The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction Part 15

This could be a breakthrough in crime prevention . . .

31 JULY 2009, SOUTH CAROLINA Two disguised men entered a Sprint store on Sparkleberry Lane, pulled out guns, and stole wallets, purses, and credit cards from employees before ordering them into a bathroom. Both men fled, but they could not flee from their own stupidity. Twenty-three-year-old James T. had disguised himself by painting his face gold.

Yes, in order to conceal his ident.i.ty during the robbery, James had covered his skin with metallic spray paint. If this isn't a Darwin Award, what is? Paints are clearly labeled: DO NOT GET ON SKIN, DO NOT GET IN EYES, DO NOT INHALE. Paint fumes are well-known to be toxic, and the metallic colors are particularly noxious. James began having trouble breathing (surprise!) and died wheezing shortly after the robbery took place.

To add insult to injury, the disguise was ineffective. Witnesses were certain as to the ident.i.ty of their a.s.sailant. Had he lived, James, like his surviving accomplice, would have been charged with armed robbery.

Reference: wistv.com, The The (South Carolina) (South Carolina) State State [image]

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Darwin Award Winner: Sky Surfer Confirmed by Darwin Featuring kites, weather, and machismo!

OCTOBER 2007, IBIZA, SPAIN Storm winds swept across southern Spain, causing widespread flooding and damage to buildings along the Costa Blanca. Tasty waves Tasty waves, thought one intrepid kite surfer as he packed his gear and hit the beach.

Move over, Charlie Brown. Today's large kites are not triangles held by a string, helpless fodder for kite-eating trees. Modern kites are controlled by multiple lines with surface areas that create so much lift that it can be difficult to keep your feet planted on the ground-even during normal wind conditions. These were not normal conditions. Heavy rainstorms, flooding, and landslides had caused the government to declare a state of emergency and close the beaches.

Good times, thought the forty-year-old Spanish surfer as he unfurled his kite, climbed onto his board, and embarked on the ride of a lifetime. The high winds picked him up and ultimately carried him almost a kilometer inland, tagging him against buildings along the way. thought the forty-year-old Spanish surfer as he unfurled his kite, climbed onto his board, and embarked on the ride of a lifetime. The high winds picked him up and ultimately carried him almost a kilometer inland, tagging him against buildings along the way.

One more nominee joins the queue to meet Charles Darwin . . . in person.

Reference: Spain RTVE, neurope.eu, Deutsche Presse-Agentur Deutsche Presse-Agentur [image]

At-Risk Survivor: Sky Rider Confirmed by Darwin

18 AUGUST 2008, FLORIDA A news crew was filming a storm when they captured footage of a twenty-six-year-old man kite boarding on the winds of Tropical Storm Fay. Harnessed to his sail, he was picked up by the wind and playfully slammed into the beach. His harness was equipped with emergency releases, but the wind whirled him around so fast that he had no time to jettison the kite. The wind continued its pranks, dragging him along the sand, picking him up again, and bashing him into a building.

A witness said, "It was a miracle that he just flew over the street and didn't get hit by a car" during his aerial adventure. The man's family described him an experienced kite boarder; one might even consider him over-experienced! The happy-go-lucky surfer survived to play another day.

This story calls to mind the Doors' song "Riders on the Storm."

Reference: cbs4.com Darwin Award Winner: A Shoe-In Confirmed by Darwin Featuring trains and machismo

15 DECEMBER 2009, GERMANY A U2 subway driver found a body laying besides the underground tracks in Berlin. Because there was no video surveillance camera at that location, it took police two days to reconstruct what had happened. Apparently Yasin A., twenty-two, was alone in the subway car when he decided it would be a brilliant idea to destroy one of the windows. By swinging feet forward from a handrail into the window, he not only managed to burst the gla.s.s but also succeeded in being sucked out of the moving train, and was left dead on the tracks.

He was alone in the compartment at the time; if an observer had been present, perhaps the young underground rider would not have engaged in the destructive nonsense that led to his senseless death.

Reference: BZ Berlin [image]

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Darwin Award Winner: Race to the Bottooommm Confirmed by Darwin Featuring machismo versus gravity!

5 SEPTEMBER 2009, OREGON Jake reached the summit of Saddle Mountain, and there and then he informed his friends that he planned to make a controlled slide down the cliff face. He would meet up with them in the parking lot or on the trail below.

Some folks are satisfied with the risks and rewards of dune sliding, and the chance of a 150-foot broken-limb tumble. Not Jake. The eighteen-year-old decided to "git-r-dun" down a thousand-foot cliff, instead. He slid pell-mell down the escarpment-and what was intended to be a controlled rockslide ended abruptly a thousand feet below the summit, when his body came to rest in a steep ravine.

Friends were shocked. "We are shocked," they said, "because he is always doing stuff like this always doing stuff like this and coming out smiling." and coming out smiling."

Reference: OregonLIVE.com [image]

Reader Comments

"What a downer."

"Why daredevils don't live long."

"Rocky Mountain Low."

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Darwin Award Winner: Glacier Erasure Confirmed by Reliable Eyewitness Featuring weather, hunting, and gravity!

In the late fall and early winter months, snow-covered mountains become infested with hunters. One ambitious pair climbed high up a mountain in search of their quarry. The trail crossed a small glacier that had crusted over, and the lead hunter had to stomp a foothold in the snow one step at a time, in order to cross the glacier.

Somewhere near the middle of the glacier, his next stomp hit not snow but a rock. The lead hunter lost his footing and fell. Down the crusty ice he zipped, off the edge and out of sight. Unable to help, his shocked companion shouted out, "Are you OK?"

"Yes!" came the answer.

Reasoning that it was a quick way off the glacier, the second hunter plopped down and accelerated down the ice, following his friend. There, just over the edge, was his friend . . . holding on to the top of a tree that barely protruded from the snow.

There were no other treetops nearby, nothing to grab, nothing but a hundred-foot drop onto the rocks below. As the second hunter shot past the first, he uttered his final epitaph: a single pithy word.

Reference: The archives of an MD with thirty years of experience in the ER [image]

Reader Comments

"Truly a slippery slope."

"O'er the glacier and through the snow . . . Whoa! Look out below." Look out below."

"I think the world would be . . . biological."

"Now this would be a winter Olympics sport I would watch!"

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At-Risk Survivor: Locker Room Humor Confirmed Featuring alcohol and claustrophobia

17 JULY 2009, GERMANY Unexpected odds 'n' ends are always turning up in train station lockers, but this may be the oddest yet. After a night spent carousing with friends, squeezing into the Ludwigshafen train station locker had seemed like an amusing idea to the man. He shut himself in a suitcase locker for fun, but the laughter faded as the oxygen supply dwindled. His companions were unable to open the locked door and free the twenty-year-old! With time running out, police broke open the door and dragged the groggy prankster to safety.

Our alert readers ask, "Just why why did they let him out . . . ?" did they let him out . . . ?"

Reference: Reuters At-Risk Survivor: Ninja Wannabe Confirmed by Darwin Featuring machismo

Michelangelo would never meet this fate.

16 NOVEMBER 2009, WASHINGTON Seattle police were searching for a reported a.s.sault victim when they heard screams of pain and followed their ears to a grisly scene: a man impaled on a fence post! They supported him to prevent further injuries until fire department personnel arrived to stabilize him and transport him to a hospital.

Suspecting that he was the victim in the reported a.s.sault, officers interviewed Vlad the Impaled (his name was not released) in his hospital bed. The man insisted that he was not not being chased, but rather thought he was a ninja and could successfully vault a five-foot spiked fence. The man's mad ninja skills, it seems, were bested by the fence-and he ended up stuck like a pig. being chased, but rather thought he was a ninja and could successfully vault a five-foot spiked fence. The man's mad ninja skills, it seems, were bested by the fence-and he ended up stuck like a pig.

"Clearly he was overconfident in his abilities."

He is no Darwin Award winner, merely an At-Risk Survivor. His skewered carca.s.s was in serious but stable condition in intensive care when last we checked. A police spokesman summarized the situation: "Clearly he was overconfident in his abilities."

Reference: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Seattle Post-Intelligencer, AP, msnbc.com [image]

At-Risk Survivor: Birch Slapped Unconfirmed Personal Account Featuring trees and gravity

11 JULY 2009, NEW YORK On a ten-day camping trip deep in the Adirondacks, a guide noticed a dead birch leaning toward one of the tents. This was dangerous! The guide enlisted three members of the church group to help deal with the tree situation.

Somehow our hero missed the memo.

First they tried pushing the fifty-foot tree over-it was leaning at quite an angle-but that had no effect whatsoever. Then they whacked at it with trekking poles, but that only sc.r.a.ped up the bark. Finally they decided that the only alternative was to pull down the tree.

The guide removed the haul line from the bear bag and threw it over a short branch halfway up the tree. By pulling on each end of the line, they planned to wedge the dead tree against a st.u.r.dy live tree that was situated well away from the tent. They figured that this would avoid damage to the campsite.

Now the plan was to put two people on each end of the rope, pull as hard as possible until they heard the wood crack, then let go and run away from the falling tree. But somehow our hero missed this memo. On the count of three, they began to pull on the rope with all their might, and as they strained the tree began to shift, and suddenly-CRACK!

Everyone began to run. Well, almost everyone. Our hero hid behind the target tree, covered his ears, closed his eyes, and crouched down dead in the path of the falling tree. The birch bounced and landed less than a foot away from him! The guides were mad, of course, but everyone else was laughing too hard to be angry.

That was one of the many highlights of that ten-day camping trip in the Adirondacks. An observer told our hero, "When we get home, I'm telling the Darwin Awards about this!" And he did.

Reference: Matt Monitto DARWIN AWARD WINNER: TREE TROUBLENot all trees go down peacefully. For example, in 2002 an English tree trimmer decided to save time (again, the notorious time-saving shortcut) and toss the pruned branches of a fir directly into a fire he built near the base of the tree. Predictably, the tree caught fire, putting an end to further time-saving innovations.Reference: Darwin Awards 3: Survival of the Fittest Darwin Awards 3: Survival of the Fittest(Plume, 2004) [image]

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At-Risk Survivor: A Killer Serve Unconfirmed Personal Account Featuring a student and a tennis ball machine

1990s, SWITZERLAND During a training lesson on a plush tennis court in Gstaad, a high school student named Elbrus (son of Russian nouveau riche) decided to check out how a tennis ball machine works. Since you're reading this here, you already know the machine was on and working; in other words, shooting b.a.l.l.s. Elbrus stuck his nose in front of the machine to inspect that complicated device. Before anyone could react, the next ball struck him right in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him out! It was his lucky day. The machine was not not set to a maximum power-otherwise it would have killed him. set to a maximum power-otherwise it would have killed him.

Reference: Anonymous [image]