Where's the Chute?

Confirmed by Darwin

Historic Darwin Award Nominee

(North Carolina, 1987) Ivan, an experienced parachutist with 800 jumps under his belt, was videotaping a private lesson given by an instructor for a single trainee. He had attached the video camera to his helmet so that it would capture the entire day of instruction, and the supporting power supply and recorder were in a heavy satchel slung on his back.
The group went up in the plane, and the instructor led the enthusiastic beginner through preparations for the jump. Ivan carefully documented the lesson, which needed to be perfect for the sake of posterity,

When they reached the jump site, Ivan jumped from the back of the plane and filmed the student and instructor jumping from the front of the plane. A few heartbeats later, tape still running, Ivan realized that he had been so focused on filming the jump that he had forgotten to strap on his own parachute. An FAA spokesperson said that the video equipment strapped to his back may have been mistaken for a parachute.

In the footage salvaged from the camera and spliced together, the student and instructor are shown in freefall befire they pull their ripcords and recede rapidly from view. Then the cameraman's hands reach for his own ripcord. When Ivan realizes he has no ripcord, ergo no chute, his hands are seen to flail about wildly, then the camera pans down towards the approaching earth...

Film from the final stage of the plunge was destroyed on impact.

Train of Thought

1994 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

(September 1989, USSR) The Soviet Union is home to a growing number of psychics and mentalists. One of them, E. Frenkel, became convinced that he could use his powers to stop vehicles in their tracks. He believed that "in extraordinary conditions of a direct threat to my organism, all my reserves will be called into action."

Frenkel started small -- a bicycle here, an automobile there -- before graduating to streetcars. Finally, he devised an ultimate test of his psychic power: he would halt a freight train in its tracks.

The engineer of the train that ran Frenkel over saw him toss his briefcase aside, and step onto the tracks with arms raised, head lowered, and body tensed. The engineer applied the emergency brakes, but it was too late.

The mentalist psyched himself out.

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