Those of you who haven't seen these yet should get a kick out of them. I loved the last one.
2005 Darwin Award winners
(31 May 2005, Seattle, Washington) Strength and endurance are two of the most important characteristics that can be passed on to improve the species, so physical challenges between males are frequent. In this case, two drinking buddies found themselves on an overpass 40 feet above a busy freeway in downtown Seattle at 2:45 a.m. It turned out to be the perfect place to determine who had more strength and endurance. Whoever could dangle from the overpass the longest would win!
Unfortunately, the winner was too tired from his victory to climb back up, despite help from his 31-year-old friend. The unidentified champion fell smack into the front of a semi-truck barreling down the highway at 60 mph and bounced onto the pavement, where he was hit by a car. The car did not stop. Authorities did not identify the winner of the competition.
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(16 January 2005, Florida) Two North Fort Myers residents, 23-year-old Molly and her husband, had rented a room in a local motel for some unspecified activity, perhaps involving perpetuation of the species. As Molly entered the second-floor room, she went straight for the lanai, which overlooked a concrete patio. Most guests would have seen the railing on the edge of the lanai as a safety feature, but for Molly it brought to mind fond memories of her youthful gymnastic abilities.
Molly called out to Todd, "Watch to see what I can still do." These would be her last words. She did a flip onto the railing for a handstand, just the way she used to do, then toppled over the other side, slamming into the patio 15 feet below. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.
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(25 March 2005, Salina, Kansas) "At the time, he was uncooperative," said the Saline County Sheriff, describing the difficulty deputies encountered in finding the cause of a self-inflicted bullet wound. Perhaps Michael, the 27-year-old victim of his inner klutz, was simply embarrassed to admit he had managed to shoot himself in the groin with a 22-caliber bullet, while armed only with a pellet gun.
The deputy's report included no mention of alcohol, so Michael was apparently sober when he placed a bullet on a picnic table and fired at it with his air rifle. The results he expected are not known. But the experiment yielded conclusive data. As he eventually, and abashedly, explained to a detective, "a pellet from the rifle hit the shell, causing it to explode."
The bullet shot into his groin, fragmenting into an area rich with major nerves and arteries, thereby presenting an interesting challenge to Kansas City neurosurgeons. They were up to the task, and Michael was thereby depriving of winning a full Darwin Award... this time!
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(29 April 2004, Brushy Fork, West Virginia) Alfred, 63, had trouble with termites at home. He had heard that natural gas was dangerous, and figured it would be a good, low-cost way to fumigate his house. So he shut the doors and windows, turned on the gas, and spent the night in a nearby camper trailer with his wife. The next morning he stepped out of the trailer, took a breath of the crisp, cool air, and strode over to his house.
When he opened the door, the slight spark from the latch ignited the cloud of natural gas that had accumulated in his home. The force of the explosion blew him off the porch and into a nearby creek, knocked out the town's telephones and electricity, and blew the doors off a church. It rattled windows and nerves six miles away.
Alfred was evacuated by helicopter with severe burns to the burn unit at the Cabell-Huntington Hospital. His house was uninsured. It is presumed that the fumigation was effective.
