Confirmed True by Darwin
Clement Vallandigham was a well-known Northern Democrat who campaigned for states' rights during the Civil War. In 1863 Vallandigham was convicted of treason for his speeches attacking the administration of President Lincoln. He was banished to the South, where he continued to voice his political views.

After the war, Vallandingham became a lawyer. In his last appearance in the courtroom, he represented a client on trial for murder. The accused man's defense was that the victim had drawn his own gun in a fashion that caused it to fire, killing himself. To prove the defense argument, Vallandigham demonstrated the victim's method of drawing a gun--using the loaded evidence gun as his prop. The firearm went off, and he lost his life--but proved his case.


Wrong Time, Wrong Place
3 February 1990, Washington
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.


Conquering the Arch
1994 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(22 November 1980, Missouri) The Gateway Arch soars 630 feet above the city of St. Louis. Around 9 a.m., a technician entering the park's interpretive center saw an object falling down the north leg of the arch. The object turned out to be Kenneth, 33, who was trying to impress his wife on her birthday. His plan was to parachute onto the top of the arch. It didn't bother Kenneth that the park service had turned down his request for permission to jump. Kenneth had already made over 1,600 jumps. He knew what he was doing. And a true daredevil never needs permission.

The day dawned with howling winds and bitter cold. The weather would have given most parachutists second thoughts about making a jump. But Kenneth had psyched himself up by watching a documentary on parachute daredevils, and Kenneth knew what he was doing. He left his wife a note asking her to come and photograph his triumph. At 8:55 a.m. he leapt from a light plane and soared successfully to the top of the monument. He had conquered the Gateway Arch, with his wife watching from the ground! He grabbed onto the aircraft warning light, to steady himself against the raging wind. The first part of the plan had gone perfectly. Of course it had, Kenneth knew what he was doing. Now came the harder part: getting down.
The arch is hollow, with a viewing area inside, just beneath Kenneth's feet. Perhaps he was looking for a trap-door into the arch, but there was no trap-door.

A gust of wind caught his deflated parachute and threw him off balance. He began sliding down the north leg of the arch. About halfway down, he tried to deploy his backup parachute, but it failed. Another gust caught his parachute and blew him off the arch. He fell the rest of the way, landing head-first in the terrazzo below. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital about one hour after performing his last jump.

And that's what comes from thinking you know what you're doing. Reader Andy says, "Actually this story is older than 1980. I heard about it on a tour of the arch in the 1970s, and it was old then. The would-be parachutist hit the top of the arch at an angle, his chute collapsed, and when he tried to stand and release his chute, a gust of wind pulled him onto the slope. The chute collapsed again,and he left a crater. BUT, the story goes, if the Cardinals were playing a home game, he had a helluva view for a few seconds. Also, you can't fly under the arch, because of a semi-disasterous attempt to do so."

Sizzling Scaffolding
1994 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(1982, Texas) At the Amarillo Fairgrounds, some buildings were in need of a coat of paint, so local contractors were hired to do the job. Between the buildings was an angled culvert, designed to drain rainwater away from the buildings. Because of the slope, the wheeled painter scaffolding tended to roll downhill, so the painters removed the wheels on the scaffolding. They were in the process of moving the scaffolding, when the metal structure met a transformer. The painters were killed.

The story made the headlines. The town was abuzz with talk of the tragedy, how it had come to pass, and whether the city was liable for damages. The city officials decided they needed to conduct an investigation. With much fanfare, they arrived at the scene of the incident, prepared to personally recreate the circumstances. Two officials grabbed the scaffolding in the exact same location as the two painters, began to move the scaffolding... and were promptly electrocuted.


Auto Blotto
1994 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(7 September 1990, Sydney, Australia) Men seem to have an affinity for large trucks. What else can explain the actions of a 34-year-old thief who decided to take possession of the engine of an old Bedford tip-truck? The truck was parked outside a glass recycling company in Alexandria. It generally takes three men to lift an engine block of this size, but our enterprising pilferer decided that the best way to remove the engine was from below, rather than the conventional out-the-top-with-a-crane technique.

He crawled under the cab and began to loosen the bolts. Suddenly the engine block broke loose and landed on his face, killing him instantly. Police ascertained that he had at least one accomplice, judging by the pool of vomit found under a nearby bush. An employee discovered his body early the next morning. The manager said that the truck was about to be scrapped. "If he had come and asked me for it, I would have given it to him."


Jet Assisted Take-Off
1995 Darwin Awards Winner
Confirmed Bogus by Darwin
The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene. The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise.

It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields. Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket.

The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:

The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.

The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing
the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; 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.

Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading "How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT."


Caught in the Auger
1995 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
"Welcome my son, welcome to the machine."
-Pink Floyd
(31 July 1995, Christchurch, New Zealand) An ice-maker may seem innocuous, but when it's big enough to walk into -- for example, one that supplies ice to fishing boats -- it can be so dangerous that safety procedures and fail-safe devices are required. So it was a bit of a surprise when employees at a fish processing plant heard screams emanating from inside the giant ice-maker.

An employee had been running the machine when the flow of ice jammed. Access to the machine's auger chamber was restricted, and employees are trained never to enter the chamber while the auger is running. It would be easy enough to ignore the warning signs, but it is hard to get around another safety feature: the auger will not run unless the operator holds down a foot pedal outside the chamber. Take your foot off the pedal and the machine shuts down.

There was no way the operator could run the auger and also enter the chamber. Or so it seemed, but one enterprising employee found a way. He laid a heavy piece of metal on the foot pedal to keep the auger running while he entered the chamber to clear the ice jam. He was caught by the swirling auger and drawn inevitably, and fatally, into the ice machine.

Ironically, the employee had helped negotiate a labor contract stipulating that workers should scrupulously follow all safety procedures and abide by the company's operating rules.


Macho Men?
1996 Darwin Awards Winner
Some men will got to extraordinary lengths to prove how macho they are. Frenchman Pierre Pumpille recently shunted a stationary car two feet by headbutting it.

"Women thought I was a god," he explained from his hospital bed.

Deity or not, however, Pumpille is a veritable girl's blouse compared to Polish farmer Krystof Azninski, who staked a strong claim to being Europe's most macho man by cutting off his own head in 1995. Azninski, 30, had been drinking with friends when it was suggested they strip naked and play some "men's games".

Initially they hit each other over the head with frozen turnips, but then one man upped the ante by seizing a chainsaw and cutting off the end of his foot. Not to be outdone, Azninski grabbed the saw and, shouting "Watch this then," he swung at his own head and chopped it off."It's funny," said one companion, "when he was young he put on his sister's underwear. But he died like a man."


Lawyer Aloft
(1996, Toronto) Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane of glass with his shoulder and plunged twenty-four floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry, thirty-nine, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Garry had previously conducted the demonstration of window strength without mishap, according to police reports. The managing partner of the law firm that employed the deceased told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Garry was "one of the best and brightest" members of the two-hundred-man association.


Out of their Heads
1997 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed by Darwin
(23 August 1997, Holland) A group of employees were happy to escape work and be bussed around on a day tour by their company. It was a sunny day, and some of the more boisterous employees enjoyed sticking their heads out a rooftop window. I can picture them like puppies enjoying the wind in their ears.

The driver of the speeding bus told them several times to pay attention to the road and stop their foolishness. And then it happened. Two men had their heads out of the window, singing as the wind blew across their faces, when the bus entered a viaduct. The cracking of bone was heard throughout the bus. Their heads did not come off cleanly, as you might expect, but the men fell dead into the bus with cracked heads and broken necks.

The chauffeur, asked whether safety regulations were properly observed, replied, "I always lock the damn thing when kids are in the bus, because kids just don't listen. But for God's sake, these were adults.''


Ski Theft Backfires
(February 1998) Matthew and his friends were sliding down a Mammoth Mountain ski run on a foam pad at 3am, when he crashed into a lift tower and died. His makeshift sledge of yellow foam had been stolen from the legs of a lift tower on Stump Alley. The cushion is meant to protect skiers who hit the tower, and the tower Matthew ran into was the one from which he had created his sledge. There's a moral in there somewhere.


Living on Zionist Time
5 September 1999, Jerusalem - In most parts of the world, the switch away from Daylight Saving Time proceeds smoothly. But the time change raised havoc with Palestinian terrorists this year. Israel insisted on a premature switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time to accommodate a week of pre-sunrise prayers. Palestinians refused to live on "Zionist Time." Two weeks of scheduling havoc ensued. Nobody knew the "correct" time.

At precisely 5:30pm on Sunday, two coordinated car bombs exploded in different cities, killing three terrorists who were transporting the bombs. It was initially believed that the devices had been detonated prematurely by klutzy amateurs. A closer look revealed the truth behind the explosions.

The bombs had been prepared in a Palestine-controlled area, and set to detonate on Daylight Saving Time. But the confused drivers had already switched to Standard Time. When they picked up the bombs, they neglected to ask whose watch was used to set the timing mechanism. As a result, the cars were still en-route when the explosives detonated, delivering the terrorists to their untimely demises.


Fatal Footsie
1999 Darwin Awards Runner-Up
Confirmed True by Darwin
(22 March 1999, Phnom Penh) Decades of armed strife have littered Cambodia with unexploded munitions and ordnance. Authorities warn citizens not to tamper with the devices. Three friends recently spent an evening sharing drinks and exchanging insults at a local cafe in the southeastern province of Svay Rieng. Their companionable arguing continued for hours, until one man pulled out a 25-year-old unexploded anti-tank mine found in his backyard.

He tossed it under the table, and the three men began playing Russian roulette, each tossing down a drink and then stamping on the mine. The other villagers fled in terror. Minutes later, the explosive detonated with a tremendous boom, killing the three men in the bar. "Their wives could not even find their flesh because the blast destroyed everything," the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported.


Stupid Human Tricks
2000 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
Robert, 37, shot himself while explaining gun safety to his wife in Glendale, California, when he placed a .45-caliber pistol he thought was unloaded under his chin and pulled the trigger. Shovestall's wife told police that the incident occurred after her complaints about her husband's 70 guns prompted him to demonstrate their safety.

A 23-year-old bar-brawler who had been escorted out of the Turtle Club in Florida by a bouncer, sneaked back in and leaped off a staircase, aiming a kick at another man, but was killed when he landed on his head. Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet, didn't put enough postage on a letter bomb, and it came back marked "return to sender."

He opened the package and was blown away. Two animal rights activists were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn by freeing a captive herd. Suddenly all two thousand of pigs stampeded through the gate they were opening, and trampled the hapless protesters to death.

News of the Weird reports that in September 1996 a man was crushed to death on a stairway at the Sammis Real Estate and Insurance office in Huntington, N.Y., while he was stealing the office's 600-pound safe. He apparently violated that cardinal rule of hauling massive objects: Never stand on a step lower than the one the safe is on. The safe was empty at the time of the incident.

In San Jose, California, Herman, an avid hunter, used the butt of his shotgun to bash his girlfriend's windshield during an argument. But his loaded gun accidentally discharged into his stomach, killing him and ending the argument. "I cannot help but notice that there is no problem between us that cannot be
solved by your departure."


Gun Safety Training
(28 February 2000, Texas) A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played Russian roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Rashaad, nineteen, was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game. He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver, automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked. His chance of winning a round of Russian roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered.


Lobster Vasectomy
2000 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(2000, England) This tale proves that crime does pay, if you're fishing for elective surgery to go along with your stolen goods. A 24-year-old supermarket shoplifter stuffed a pair of live lobsters in his pants and sprinted for the door, but he never had a chance. The violated crustaceans brought the thief to his knees in front of startled cashiers when they fastened their powerful claws around his delicate parts.

Doctors were able to remove the animals with pliers. They say the thief will fully recover -- except for one small detail. "It was a do-it-yourself vasectomy."

This man's daring supermarket exploits make him one of the few Darwin Award winners to live to tell the tale. The supermarket manager declined to press charges, saying the culprit has already "gone through enough pain (to) learn his lesson."


Jumping Jack Cash
(March 2000) The Grand Canyon in Arizona is cordoned off by a fence around the more treacherous overlooks, to prevent unsteady sightseers from tottering into the depths. Some of these overlooks have small towering plateaus a short distance from the fence. Tourists toss coins onto the plateaus, like dry wishing wells. Quite a few coins pile up on the surfaces, while others fall to the valley floor far below.

One entrepreneur climbed over the fence with a bag, and leapt to one of the precarious, coin-covered perches. He filled the bag with booty, then tried to leap back to the fence with the coins. But the heavy bag arrested his jump, and several tourist were treated to a view of his plunge to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. He did not survive to harvest the piles of coins that had suffered his same fate.


The Unkindest Cut
2001 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
"Improper use of pruning shears can dull the blades."
(30 May 2001, Hillsboro, Oregon) Ismael, 25, was driving a Toyota truck when he lost control of the vehicle, which careened into a mailbox, collided with a utility pole, and flipped onto its side, knocking down high-voltage power lines in the process. At that point, Ishmael climbed from the truck and into the path of evolution.

He surveyed the situation with a pair of pruning shears in his hand. Police speculate that he reached up to clip the snaking, arcing cable lying across his truck, and was electrocuted when the shears touched the 7500-volt cable. A medical examination found that the current travelled across his heart and out his left foot. He was found lying motionless, face-down on the power line, with a pair of pruning shears in his hands. His dazed passenger survived, only to be arrested on an unrelated warrant.


BulletProof
2001 Darwin Award Winner
Confirmed by Darwin
(March 2001, Ghana) Tribal clashes are common in Northern Ghana, and people often resort to witchcraft with the hope of becoming invulnerable to weapons. For example, Aleobiga, 23, and fifteen fellow believers who purchased a "magical" potion to render them invincible to bullets.

After smearing the magical lotion over their bodies for two weeks, Aleobiga volunteered to test the spell. He stood in a clearing while his friends raised their weapons, aimed, fired... You'd think he would have tested the spell on a non-essential body part first. Aleobiga is now roaming the Great Savannah in the sky, and the jujuman who supplied the defective magic was beaten for his failure.


Shoot 'em Off
2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
"For being named Lantern, he wasn't very bright."

(7 May 2002, Wisconsin) Lantern, 30, enjoyed playing a private game with his wife. He would pull down his pants, place the barrel of a shotgun against his scrotum, and tell her to pull the trigger. They had played this game frequently, to his immense pleasure. The gun was unloaded, of course.

On this pleasant Friday, he was excited to try again. The thrill was even larger because his wife's girlfriend was pulling into the driveway at the time. "Shoot 'em off before she gets here!" Lantern told his wife. She pulled the trigger. But this time, the gun was loaded.

Emergency crews arrived to find Lantern bleeding profusely from his groin, wearing shoes and socks, with his pants down around his ankles. The police were told it was an accident, and the couple didn't know the gun was loaded. Lantern was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, where he survived to earning the indisputible right to the rarest of honors: the Living Darwin Award.


Faulty Aim Fatal
2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(7 March 2002, Colorado) When Gerald was pulled over by police for erratic driving, he decided it was better to flee from the stolen car on foot, rather than face possible jail time for a parole violation. This was the first of two successive mental lapses. Gerald's actual thoughts are unknown, but *may* have been something like this: "The officers are only suspicious and alert now... I'll make them hot, sweaty, tired, and angry by leading them on a wild chase through dark alleys and fields."

During the subsequent foot chase, Gerald attempted to dissuade officers from the pursuit by firing a 9mm Ruger semiautomatic handgun blindly over his shoulder. This was the second illustration of a potential mental deficiency. "Officers are running behind me. They have guns. I have a gun! They have eyes in the front of their heads, so they can see to aim at me. I don't have eyes in the back of my head, so I'll fire wildly behind me and see what happens!"

Unfortunately, Gerald appears to have been one of those folks who can't chew gum and walk at the same time. Or at least he couldn't flee and fire at the same time. While discharging the weapon over his shoulder, Gerald managed to shoot himself in the head with his own gun, bringing the chase to a sudden conclusion.

Four shots were fired, none by the officers, who found Gerald's pistol next to his fallen body. Gerald was transported to a local hospital where he expired the following day, thus removing a set of genes deficient in both judgment and coordination from the gene pool.


What's That Sound?
(2 August 2002, Kansas) An Olathe man was struck and killed by a train after his vehicle broke down on Interstate 35. His attempts to repair his car had failed, so he stepped away from the busy freeway to call for help.

As luck would have it, he chose to stand on the train tracks paralleling the road. When the train engineer spotted him standing on the tracks, the man was holding a cell phone to one ear and cupping his hand to the other ear to block the noise of the oncoming locomotive.


Firecracker Chainsaw Massacre
2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(January 2002, Croatia) A Croatian was killed while trying to open a hand grenade with a chainsaw. He wanted to retrieve the explosive to make firecrackers for
the New Year's holiday.


Tied Off
2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(Iowa) Several years ago, an adventurous pair decided to take their ropes and rappel off the Boone Scenic Valley Railroad train over the Des Moines river. Words can't describe how breathtakingly high this narrow train bridge is over the river valley. The open train ride over the abyss is both stunningly beautiful and somewhat nerve-wracking.

Our adventurers had to be completely fearless, because they walked to the middle of this narrow railroad bridge, tied off their ropes, and began to rappel down. When the train came by on it's daily tour of the valley, their one mistake became apparent. They had tied the ropes to the sturdiest support possible: the steel train tracks...


Human Torch
2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(23 November 2002, Oslo, Norway) Around 4:45 p.m., neighbors reported hearing a loud pop followed by a fire at a rail yard in Filipstad, just outside Oslo. Fearing a potential terrorist attack, fire and police crews rushed to the scene. The top of an electric train was burning! When the fire died down, investigators pieced together its cause.

The spray cans and wet paint on the side of the train were the first clues. Inner-city Norwegian youth, victims of a society polite to its core, were lashing out in desperation at the brutal cleanliness and order of a country where the trains always run on time, and sticking it to The Man by tagging the symbol of their oppression. So desperate were they to make their political point that they walked right past several signs warning of the danger of high voltage, and climbed over fences to reach their objective.

One of them, a 17-year-old, wanted to tag where no man had tagged before--on the roof of the train. The fact that few people would ever see his art was no impediment to this brave young man as he sought to subvert the ominant paradigm. He climbed atop the train, sprayed his creation, and rose up to proclaim his accomplishment -- touching the main power line and lighting up the neighborhood as 15,000 volts coursed through his body. His remains were so badly burned that authorities were initially unable to determine that the victim was human.


Unsafe and Insane
2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(2003, Australia) Parents often warn that firecrackers can blow your hand off, but as a 26-year-old Australian learned, they can also remove your gonads from the gene pool. An ambulance rushed to an Illawarra park after receiving reports that a man was hemorrhaging from his behind. The mercifully unidentified man had placed a lit firecracker between the cheeks of his buttocks, stumbled, and fell upon it.

"We do caution people against these acts," said Acting Senior Sergeant John Klepczarek of the local police.

Emergency surgeon Dr. McCurdie said the resulting wound looked like "a war injury." The explosion was forced upward, "blasted a great hole in the pelvis, ruptured the urethra, and injured muscles," rendering the man incontinent as well as sexually dysfunctional. He survived to tell the tale, making him eligible for the dubious honor of a Living Darwin Award.

Darwin notes: The title is a play on words, "Safe and Sane" is a brand of legal firework; insane people cannot actually win Darwin Awards (rules) and this winner doesn't show any signs of insanity.


Ultimate Quest for Airtime
2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(31 May 2003, Indiana) Tamar came all the way from New York for the annual Stark Raven Mad event at the Splashin' Safari waterpark at Holiday World, where members of the American Coaster Enthusiasts planned to rendezvous on Memorial Day weekend. The 32-year-old eagerly looked forward to riding the Raven, later described by Spencer County Prosecutor Jon Dartt as "one of the world's most terrifying roller coasters."

Tamar planned what coaster enthusiasts call "catching airtime," standing up during the ride to show bravery. The park staff warned the "spirited and intelligent" Harvard MBA, along with the rest of the group, "Don't mess with our safety equipment." Tamar's seat belt and lap bar restraint were in place when the train left the station. But you can't catch airtime that way. Her seatbelt was later found unbuckled and tucked into the seat cushions.

As the train swooped over the precipice into the "infamous drop" on the fifth turn at 60 mph, where the G-forces are notoriously skyward, Tamar unlatched her seat belt and stood up. The train dropped, but Tamar didn't. She caught good air until she landed on the ground, 69 feet below.


Workin' at the Car Wash
2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(29 January 2003, Brazil) At work, Manoel was responsible for cleaning out the storage tanks of gasoline tanker trucks. He had been employed in that capacity for two months when he ran afoul of fuel.

The 35-year-old began to fill a tanker with water, a standard safety procedure that forces flammable vapor out of the container. He returned an hour later to check whether the water level was high enough to proceed. But he had trouble deciding, because it was so DARK inside the tanker.

A resourceful employee, Manoel forgot the very reason why he was filling the tank with water when he lit a cigarette lighter to shed some light on the situation. His little test successfully determined that the water level was NOT yet high enough for safety. The vapor explosion launched him through the air, and he landed in the company parking lot 100 meters away.

Manoel suffered severe burns, blunt force trauma, and an injury to the head that exposed his brain. Our witless car washer had learned his terminal lesson in safety by the time the firemen arrived.


Love Struck
2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

"Does it really matter what these affectionate
people do, so long as they don't do it in the street
and frighten the horses?" -Mrs. Patrick Campbell

(3 March 2002, England) As Kim and Paul left the Sheffield pub, they noticed that a streetlight was burned out, creating a pool of darkness on the road. Unable to rein in their passion, they began to consummate their relationship on the asphalt outside the pub. Witnesses said the couple was lying right on the white
line, kissing and cuddling.

The passionate pair were warned of the danger of their coital position not once, not twice, but three times -- by a car driver, a bus driver, and a pedestrian.

An off-duty paramedic honked and shouted, "You want to get up, otherwise you'll be run over." The man simply said "Cheers, mate," and the paramedic heard a female laughing. A bus driver swerved to avoid them, and drove past with wheels on the curb. A concerned pedestrian shouted to warn them that another bus was
headed their way.

Despite these disruptions, Kim and Paul continued, oblivious to the approach of a small, single-decker Nipper bus. The bus driver mistook the undulating shape for a bag of rubbish in the poorly lit street, and was unable to stop in time. There was a dull thud...

Kim and Paul were struck and killed at midnight. Paramedics found Kim lying on her back with her jumper pulled up, and Paul between her legs with his trousers
pulled down.

The only downside to this timely removal of lunacy from the gene pool is the fate of the bus driver. Despite the couple's irregular actions, and a police investigator's statement that "to expect a driver to anticipate a pedestrian lying in the road is out of the ordinary," a judge fined him for careless driving, and his license was revoked for six months. Fortunately, his employers consider him an excellent employee, and plan to give him other duties for six months.

Relatives of the victims said they were glad the driver had kept his job.

This tale surely answers the Beatles' question, "Why don't we do it in the road?"


Rutting Contest
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
(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."


Man Drowns in Kitchen Sink
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(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.


Spy vs. Self
Hold my beer and watch this!"
(28 May 2004, Italy) Fabio, 28, left the family ostrich business for a new job as a truck driver. But his interests were more eclectic than the average ostrich-farming truck driver. Relaxing one evening with friends at a pub in Cursi, Fabio shifted the conversation to his new interest in spy gadgets. He pulled an ordinary-looking pen out of his pocket and explained that it was actually a single-shot pistol. To demonstrate, he pointed it at his head and clicked the button. The cleverly disguised gadget worked perfectly, sending a .22-caliber bullet into Fabio's left occipital lobe.


Do-It-Yourself Landmine
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(27 May 2004, Italy) When Peraldo found sticks of old dynamite in an abandoned stable on the hill above his vineyard, he decided to bury the problem. Some might think that burying unstable dynamite would be...unwise.

But not Peraldo, a 67-year-old retired entrepreneur, who had been an explosives expert in the army. He had also worked as a licensed "fuochino" in charge of explosives at construction sites prior to his retirement. He knew the ways of things that go
boom.

This dynamite had been sitting around for some time, decaying and sweating highly unstable nitroglycerin. Peraldo carefully placed the high explosives in a hole thirty meters away from the stable, and gently covered them with loose earth. Apparently the mound was a little too high to be aesthetically attractive, so Peraldo began patting it down with his hands...

The massive blast rocked the entire town of Chiavenna. Police rushed to the vineyard to investigate. Peraldo was found torn to shreds, but miraculously, still alive and able to explain what had happened before he died from internal injuries.


4-1-0 Club
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(14 October 2004, Missouri) When Peter and Jesse wanted to see what their new ride could do, like many young men, they got more than they bargained for. It was all fun and games until the vehicle stalled. In most cases this wouldn't be a serious problem -- but Peter and Jesse stalled at 41,000 feet.

You see, they weren't pushing the old man's car to the limit. They were flying a 50-passenger jet, a Bombardier CRJ200. Fortunately, there were no passengers
aboard to share the fatal consequences.

Jesse, 31, was captain of Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701, and Peter, 23, was the co-pilot. They were transporting an empty plane from Little Rock, Arkansas to Minneapolis, where it was needed for a morning flight. They decided to see what that baby could do. Their fun began while ascending, as they pulled 1.8 G's in a maneuver that activated an automatic stall avoidance system.

Then they decided to "forty-one it," take the jet to 41,000 feet--eight miles--the maximum altitude the plane was designed to fly. The thrust of the engines pressed them into their seats with 2.3 times the force of gravity as they soared ever higher, laughing and cursing in a friendly manner, ignoring the overheating engines, and the stick shaker that warned they were operating outside of safe aerodynamic parameters.

At this point, Air Traffic Control contacted the pilots to find out what they were up to. A female controller's voice crackled over the radio: "3701, are you
an RJ-200?"

"That's affirmative."

"I've never seen you guys up at 41 there."

The boys laughed. "Yeah, we're actually a, there's ah, we don't have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come on up here."

Little did they know that their fun was doomed when they set the auto-pilot for the impressive climb. They had specified the [I]rate[/I] of climb rather than the [I]speed[/I] of the climb. The higher the plane soared, the slower it flew. The plane was in danger of stalling when it reached 41,000 feet, as the autopilot vainly tried to maintain altitude by pointing the nose up.

"Dude, it's losing it," said one of the pilots.

"Yeah," said the other.

Our two flying aces could have saved themselves at that point. An automatic override began to pitch the nose down to gain speed and prevent a stall.

Unfortunately, Jesse and Peter chose to overrule the override. Oops. The plane stalled.

"We don't have any engines," said one.

"You gotta be kidding me," said the other.

Jesse and Peter still might have saved themselves. They were within gliding range of five suitable airports. Unfortunately, they did not reveal the full extent of their difficulties to the controller. They said that they had lost only one of the two engines. They glided for 14 full minutes, losing altitude all the way. As they drifted closer and closer to the ground at high speed, still unable to get the engines restarted, they finally asked for assistance: "We need direct to any airport. We have a double engine failure."

Unfortunately, it was too late. "We're going to hit houses, dude," one of pilots said, as they desperately tried to reach an airport in Jefferson City. They missed the houses and the runway, crashing two and a half miles from the airport. Both men died in the crash.

"It's beyond belief that a professional air crew would act in that manner," said a former manager of Pinnacle's training program for the Bombardier CRJ200.


Stepping Out
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(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.


"Who Wants Summa This?"
2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(10 November 2004, Wales) Kebab-eating amateur rugby player Gareth, 22, was a bit wobbly after a pub crawl with his friends. His flat was filled with men and women when he pulled down his pants and waddled over to the window, shouting "Who wants summa this?" to the empty street below. A friend grabbed him before he could fall out the window.

In the morning when they awoke from their drunken stupor, Gareth admitted it was a pretty stupid thing to do. But that didn't stop the determined Darwin Award
candidate from successfully trying again.

The very next night, with his blood-alcohol level at four times the legal limit, just short of lethal intoxication, he pulled down his pants again and waddled over to the open window, shouting "Who wants summa this?" Nobody was near enough to grab him this time. A friend told the coroner's court that he bent forward and went out the window, hands flailing. Gareth was found outside, impaled on a spike fence below.


Failed Frame-Up
2005 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(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.


Chimney-Cleaning Grenade
2005 Darwin Award Winner
Confirmed True by Darwin
(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.


Freeway Dangler
2005 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(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.


Score For Goliath
2006 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin
(September 2006, Florida) A fearsome mythical giant was felled by a humble slingshot. But a modern speargun vs. an underwater leviathan is another tale altogether, as a Florida man discovered.

Outlawed in 1990, hunting Goliath-sized groupers remains surprisingly popular. These fish can weigh hundreds of pounds, yet there are underwater hunters who choose to tether themselves to such muscular sea creatures. However unlikely a pursuit, the poaching of groupers by divers and snorkelers continues, in
defiance of both the law and common sense.

Of this elite group, our Darwin Award winner distinguished himself yet further by disregarding one essential spearfishing precaution. By embarking on this hunt without a knife to cut himself loose, the "fit and experienced snorkeler" was guaranteeing that his next attack on a giant grouper would be his last.

Why anyone thinks it's a good idea to tether yourself to a fish twice your size, I don't know. Some time later, the body of the spearfisher was found pinned to the coral, 17 feet underwater. Three coils of line were wrapped around his wrist, and one very dead grouper was impaled at the other end of the line.

In those final hours, the tables were turned, and the fish was given an opportunity to reflect on the experience of "catching a person."


[San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.


[Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a "farm-type truck."

Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a rumbling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."


[Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.


[UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously had conducted demonstration of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawyers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was one of the "best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.


[Bloomberg News Service] A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near-airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.


["News of the Weird"] Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he
bit into a wire and was electrocuted.


["The Indianapolis Star"]. A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.


[Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel Regional police. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said.


MICHIGAN...
In Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.


CALIFORNIA...
A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," -- accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.


NORTH CAROLINA...
Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand.

People on the beach on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him.

It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.


CALIFORNIA...
Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth(to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.


DELAWARE...
Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyvill, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.