Seaviper's blog: "Darwin Awards"

Chicken with a Train 1995 Honorable Mention Confirmed True by Darwin 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.

2003 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin From Randy Cassingham's book, The Stella Awards. (2003, California) John, a Los Angeles real estate attorney, was skimming leaves from his pool when he noticed a palm frond caught in the power lines. His education had equipped him with sufficient acumen to become a successful litigator. Yet he was not shrewd enough to avoid becoming a toasty critter, when he reached up with the long metal pole and poked at the palm frond. John was, for once, the path of least resistance. Perhaps as an homage to his litigation skills, his family sued both the utility company and the pool supply store, for failure to disclose the danger of poking a metal rod into the power lines.

Gag Reflex 2007 Personal Account A story to make parents shudder... Some friends were hanging out in Andrew's basement, joking around, playing video games, eating. Andrew was irritable that night. He chose to to deal with the situation by threat. If certain named people did not stop bothering him, he said, as he loaded his Tippmann 98 custom paintgun, he would shoot them. Although Andrew assured everyone that the safety was on, and he wouldn't shoot unless annoyed, one guy was not reassured. He jumped on Andrew and wrestled for the gun. Andrew threw him aside, and (as he later explained) "to prove the safety was on," he opened his mouth, inserted the barrel of the paintgun, and pulled the trigger. His eyes widened as the paintball fired into his throat at 300 feet per second. He fell to his knees, coughing blood, but refused to let anyone call an ambulance. His throat was so swollen that he had difficulty breathing. After two hours, he recovered long enough to kick everyone out of his house, and suffer in private. Andrew couldn't eat for three days, and couldn't talk for a week. Once he was able to open his mouth, he realized he had blown his uvula clean off. It was gone! And he had no gag reflex, either. His uvula does appear to be growing back, and he shows no symptoms of long term damage, which is rather lucky. We all tease him about it from time to time. The best part of the story is that his parents never found out!

The Laptop Still Works! 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin (26 February 2007, California) 29-year-old Oscar was driving on Highway 99 near Yuba City, when his Honda Accord crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a Hummer. The occupants of the Hummer were not seriously injured. California Highway Patrol officers found Oscar's laptop still running, and plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. Investigators believe that he was using it when his car crossed the center line. "Driving is not a time to be practicing your multitasking skills," remarked CHP spokesman Tom Marshall. Oscar is not alone. Last year, 510 California drivers were charged with reckless driving because they were using a TV, video, or computer monitor. A 2001 CHP study cites cell phone use as the top cause of crashes involving distracted drivers, followed by fiddling with music. "Anything that distracts you can kill you, whether it's eating lunch or working on a computer," an AAA spokesman said. Oscar was a computer tutor. Hopefully his fatal lesson will teach others to surf on the information superhighway, not the asphalt superhighway.

The Enema Within 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin (21 May 2004, Texas) Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor... well, rectally. His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol in this manner. The result was the same: inebriation. The machine shop owner couldn't imbibe alcohol by mouth due to a painful throat ailment, so he elected to receive his favourite beverage via enema. And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party. Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces, right up the old address! When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or pass out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out) the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed. The next morning, Michael was dead. The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself. According to toxicology reports, his blood alcohol level was 0.47%.

Fatal Foaming Action 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Unconfirmed by Darwin (10 March 2007, Scotland) James, 26, was working on a new house when he was unexpectedly confronted by a malfunctioning cannister of insulating foam. "The operative picked up one of the cans and gave it a shake as recommended. A pressure explosion occurred when the can burst (and) the bottom section hit him on the chest. The impact was so severe that the bottom section crumpled and wrinkled to some six inches, resulting in his death." A safety alert was issued, warning of the potential for cans of Evo-Stik Expanding Foam to undergo lethal decompression. But the warning was retracted when it was discovered that James had, for reasons unknown, applied a blowtorch to the pressurized 500-ml cannister

Lightning Date 1998 Urban Legend (1998) A pre-med student from the University of Arizona was hoping to score with his date on a Friday night. To put the woman in the mood, he drove her to a lonesome spot on Mount Lemmon, which overlooks the city of Tucson, Arizona. They walked to an open knoll and admired the city lights. Overcome by the romantic locale, the lissome lass succumbed to his pleas. Soon they tossed their clothes off, made a bed of their garments, and began to make love. The heavy storm clouds rolling overhead mingled with the low rumble of thunder inside them. The excited lovers never looked up to see the charred remains of trees on the knoll. Their idyllic clearing was a hotbed of electrical activity that night. With a blinding light, a bolt of lightning struck the high point on the knoll, which happened to be the pre-med student's ass, and sought the path of least resistance straight down. Incredibly, he survived, albeit in excruciating pain. The heat of the bolt had fused together flesh and latex so that the two lovers were now stuck together. The woman unfortunately did not survive the lightning strike. When the student looked down into the vacant eyes of his girlfriend and realized she was dead, his immediate repulsion caused him to jerk away from her. When he found that he couldn't, a wave of pain and nausea made him vomit into the girl's face and open mouth. Heaving only caused more pain and illness. Finally he passed out. Attracted by the smell, a bear found its way to the lovers and began to lick semi-digested pizza and buffalo wings from the dead girl's face. The student roused from his exhaustion. When he saw the bear, he realized that there was nothing he could do but lay silently in fear. To his horror, the bear became dissatisfied with just a lick and started to eat the girl; loudly crunching her facial bones inches from his ear. The bear also sampled the student, scraping the back of his skull with its teeth, before moving on. At 11:35AM, a group of camping girl scouts arrived at the lover's tryst, where the pre-med student's car was parked. Minutes later, three screaming girls discovered the student, who had regained consciousness several times in the night and had managed to drag himself and the partially-eaten girl several meters towards the road. Doctors managed to separate the student from the corpse. According to a hospital source, his penis resembled "a small piece of cauliflower" in its flaccid state. The first hint of arousal resulted in so much pain that the student was unable and unwilling to achieve an erection. It is doubtful that it will ever again function in a procreatory sense. lmao

Official Drug Test 1997 Honorable Mention Confirmed True by Darwin (1997, Canada) A woman in Canada called the police with a complaint that she had been burnt in a drug deal. She claimed that a man had sold her a rock of crack cocaine, but when she brought it home, it "looked like baking powder." The police dispatched a narcotics agent to her house, who tested the rock and verified that, despite its appearance, it was indeed cocaine. The woman was promptly arrested for drug possession. The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) are encouraging anyone who thinks they may have been fooled into buying fake drugs to come forward

The Last Laugh 2003 Honorable Mention Confirmed True by Darwin (January 2003, Virginia) Paul Powell is not yet out of the gene pool but he will be soon, thanks to his own efforts to enable prosecutors to prove a capital murder charge against him. He had been tried and convicted of the murder of a 16-year-old girl, but his conviction was overturned by the State Appellate Court based on a lack of evidence that he had robbed or raped the woman. However, due process was not yet done with Powell. Thinking himself immune to further consequences, Powell wrote a gloating confession and sent it to the prosecutor's office. "Since the Virginia Supreme Court said that I can't be charged with capital murder again, I figured I would tell you the rest of what happened on January 29, 1999, to show you how stupid y'all are." He went on to explain in graphic detail exactly what had happened on the night he murdered the girl. But Powell did not have the last laugh. He overlooked a catch. The Court had only ruled that there was not enough evidence for the capital murder conviction, leaving open the possibility of a retrial for lesser charges, or for capital murder should new information surface. The second time around, Powell's boastful letter gave the prosecutors precisely the evidence they needed. Powell's lawyer "portrayed his client as a bright young man." Bright as a burned-out light bulb! Powell was convicted of capital murder on January 15, 2003.

Happy Camper 2003 Honorable Mention Unconfirmed by Darwin (Camping Season 2003, Melbourne, Australia) Aussie emergency firefighters were called to extinguish a car fire on the Monash Freeway, a beltway that encircles Melbourne. When the firefighters arrived, they found an agitated young man watching as flames consumed his Ford. After extinguishing the blaze, the firefighters inspected the small car to find out what had caused the conflagration. First they found that the whole car was completely stuffed with camping gear. There was barely room for the driver. Every space was crammed. Then they opened the hood. The driver had packed for an extended camping trip, but had run out of room in the small passenger compartment. So he decided to use all that wasted space under the hood, such as the space between the motor and the hot exhaust pipes. Among the left-over items was a bottle of gas used to fuel the barbecue grill. Amazingly, the superheated bottle of gas did not explode, and the young man suffered only Ford flambé instead of being blown to bits and collecting the Darwin Award he so richly deserved.