It's that time again... The Darwin Awards are finally out, the annual honor
given to the person(s) 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.
This year's winner was a real rocket scientist....really!
And the nominees were:
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.
Now ladies and gentleman, the winner of this year's Darwin
Award:
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in
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.
Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery.
An Amateur Rocket Scientist... 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, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to the 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 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, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog
fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become
irrelevant 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 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.
2006-11-10
07:08:17
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14 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
in
Jokes & Riddles