DARWIN AWARD 2004

 The Darwin Award is an annual honor given to the
 person who did the gene pool the biggest service by
 killing him or herself in the most extraordinarily
 stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was
 killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of
 him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.


 The nominees this year, in reverse order, are (and,
 yes, these are all true):

 No. 7

 A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting
 drunk cheaply, because he had no money with which to
 buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not
 surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he
 vomited into the fireplace in his house. This
 resulting explosion and fire burned his house down,
 killing both him and his sister.

 No. 6

 A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of
 his home died of suffocation, according to police. He
 was approximately 6' 2" tall and weighed about 225
 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra,
 black and white saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It
 appeared that he was trying to create a schoolgirl's
 uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask
 that had the filter canister removed and a rubber hose
 attached in its place. The other end of the hose was
 connected to one end of a hollow tube approx. 12" long
 and 3" in diameter. The tube's other end was inserted
 into his rectum for reasons unknown, and was the cause
 of his suffocation. Police found the task of
 explaining the circumstances of his death to his
 family very awkward.

 No. 5

 Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at
 low altitude when another plane approached. It appears
 that they decided to moon the occupants of the other
 plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and
 crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with
 their pants around their ankles.

 No 4

 A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after he
 tried to use octopus-style bungee cords to bungee jump
 off a 70 foot railroad trestle. Fairfax County police
 said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of
 these straps together, wrapped one end around one
 foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake
 Accotink Park, jumped and hit the pavement. Warren
 Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators
 think Barcia was alone because his car was found
 nearby. "The length of the cord that he assembled was
 greater than the distance between the trestle and the
 ground" Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause
 of death was "major trauma."

 No. 3

 A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems
 that he and a friend were playing a game of catch,
 using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend, no doubt
 a future Darwin Awards candidate, was hospitalized.

 No. 2

 Employees in a medium sized warehouse in West Texas
 noticed the smell of leaking gas. Sensibly, management
 evacuated the building, extinguishing all potential
 sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the
 building had been evacuated, two technicians from the
 gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the
 building, they found they had difficulty navigating in
 the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights
 worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of
 the technicians reaching into his pocket and
 retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette
 lighter. Upon operation of the lighter-like object,
 the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of
 it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the
 technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched
 by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing
 the blast had never been thought of as particularly
 'bright' by his peers.

 AND THE WINNER IS..... No.1

 Based on a bet by the other members of his threesome,
 Everitt Sanchez tried to wash his own "balls" in a
 ball washer at the local golf course. Proving once
 again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix,
 Sanchez managed to straddle the ball washer and dangle
 his scrotum in the machine. Much to his dismay, one of
 his buddies upped the ante by spinning the crank on
 the machine with Sanchez's scrotum in place, thus
 wedging his testicles solidly in the mechanism.
 Sanchez, who immediately passed his threshold of pain,
 collapsed and tumbled from his perch. Unfortunately
 for Sanchez, the height of the ball washer was at
 least a foot higher off the ground than his testicles
 are in a normal stance, and the scrotum was the
 weakest link. Sanchez's scrotum was ripped open during
 the fall, and one testicle was plucked from him
 forever and remained in the ball washer, while the
 other was compressed and flattened as it was pulled
 between the housing of the washer, and the rotating
 machinery inside. To add insult to injury, Sanchez
 broke a new $300.00 driver that he had just purchased

 from the pro shop, and was using to balance himself.

 Sanchez was rushed to the hospital for surgery, and
 the remaining threesome was asked to leave the course.


 Note: This last one wouldn't normally count, because
 the idiot didn't die. But because he cannot reproduce
 as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity, we
 have allowed it

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