to make reproduction impossible!

The scuba one is false.

Thanks for pointing that out Guiness. Still, it was a convincing story. Props to that person that came up with such a well-done fib that, almost 20 years later, its still be recounted (and redone by TV shows).

tyler

[74Ironhead]

I believe that the toilet one is false also. They tried to replicate it on Mythbusters. What they found out is that as soon as the cigarette hit the water it went out and they tried it numerous times. The only way they got it to explode was when they filled the tiolet with gasoline and lit a big ole match adn dropped it in. It was very interesting.

[FavreChild]

Damn that show! They take away all the fun.

Welcome, 74.

[MJZiggy]

I haven't seen Mythbusters but I've heard about it. They must be nuts to try and replicate all this stuff. Someone's gonna get blown up.

[the_idle_threat]

One of my favorites because of Wallis' quote at the end ... I can just hear it in a southern drawl ...

*****

[Arkansas Democrat Gazette] Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday morning. 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, are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.

The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up 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 east-bound 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 right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right exiting the pavement and striking a tree.

Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. 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.

*****

I know the story is obviously fake, but it's still funny.

[the_idle_threat]

Not darwin awards, but they should be ...

http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/deereSex.htm