The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (23 page)

This brand of snowmobile had a fuel tank mounted in front. The culvert admitted the tip of the snowmobile, then cut into the cowling, spilling fuel over the hot engine. The body of the ex-snowmobiler was blown twenty feet back into the field.

The rabbit’s whereabouts were unknown.

Reference: Eyewitness account from an anonymous M.D.
with thirty years in the ER

Reader Comments:

“Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow”

“Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…”

“Wabbit: 1. Suicidal Idiot: 0.”

Darwin Award: Score One for Goliath

Confirmed True by Darwin

9 SEPTEMBER 2006, FLORIDA

The one that didn’t get away.

A fearsome mythical giant named Goliath was felled by David’s humble slingshot. But a modern leviathan versus a speargun is another tale altogether, as forty-two-year-old Gary discovered.

Although it was outlawed in 1990, poaching giant groupers remains surprisingly popular in the Florida Keys. These muscular fish can weigh six hundred pounds, yet underwater hunters voluntarily choose to tether themselves to the creatures with spearguns, in defiance of both the law and common sense.

Of this elite group our Darwin Award winner further distinguished himself by disregarding one essential spearfishing precaution. The “fit and experienced snorkeler” embarked on a grouper hunt without a knife to cut himself loose, guaranteeing that his next attack would be his last. “Not wearing a knife is like crossing I-95 with your eyes closed,” explained one experienced diver.

In those final hours the tables were turned, and the leviathan fish was given an opportunity to experience “catching a person.” The body of the spearfisher was found pinned to the coral, seventeen 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.

Reference:
The Miami Herald,
Reuters, Yahoo! News

Reader Comments:

“Fish Catches Man Story”

“Sounds fishy to me.”

“A reel fish tale.”

Darwin Award: Elephants Press Back

Confirmed True by Darwin

2007, INDIA

Increased mining and heavy rains in southeast India have unsettled the wildlife. In recent months migrating elephants have killed eleven people. A team of four journalists decided to interview this herd of rogue elephants. They went into the forest in search of the rogues—on foot.

Elephants are big, and elephants are fast. As the recent deaths illustrate, a person can’t outrun an elephant. But these intrepid journalists apparently assumed that a press pass grants immunity.

With a nose for news the journalists sniffed out the herd. Once located it was only natural to capture the photogenic animals on film. Unfortunately, the elephants were camera-shy. Angered by the flash, the irritated herd charged the paparazzi, miraculously killing only one of the four.

His remains could not be retrieved.

Reference: Hindu.com, NewIndPress.com

Darwin Award: Pulling a Boner!

Confirmed True by Darwin

2 FEBRUARY 2008, NEW YORK

A fifty-year-old man was bird-hunting in upstate New York with his buddies and his faithful canine companion. They stopped for a smoke, and his dog wandered off and found a deer leg bone.

The man tried to take the bone away, but like any right-thinking dog, the animal would not relinquish its treasure and stayed just out of reach. Frustrated with this blatant show of disobedience, the man grabbed his loaded shotgun by the muzzle and began wielding it like a club. Each time he swung it, the dog dodged.

Suddenly the “club” struck the ground and fired, shooting the man in the abdomen. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries. He did remain conscious long enough to confirm this account to police; otherwise, his poor friends might now be under suspicion!

At least he didn’t hit the dog.

Reference: Eyewitness account of a man who called 911, and recordonline.com

At Risk Survivor: Catching a Buzz

Unconfirmed

I work in a geology lab with very smart people. Charles can tell you the petrogenetic
*
peculiarities of low-alkali tholeiitic basalt after hydrothermal alteration, but our hero Charles recently demonstrated that there is a significant difference between intelligence and common sense.

While he was casting about for ways to rid himself of a pesky wasp nest, his eye fell upon his trusty Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. Armed with this fearsome weapon, Charles attacked the wasp nest. He sucked up all the wasps, who buzzed angrily as they struggled in vain against the wind tunnel. The dust bag was soon alive with their buzzing.

Charles now found that he had a new problem: to wit, a vacuum cleaner bag full of live, disgruntled wasps. He had to find a way to kill them before he could safely turn off the vacuum. And while his previous idea was merely ill-considered, his next was a moronic masterpiece.

He held the vacuum tube in one hand, a can of Raid in the other, and proceeded to spray the insecticide into the vacuum. What our smart, young scientist failed to remember is that aerosols are flammable, and vacuum cleaner motors generate heat. The resulting explosion removed his facial hair and scattered the dusty, angry contents of the Dirt Devil all over the vicinity.

Adding insult to injury, Charles was not the only one to survive with minor injuries. The wasps proceeded to vent their spleen upon the exposed (and slightly scorched) skin of the scientist, who referred to the episode as “an unfortunate lapse in the calculation of consequences.”

Reference: Anonymous eyewitness account

Reader Comments:

“Of Wasps and Men”

“No good deed goes uns(t)ung.”

At Risk Survivor: Buffalo Stampede

Unconfirmed

1985

On my second day at Yellowstone National Park I rose early to get a good start on sightseeing. My second stop was a roadside parking lot near an open field where wild buffalo graze. The parking lot is lined with explicit warning signs. Buffalo are dangerous. Visitors should not leave their cars, and certainly not enter the field on foot.

I was taking snapshots with my telephoto lens when a car from California pulled in. A man with a camera emerged from the car. I heard him tell his wife that the buffalo were too far away, and he was going to walk out for a better shot. I called over, “Read the warning signs! Stay away from the animals.”

He said nothing that big could catch him, and he walked to within fifty feet of a buffalo. I picked up the mike on my CB radio and started calling for the park rangers to bring a body bag.