Darwin

I received the list of 2006 Darwin award recipients. It's a yearly commemoration of people who accidentally(?) remove themselves from the human race. Please let these next ten people be a caution, a deterrent of sorts.


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. Whatever happened to calling AAA?

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. How about running in an enclosed space?

Buxton , NC : A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug caved in on him. 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 andshovels, 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. How about wearing a hood for protection from the wind. Or a hat.

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. They do have those miners hats with the lights on the hats.

This one an annual qualifying event: Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville, 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. Just stupid!!!

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree in Washington, DC appeared to be the robber's first (and last), 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 specializing in handguns.
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.
and
4) A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer, with a 9mm GLOCK 17, and the clerk, with a .50 DESERT EAGLE, promptly returned fire, assisted by several customers who also drew their guns, several of whom also fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt in the exchange of fire. Reminds me of that comedy routine that Bill Engvall did called "There's Your Sign" (Stupidity Sign)

HONORABLE MENTION: Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in AndoverTownship , NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but the window was closed. They obviously led very dull lives.

RUNNER UP: TACOMA , WA. Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men, apparently still drinking, trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge where Bingham had volunteered to jump, they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham pointed out a coil of lineman's cable that laid nearby. One end of the cable was secured around his leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy salt water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, is that God was watching out for me on that night, there's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was not located. Thankfully the cable wasn't tied around his waist.

AND THE WINNER: Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, suffocating the keeper under 200 pounds of dung. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said stunned Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he laid under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated." If anything, this proves "S**t happens." I'm guessing he didn't have a grin on his face when he died.

paul