DARWIN AWARD

History : This award is given posthumously to people who are inadvertantly helping in weeding out the "stupid" genetic pool from society. )

There are many transmission lines that crisscross Connecticut. These are held up by Transmission Towers of various constructions. Those most commonly installed near urban areas are called "metal Ornamental
Towers" (supposedly prettier than wood towers). Sometimes adventurous folks climb the towers in order to enjoy the view and the night air. Most stay away from the wires, and when they get bored, come back
down.
Apparently, a man who was forlorn after a recent spat with his girl-friend needed some fresh air to clear his head and decided to climb a tower. He stopped for a 6 pack to help clear his thoughts, went to atower south of Hartford, next to I-91, and climbed it.
Public Service employees later pieced the story together. The man sat there 60 feet above the highway, drank his beer and consoled his bruised ego. After 5 beers, he needed to do what people often need to do after 5 beers. It being such a long hike down, he unzipped and did his business right there off the tower.
Electricity is a funny thing. One doesn't need to touch a wire in order to get shocked. Depending on conditions, 115,000 volt lines,like those supported by the tower, could shock a person as far away as 6 feet.
When the man "whizzed" near the conductor (wire), the power arced up his "stream" (urine is an excellent conductor of electricity), traveled up to his private parts, and blew him off the tower.
The guys at the power company noted a momentary outage on this line and sent repairmen to see if there was any damage. When they got to the scene of the accident, they found a very dead person, his fly down, what was left of his private parts smoking, and a single beer left on top.

Seems a couple got a brand new, top of the line, Jeep Cherokee for Christmas and drove it to visit relatives in Michigan. The guys decided to do that male bonding ritual of duck hunting. So they load up the Cherokee with decoys, food, beer, guns, warm clothes, etc and head off for the lake.
Now it's a little known fact that when duck hunting in cold climates like that it's common to drive the truck out onto the ice. It's also a little known fact that, to break a hole in the ice for the decoys, a stick of dynamite is commonly used. Now this particular stick of dynamite had a short fuse, estimated at 20 seconds or so.Normally you put the dynamite on the ice, light the fuse, and run away. But with only 20 seconds they didn't want to do that, they might slip while running. So the guy lights the fuse and throws
the stick of dynamite out onto the ice.
Their well trained Labrador Retriever dashes out onto the ice and, just as he's done several times before, picks up the stick (of lit dynamite) in his mouth and starts running back to the group of
guys. The guys start yelling at the dog but, as he's played fetch so many times before, he just keeps bringing the stick back to his master. One of the guys thinks fast and loads his shotgun, and shoots the dog. As it's loaded with bird shot the dog isn't hurt much and is confused.The guy shoots the dog again. The dog gets scared and runs, stick in his mouth, under the Cherokee.
BOOM!!
The Cherokee is now at the bottom of the lake. The insurance company won't pay up because it was destroyed due to an illegal use of explosives.
The first payment of $475 was due December 15. Only 59 more to go...
[I've heard that this is an urban legend]

1996 DARWIN AWARDS
You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner: The man who found out moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the

(jet assist take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned off once it was turned on. [this is probably an urban legend]
Darwin Awards are (by definition) granted posthumously. This citation is bestowed upon (the remains of) that individual, who through single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene pool.
The 1996 nominees are:
[San Jose Mercury News] An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.
[Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92] Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but
grabbed instead a Smith &Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.
[Unknown, 25 March] A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system.His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods.It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing from the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was ". . . a big man with a huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas]."
[Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death. A man cleaning a bird feeder on his balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death, police said Monday. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair Sunday when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel regional police."It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said."It's one of those freak accidents. No foul play is suspected."
[UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lauwers, managing partner of thefirm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was"one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
(Where have I heard that before?)
[AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)] Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent.The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.
[Times of London] A thief who snuck into a hospital was scarred for life when he tried to get a suntan. After evading security staff at Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and helping himself to doctor's paging devices, the thief spotted a vertical sunbed. He walked into the unit and removed his clothes for a 45-minute tan. However, the high-voltage UV machine at the hospital, which is renowned for its treatment of burns victims, has a maximum dosage of 10seconds. After lying on the bed for almost 300 times the recommended maximum time, the man was covered in blisters.Hours later, when the pain of the burns became unbearable, he went to Southampton General Hospital, 20 miles away, in Hampshire. Staff became suspicious because he was wearing a doctor's coat. After tending his wounds they called the police. Southampton police said: "This man broke into Odstock and decided he fancied a quick suntan. Doctors say he is going to be scarred for life.

"More intelligence-challenged people"
45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the mechanic for an oil change. According to police, Brasher later said that she didn't realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood to change the oil.
Portsmouth, R.I.Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of ending machine robberies in January when he: 1. fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine and 2. later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
Karen Lee Joachimi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, for robbery of a Howard Johnson's Hotel. She was armed with only an electric chainsaw, which was not plugged in.
The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 am, flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

In case you've forgotten about the 1995 awardees, some of them are listed below:
* James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise.
Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft." [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]
* Same thing up here in MI. Seems some poor fella thought it would be a good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car. Newspaper reports it took a FULL MINUTE of neighbors whacking way at him with a 2x4 to free their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.
* Bowling Green, Ohio, student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train. He told police he was trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head without getting hit.
* In Wesley Chapel, Florida, Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the leg with pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car. When repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he couldn't find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.

DARWIN AWARD WINNER FOR 1997 ANNOUNCED
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 The 1995 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. In 1996 the winner was an air force sergeant who attached a jet engine (JATO) unit to his car and crashed into a cliff several hundred feet above the road. And now, the 1997 winner: Larry Waters of Los Angeles-one of the few Darwin winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment.
Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard. One day, Larry, had a bright idea. He decided to fly. He went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium. The weather balloons, when fully inflated, would measure more than four feet across. Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn chair. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with the helium. He climbed on for a test while it was still only a few feet above the ground. Satisfied it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches and a six- pack of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun-figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was time to descend-and went back to the floating lawn chair. He tied himself in along with his pellet gun and provisions. Larry's plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard after severing the anchor and in a few hours come back down. Things didn't quite work out that way. When he cut the cord anchoring the lawn chair to his jeep, he didn't float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn't level of at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 11,000 feet. At that height hecouldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting, cold and frightened, for more than 14 hours. Then he really got in trouble. He found himself drifting into the primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport. A United pilot first spotted Larry. He radioed the tower and described passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. Radar
confirmed the existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the airport. LAX emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was dispatched to investigate. LAX is right on the ocean. Night was falling and the offshore breeze began to flow. It carried Larry out to sea with the helicopter in hot
pursuit. Several miles out, the helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew determined that Larry was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a rescue but the draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they neared. Finally, the helicopter ascended to a position several hundred feet above Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was hauled back to shore. The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by the helicopter crew. As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked why he had done it. Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around." Let's hear it for Larry Waters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner.
[I've heard that this is a greatly embellished story based loosely on fact]

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