Love Struck

2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

"Why don't we do it in the road?" -Beatles

(3 March 2002, Sheffield, England) As Kim Fontana, 32, and Paul Cowley, 40, left the pub, they noticed that a streetlight was burned out, creating an attractive pool of darkness on the road. Unable to rein in their passion, they began to canoodle 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 chosen position not once, not twice, but three times -- by a car driver, a bus driver, and a pedestrian.

An off-duty paramedic honked three times and shouted, "You want to get up, or otherwise you'll be run over." The man simply said "Cheers, mate," and the paramedic heard a female voice 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 own actions, and a police investigator's statement that "one can expect a pedestrian walking or running in the road, but to expect a driver to anticipate a pedestrian lying in the road is out of the ordinary" -- a judge felt that "his driving fell below the standard one would reasonably expect of a prudent, competent driver."

The bus driver was fined for careless driving and his license was revoked for six months.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.

"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

 

Chicken to Go

2004 Darwin Award Nominee

(3 October 2004, Galati, Romania) Constantin, 67, lived in a formerly peaceful village near Galati. But lately Constantin just couldn't get any sleep, all because of a single noisy chicken. Night after night he dreamed of wringing its neck, or even better, chopping its head off. One night, he finally had enough. He roused himself from bed and headed out to the yard in his underwear, determined to bring silence once more to his home.
The sleep-deprived villager grabbed that chicken by the neck and chopped its head right off. Only then did he realize that he had confused his own penis for the chicken's neck. While Constantin stood stunned by his folly, his dog rushed over and gobbled up the treat.

He was rushed to the hospital, bleeding heavily. Doctors sewed up the wound and pronounced him out of danger. He is also in no danger of reproducing.

 

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 lifeless 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.

 

Watch Out for That Tree!

2004 Darwin Award Nominee
Unconfirmed by Darwin
Confirmation Pending

(11 May 2004, South Africa) The mighty oak trees of Stellenbosch, a city near Cape Town, were planted over 300 years ago. In recent years, they have begun to succumb to disease. The city has been cutting them down and planting new trees.

A man was sitting at a café, watching a team with loud chain saws working to remove a tree whose center had become dangerously decayed. The arborists had marked the danger zone with red and white barrier tape, and posted notices of danger, taking every precaution to prevent damage to property or persons.

Just as the tree was ready to fall, and the chainsaw operator was making the final cut, our man jumped up from his seat in the café. He ducked under the safety tape and started hurrying up the pavement to meet his girlfriend at a nearby shop. Despite the workers' frantic shouts, he continued toward the tree that by this time was falling as planned.

The chainsaw operator tried a desperate tackle to get him out the way, but it was too late. Missing the would-be rescuer by inches, the tree landed on the man's head, killing him instantly. And that is how one can qualify for a Darwin Award simply by walking under a tree.

 

Self-Demolition Derby

2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

(September 2003, Minnesota) The main purpose of a demolition derby car is to smash into other cars in competition. Crash, repair, repeat. As a result, the cars tend to become more fragile than the average car. So you would think that Scot would have taken this fact into account, when he had to crawl under his derby car for repairs. But why take the time to put the car up on blocks? It would be a lot faster and easier to use a handy Bobcat-type skid loader and just lift the car up from its bumper. When the car was raised, Scot slid beneath. Then the bumper broke off. Help was immediately summoned, but it was too late. Scot had lost his final demolition derby. 

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?

2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed by Darwin

(2 August 2002, Kansas) Police said an Olathe man was struck and killed by a train after his vehicle broke down on Interstate 35. His attempts at repairing his car had failed, and he had stepped away from the busy freeway to call for help, when the train engineer spotted him standing on the tracks. The engineer said the man was holding a cell phone to one ear, and cupping his hand to the other ear to block the noise of the train.


Authorities are at a loss as to how to prevent train deaths. Long Island, New York locomotive engineers recently formed a support group, as every year-plus veteran without exception has involuntarily killed someone in a grade crossing collision. The baffled engineers wonder how anyone could be so unaware of the laws of physics, which dictate that a train weighing hundreds of tons has too much inertia to stop on a dime -- or even a football field.

A Honey of a Buzz

2003 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

(September 2003, Mexico) An unidentified 60-year-old Escobedo man was still thirsty after drinking what most would consider "too much alcohol." He stumbled toward a nearby beehive, hoping to follow the beer with a bit of honey.
He thought the bees would surely share. Instead, they obeyed a Darwinian signal bred into them for millennia. Over a thousand noble fighters gave their all, sacrificed their stingers and their lives to protect the hive. The man, quite reasonably, responded with terminal anaphylactic shock.

A hospital spokesman disputed the theory that bees had killed him, attributing his demise to, "the stupid things drunken people do," and pointing out that he was otherwise healthy and would have enjoyed a long life. "The combination was lethal."

"Bees don't kill people, people kill bees."

 

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...

 

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Shoot 'em Off

2002 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

(7 May 2002, Wisconsin) [CHANGED NAME] 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 infrequent, but indisbutible, right to the rarest of honors: the Living Darwin Award.

Rare still-living Darwin Award!