Darwin Awards

[Sniper]

I love these things. I know that it may be a lot to read so I have attached the word file for browsing at your leisure. Its a much longer version with more idioits :spudwhat:


Darwin Awards - 1996


Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese Trawler was plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship.
Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. They claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.

They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily taken off for home.

Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a frightened cow rampaging within the hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.

The Darwin Awards - the stupidest way to kill yourself!!

Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners, but still haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"

Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said Wednesday an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital.

Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants Pass, Ore.

A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Roberts' right eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimetre to the left, a major blood vessel would have cut and Roberts would have died instantly.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had Robert tried to pull the arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon.
Said Roberts, ``I feel so dumb about this.''

No charges have been filed but the Josephine County district attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
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from The Calgary Sun Saturday, December 28, 1996: Low blow for gunman
VANCOUVER (CP) -

A man arguing over a love triangle accidently shot himself in the groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said the man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting match early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants the gun went off.
Police were called to the hospital after the man in his 20s was brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the victim, who is expected to survive.
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DARWIN AWARD WINNER FOR 1997 ANNOUNCED

You'll recall a Darwin Award winner not long ago where a former air force sergeant decided to strap a cargo plane rocket booster to his car to see how fast it would go and ended up killing himself when his car didn't negotiate a curve in on the road in northern New Mexico where he had set up this experiment. The car smashed into the side of a cliff several hundred feet above the roadbed.

Here's the 1997 winner: Larry Walters of Los Angeles. Larry is one of the few to win the award and still be alive. 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, brightened up. 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, measured 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 that 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 lawnchair where 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 for Larry. 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 off at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet. After climbing and climbing, he levelled off at 11,000 feet.

At that height he couldn'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 when he found himself in the primary approach corridor of LAX.

A Pan Am 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. Right on Larry's heels was the helicopter. 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, with which he was hauled back to shore, a difficult manoeuvre, 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 him why he had done it. Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

Here's a salute to Larry Walters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner.

This is a true story, search Yahoo for relevant topics and you'll find newspaper photos etc.
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Tower Man
Another Darwin Award candidate

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 girlfriend 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 a tower 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 to his "stream" (urine is an excellent conductor of electricity), travelled 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 of the tower

[Dr Bob]

The Russian cow thing goes back further than 1996. During the cold war the Russians and Merikans were shifting their missiles around so they didn't make static targets. Some Russian official decided that they should compromise the missiles so they started shifting some other nominal 'thing' that distant observation could assume was a missile. So they started shifting cows in large crates.

On one particular trip a cow was going mental so they shunted it out of the cargo doors in flight - and apparantly this hit a ship. But I didn't think this was Japanese.

[Kickaha]

You'll recall a Darwin Award winner not long ago where a former air force sergeant decided to strap a cargo plane rocket booster to his car to see how fast it would go and ended up killing himself when his car didn't negotiate a curve in on the road in northern New Mexico where he had set up this experiment. The car smashed into the side of a cliff several hundred feet above the roadbed.

the real story is more interesting http://www.wagoneers.com/pages/RocketCar/rockit.html

[Skyryder]

The transmission tower reminded myself of a funny incident a'while back on a farm. I was passing through cockie's property to get to a fishing river. At one stage I had to pass into a cow paddock where there was an electric fence. Now electric fences have the pulse staggered. And I have heard of stories where guys have pissed on electric fences and been 'dropped.' Now this here cow decides to have a slash and as fortune dictated her urinal discharge 'sprays' on to the elctric fence resulting in a very unhappy Daisy. There is a sqawk, yes sqawk, and her urinal discharge stops dead instantly. Talk abpout bladder control. Said cow trots of sqawking. Nearly pissed my self laughing at this, still do (laugh that is) when thinking of this. Now there is a moral of sorts to this story. Whenever someone says "and pigs 'ill fly," I have been known to respond 'and cows 'ill sqawk. Meaning all things are possible. I've heard one.

Skyryder