2008 Darwin Awards

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Awards honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion, as described in the Darwin Awards books.

So this years winners are:

Eighth Place
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.

Seventh Place
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.


Read full entry


Sixth Place
While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom! When it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fifth Place
Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell 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.

Fourth Place
Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed 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.

Third Place
After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up! and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and 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 rou nds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

Honorable mention
Paul Stiller, 47, and his wife Bonnie were bored just driving around at 2 A.M. so they lit a quarter stick of dynamite to toss out the window to see what would happen. Apparently they failed to notice the window was closed.

Runner up
Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from a local bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable, lay near by. They secured one end around Bingham's leg and then tied the other 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 water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER IS...
Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.
Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded.
The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him.

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15 comentarii:

Anonymous said...

The Runner up... is not exactly Darwin Award material, since he didn't die.

Anonymous said...

The runner up shouldnt be in this list. He didnt remove himself from the gene-pool and is therefore unable to win a Darwin award.

Anonymous said...

lol i googled most of these and they are all fake or extremely exaggerated and none even happened in 2008.

i think ive heard the elephant one since like 1995.

Anonymous said...

Total fail.
Most aren't true, the ones that are didn't happen in 2008.

Anonymous said...

at least they're fun to read.. i don't exactly take these cases seriously...

Anonymous said...

nice to read, although, the, excessive, of, use, commas and up mi xed , sentences makes it a little, hard, read to.

Unknown said...

I'm pretty sure the real Darwin Awards are verified before they are published. Also the people don't necessarily have to die, they just have to remove themselves from the gene pool. This is also possible if they become sterile (one Darwin Award winner shot himself in the testicles).

Sir Doctor Neff said...

"nice to read, although, the, excessive, of, use, commas and up mi xed , sentences makes it a little, hard, read to."

the hell are you talking about theres hardly any punctuation used in any of these

Anonymous said...

if you really want to see who won the real darwin awards go to http://www.darwinawards.com/

Anonymous said...

A lot of these have been around for quite a few years.

Anonymous said...

You kind of make the real Darwin Awards look bad. Please don't make a post like this again.

Anonymous said...

1st of all, this isn't related to Darwin Awards, which doesn't rank or give "awards" at all, but simply lists great stupid deaths. www.darwinawards.com/

2nd, the #2 would never appear on the Darwin site, since he's a survivor.

3rd, the winner is an urban legend, related to a fake photograph that has been passed around the Internet for a good decade.

An entertaining, illigitimate read from a source that you should never trust again. G'bye!

Anonymous said...

As said, runner up doesn't count. Also, the winner is pretty lame. So a zookeeper gave a constipated elephant large amounts of animal laxatives (makes sense as dose is likely not for elephant sized animals, likely he figured out the right ratio). Secondly, when that didn't work he tried an enema, which is a pretty reasonable idea. So how is this "Darwin" material? The guy wasn't doing anything particularly stupid, just his job of relieving a sick animal, and by dumb luck died. I would much rather have him the gene pool than any of the others.

Anonymous said...

Look at the Darwin Awards rules. You are still eligible if you survive.

Anonymous said...

Stumbl'd onto this page, I wont be perusing the rest of the site and will be down-voting. List is not real and written poorly. And to the last commentor, you need to read better, those that survive must be unable to procreate, missing foot doesn't equal sterile.

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