More Darwin
It's that time again . . . . . They are finally out again. You all know
about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honor given to the person
who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in
the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow
who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him
as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it. And the nominees
are:
Semifinalist #1 A young Canadian man, searching for a way
of getting drunk cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy
alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction
made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. This
resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him
and his sister.
Semifinalist #2 Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft
at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they
decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control
of their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the
wreckage with their pants around their ankles.
Semifinalist #3 A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after
he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad
trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker,
taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one
foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park,
jumped and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman,
said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found
nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater
than the distance between the trestle and the ground," Carmichael
said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma."
Semifinalist #4 A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It
seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the
rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future Darwin Awards
candidate - was hospitalized.
Semifinalist #5 Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas
noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the
building extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights,
power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians
from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building,
they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration,
none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of
one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an
object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter
like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of
it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the
lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected
of causing the blast had never been thought of as 'bright' by his
peers.
And the winner . . . The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile
of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above
the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of
an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable
at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had
happened. It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit
(Jet Assisted Take Off - actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used
to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking
off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into
the desert and found a long and straight stretch of road. Then he attached
the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off
the JATO! The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator
of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately
3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent
scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating
properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing
the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing
at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, and soon
to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved
for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to
become insignificant for the remainder of the event. However, the
automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20
seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface,
then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the
cliff! f face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3
feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable;
however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from
the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece
of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel. Epilogue:
It has been calculated that this moron nearly reached Mach I, attaining
a ground speed of approximately 420 mph.
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