|
1.) (26 August 2006, Leicester, England) Darren's death was a mystery. The 33-year-old was found slumped in the hallway of his house, bleeding from stab wounds to his chest. Police initially assumed that an assailant had attacked him, but they could find no supporting evidence. A year later, the inquest revealed why Darren can stake his claim to a place among the winners of the Darwin Award.
Darren had called a friend, but minutes after he hung up, rang back to ask for an ambulance. The front door was ajar, and Darren was found lying near a bloodstained lock-knife he had purchased whilst on holiday in Spain. Forensics investigators saw no indication of a struggle, and the coroner reported that the stab wounds seemed to be self-inflicted. However, Darren had shown no suicidal tendencies.
His wife, who was on holiday at the time of the incident, cleared up the mystery, and revealed why our subject will go down in history as a Darwin Award winner. As she was leaving for the holiday, she remembered Darren wondering whether his new jacket was 'stab-proof'.
That's right. Darren had decided to find out if his jacket could withstand a knife attack. Did he choose to test his jacket while it was draped over the back of a chair? No, our man decided that the best approach would be to wear the garment and stab himself. Sadly, his choice of armor proved less resistant to a sharp blade than he had hoped.
The coroner reached a verdict of accidental death by 'misadventure'.
2.) (19 March 2005, Michigan) "Unusual" and "complicated" is how the Missaukee County sheriff described the mysterious death of 19-year-old Christopher.
After an evening spent imbibing large quantities of alcohol, Christopher noticed a shortage in his liquor supply that could not be attributed to his own depredations. He concluded that his neighbor had stolen a bottle of booze! He menaced the neighbor with a knife, to no avail, whereupon he retired to his own apartment to brood about revenge.
Finally he figured out the perfect way to get back at that conniving bottle-thief: Christopher would stab himself and blame the neighbor!
A witness saw Christopher enter the bathroom as he called 911. He calmly informed the dispatcher that his neighbor had stabbed him. Witnesses said he looked fine when he emerged from the bathroom, but a moment later gouts of blood spewed from his chest. Suddenly he began screaming begging for help. The dispatcher heard a woman shout, "Why did you do this?" He collapsed at the door of his apartment.
Deputies arrived quickly, but Christopher had already bled to death from self-inflicted stab wounds to his chest. An autopsy determined that he had stabbed himself in the chest twice. The first wound apparently didn't look dangerous enough, so he tried again. The second time, the knife plunged into his left ventricle. This wound was plenty dangerous: he had only two minutes to live.
Christopher died in vain. His deathbed accusation of his neighbor failed, as a witness confirmed that the neighbor was not in the apartment. All Christopher got for revenge was an accidental death sentence.
3.) (October 2004, Chiayi, Taiwan) Most rutting contests involve two male mammals, like the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis dallis), which ram into each other at high speed in order to impress a female sheep and win the right to procreate. These mammals tend to have unusually thick skulls and extra fluid surrounding the brain to prevent damage from the competition. Humans tend not to have such thick skulls and other natural adaptations, and therefore do not generally rut.
Of course man, the tool user, can find artificial means to overcome natural limitations. One well-known example of this behavior is the medieval jousting contest in which participants wear armor and ride horses toward each other at high speed.
The most recent observation of human rutting behavior occurred when two Taiwanese university students donned protective helmets and revved their motor scooters in an effort to impress a comely female of their species. The two were the same class, but not friends. Other classmates reported that both men fancied the same female student.
After indulging in a few drinks during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the two encountered each other, and words were spoken. The gauntlet was thrown down. In lieu of horses, the two would ride their motor scooters at each other at high speed, and the one who didn't turn away would win the exclusive right to pursue the female.
Obviously both were very keen on her, because neither of them turned away. Their scooters collided head-on at 50 mph. Both died instantly. The girl at the center of the rut refused to comment, other than to say that she "wasn't interested in either of them."
4.) (31 May 2005, Seattle, Washington) Strength and endurance are two of the most important characteristics that can be passed on to improve the species, so physical challenges between males are frequent. In this case, two drinking buddies found themselves on an overpass 40 feet above a busy freeway in downtown Seattle at 2:45 a.m. It turned out to be the perfect place to determine who had more strength and endurance. Whoever could dangle from the overpass the longest would win!
Unfortunately, the winner was too tired from his victory to climb back up, despite help from his 31-year-old friend. The unidentified champion fell smack into the front of a semi-truck barreling down the highway at 60 mph and bounced onto the pavement, where he was hit by a car. The car did not stop. Authorities did not identify the winner of the competition.
5.) (13 January 2005, Croatia) One fateful afternoon, 55-year-old Marko retreated to his semi-detached workshop to make himself a tool for chimney cleaning. The chimney was too high for a simple broom to work, but if he could attach a brush to a chain and then weigh it down with something, that would do the trick. But what could he use as a weight?
He happened to have the perfect object. It was heavy, yet compact. And best of all, it was made of metal, so he could weld it to the chain. He must have somehow overlooked the fact that it was also a hand grenade and was filled with explosive material.
Marko turned on his welding apparatus and began to create an arc between the chain and the grenade. As the metal heated up, the grenade exploded. The force of the explosion killed poor Marko instantly, blasting shrapnel through the walls of the shed and shattering the windshield of a Mercedes parked outside. Marko's chimney was untouched, however.
6.) 12 April 2004, Netherlands) Certain land animals have evolved over the millennia to use speed in the pursuit of prey or avoidance of predators. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) can run as fast as 60 mph over the plains of Africa, and the pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) can reach 55 mph over the plains of North America. Humans (Homo sapiens) are not among these animals built for speed. The very fastest human can achieve a maximum sprint of 16 mph for short distances.
So things were bound to go wrong when a 19-year-old male, driving the A67 highway near the Dutch town of Blerick, sought to impress his two passengers by putting his car on cruise control at 20 mph, getting out of the car, and running alongside it. He planned to jump back in and drive on, but the moment his feet hit the ground, he fell over and slammed headfirst into the asphalt. He was admitted to the hospital with severe brain damage, and died the next day.
7.) 26 May 2004, Wolfsberg, Austria) The manager of an apartment house was surprised to find the legs of a corpse sticking out an apartment window. Police entered the apartment and found the deceased man's head soaking in a sink full of hot water.
Apparently the out-of-work Austrian had returned home after a night of drinking and drugs. He decided to slip in through the kitchen window. The window was fixed at the base and tilted out, giving him just enough room to squeeze his head through as far as the sink before he got stuck. While flailing around trying to escape, he turned on the hot water tap.
Police were not sure why he had not turned off the water, pulled the plug, or--perhaps most important--entered through the front door, since they found the keys in his pants pocket.
8.) (21 February 2004, Ottawa, Canada) Ameer, a second-year engineering student at Carleton University, was celebrating his 20th birthday with friends in his 11th-floor apartment when they embarked on a spitting contest. His two friends had already made their marks. Ameer thought he could use his engineering skills to improve his performance. A quick mental calculation of trajectory, projectile velocity, and wind speed indicated that winning required more than a simple "stand and spit" technique. Ameer took a running start, flew over the balcony railing, and plunged to his death.
"It was purely accidental," said Ottawa police, "momentum carried him beyond." The building's security guard heard the thud. "He was one of the smartest guys I ever met in my life," the guard said. "He had a maturity beyond his age."
Spitting contest deaths are becoming a trend. In 1999, a 25-year-old soldier in Alabama won the first Darwin Award in this category in 1999, using the same techinque and achieving the same result. 23-year-old Bartosz of Mt. Prospect, was nominated for falling 20 feet onto his head in December 2005. Bartosz is remarkable for having fallen over an apartment railing without running start. But Ameer clearly trumps his competitors with his 11-story fall.
Perhaps the three have reunited in the afterlife, arm in arm, sailing through the air, their projectiles suspended in front of them like bullets in the Matrix movies.
9.) Doctors warn of a dangerous new method of cocaine abuse: injecting the drug directly into the urinary tract. Physicians from New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center reported the case of a 34-year-old man who suffered severe bleeding under the skin after pumping cocaine into his urethra. It led to complications that destroyed his penis, nine fingers, and parts of his legs. "They fill an eye dropper or a syringe with a cocaine solution and inject it into the penis," said Dr. Samuel Perry, a professor of clinical psychiatry.
The man had injected cocaine before intercourse in an effort to enhance sexual performance. He was admitted to the hospital because his penis had remained erect for three days, resulting in a painful inability to urinate. The medical term for a prolonged erection is "priapism." On his third day in the hospital, the man's erection suddenly subsided. Over the next 12 hours, blood leaked into the tissues of
his feet, hands, genitals, back and chest. Blood coagulation caused tissues to die over large areas of the patient's body, and he was transferred to the burn unit of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
Doctors there were forced to amputate the man's legs above the knee and all but one of his fingers to stop the spread of gangrene. The patient's penis fell off by itself. The man is currently recovering in a rehabilitation facility.
Men who inject cocaine into the penis report that it gives them a sexual high. Drug abuse treatment experts have previously reported external use of cocaine as a sexual stimulant. Cocaine powder is rubbed onto the surface of the genital organs by both men and women in an effort to halt premature ejacuation or improve sexual sensations.
"We report this case to alert clinicians to this new method of cocaine abuse and to describe its rare and previously unreported complications," the doctors concluded.
10.) The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree appeared to be the robber's first, due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:
1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms. A gun shop.
2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.
3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door.
4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.
Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup, and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, covered by several customers who also drew their guns, thereby removing the confused criminal from the gene pool.
No one else was hurt.
|
 |
Similar Threads
Linear Mode
