Darwin Awards 2003

I got this in an email from a friend.

DARWIN AWARDS 2003

It's that time again . . . . . They are finally out! 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 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 1,
attaining a ground speed of approximately 420 mph.