The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (24 page)

As soon as his camera shutter clicked, the buffalo charged. Buffalo can run thirty-five miles per hour for short distances, so I was amazed that this man was able to sprint fifty yards back to his car ahead of the angry animal. He slid to a stop and managed to get in the car before the buffalo caught up.

But his car didn’t escape the buffalo’s attention. It rammed the car repeatedly, severely damaging the door, top, hood, radiator, lights, et cetera. The car was totaled. Park rangers arrived expecting a bloody mess, but the man and his wife survived with little more than glass cuts and, I suspect, some rather interesting marks in their undershorts.

Reference: Anonymous eyewitness account

At Risk Survivor: A Salty Tale

Unconfirmed

SEPTEMBER 1998, IDAHO

A few people out cow-tipping made so much noise that they woke the farmer. The farmer came running out with a shotgun loaded with rock salt, yelling “Get out of my fields!” One interloper yielded to an impulse to drop his pants and moon the farmer, offering a bright target in the dark night. The farmer took aim with his shotgun and pegged him in his butt and testicles!

The wounded man managed to crawl back to his car, where his snickering friends awaited. He was in great distress, but also in great embarrassment, and refused to go to the emergency room. His friends dropped him off at home, where he made the painful choice to soak the rock salt out in the tub.

Eight hours later, the young man was still unsuccessful. By then his parents had heard his muffled cries of agony and wondered what was up. When he finally admitted the truth, they rushed him to the emergency room, where doctors removed several chunks of salt and, from what I understand, had the best laugh. One doctor told his parents that he would never be able to reproduce.

Reference: Idaho Falls
Post Register
and an anonymous eyewitness account

At Risk Survivor: Snake in the Grass

Confirmed True by Darwin

SCOTLAND

A biting story from Scotland.

A hiker in Scotland picked up a harmless grass snake so his brother could take a picture. Just as he reached for it, a black adder slithered into view, so he grabbed that one too. The adder is Britain’s only venomous snake. Both serpents sank their fangs into the forty-four-year-old, who responded with serious anaphylactic shock. He gradually and painfully recovered in the hospital. His excuse for his rash act?
He didn’t think venomous snakes inhabited Scotland.

Reference:
The Scotsman

At Risk Survivor: “Bite Me!”

Confirmed True by Darwin

AUGUST 2007, OREGON

Man sticks rattlesnake in mouth to prove a point.

An amateur snake collector caught a twenty-inch rattlesnake on the highway. Three weeks later, his captive took its revenge. The formerly fearless snake charmer admitted, “You can assume alcohol was involved.”

He had a six-pack under his belt and was consuming what he described as “a mixture of stupid stuff” at a barbecue. The calamity was precipitated when he handed a beer to his ex, using the same hand that held the rattlesnake.

“Get that thing out of my face,” she said.

He protested, “It’s a nice snake. Nothing can happen. Watch!” Famous last words. As they left his mouth, his fate was sealed.

One month later, still sore from muscle and nerve damage from the venom, the twenty-three-year-old admitted that he stuck the snake in his mouth to prove his point. Instead, he disproved his point, for the snake bit him. He had no time for embarrassment over his mistake. In great pain and gasping for breath, he asked his ex to drive him to the hospital. “She was the only one sober,” he explained.

He was unconscious by the time he arrived, his swollen tongue protruding from his mouth. Physicians performed a tracheotomy to restore airflow to his lungs and administered antivenin. He was kept heavily sedated for several days. When the swelling went down, “we let him wake up,” his doctor reported.

The Poison Control Center sees about fifty snakebite victims a year. Generally, they are injected on the legs while hiking, or arms while reaching under a rock. Few are bitten on the tongue.

His friends were blunt: “What the heck were you thinking?”

His answer? “It’s my own stupidity.”

Reference:
The Oregonian,
Associated Press, LiveScience.com

Reader Comments:

“Snake got your tongue?”

“Anyone wanna do
SNAKE SHOTS
?”

At Risk Survivor: Shark Kiss

Confirmed True by Darwin

AUGUST 2006, FLORIDA

A scuba diver was bitten on the lip when he attempted to kiss a nurse shark. The bite was a surprise to the diver, as he had kissed hundreds of sharks! He explained, “You pick ’em up, rub their belly, scratch ’em, hug ’em, might as well give them a smooch while you’re there.”

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This shark took exception to his unwanted advances and bit the diver’s lip. To add insult to injury, a group of snappers came in for a few nibbles too. Luckily, a patient plastic surgeon was able to repair his mangled lip.

“It was a matter of completing the puzzle and putting [a hundred little pieces] back together again,” Dr. Mike Kelly said.

Has the diver learned his lesson? Apparently not! He simply plans to modify his amorous technique: “Don’t kiss a nurse shark while it’s
upside down
.”

One reporter remarked, “Better still, don’t kiss them at all.”

Reference: CBS, divester.com

Urban Legend: Roping a Deer

STATUS: Urban Legend

Darwin warns: I cannot find an original source, nor any confirmation. Snopes.com has not yet addressed this story’s veracity; however, its widespread presence on the Internet and its fantastical tone led me to consider the story a fabrication.

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, sweet-feed it corn for a few weeks, then butcher it and eat it. Corn-fed venison. Yum! The first step in this culinary adventure was catching a deer.

Since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not have much fear of me (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck four feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, toss a bag over its head to calm it down, then hog-tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder and hid behind it with my rope. The cattle, having seen a roping or two before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After twenty minutes my deer showed up, three of them. I picked a likely looking one, stepped out, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step toward it. It took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and received an education. The first thing I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, it is spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that, pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range, I could fight down with some dignity. A deer? No chance.

That thing ran and bucked, it twisted and pulled. There was no controlling that deer, and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer firmly attached to a rope was not such a good idea. The only upside is that they do not have much stamina.

A brief ten minutes later it was tired and not as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point I had lost my appetite for corn-fed venison. I hated the thing and would hazard a guess that the feeling was mutual. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. But if I let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painful somewhere.

Despite the gash in my head, and several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer’s pell-mell flight by bracing my head against large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn’t want the deer to suffer a slow death.

I managed to get it lined up between my truck and the feeder, a little trap I had set beforehand, like a squeeze chute. I backed it in there, and I started moving forward to get my rope back.