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Darwin Awards

Are these future Pumpkin growers? Thank you to those who sent me a b-day 
message yesterday.
> 
> Subject:  Darwin Awards
> 
> Some of this is a repeat, but some of it is new.  I have a hard time
> believing all of it, but it's pretty funny (in a sick sort of way)...
> 
>  It is once again time to vote for the Darwin Award nominees for 1997.
> As
>  you know these nominees will not be contributing to the gene pool
>  thankfully).
> 
>  You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner:  The man who found out
>  moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the JATO
>  (jet assist take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned
>  off once it was turned on.
> 
>  1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
>  toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of
>  it.
> 
>  The 1997 nominees are:
> 
>  NOMINEE #1 [San Jose Mercury News]
> 
>  An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former
>  girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the
> gun
>  discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.
> 
>  NOMINEE #2 [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]
> 
>  James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying
> to
>  repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend
> to
>  drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he
> could
>  ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on
>  something, however, and the other man found Burns  "wrapped in the
> drive
>  shaft."
> 
>  NOMINEE #3 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]
> 
>  A man cleaning a bird  feeder on his balcony of his condominium
>  apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his
>  death, police said Monday.  Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a
>  wheeled chair Sunday when the accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy
>  Honer of the Peel regional police. "It appears the chair moved and he
>  went over the balcony," Honer said. "It's one of those freak
>  accidents. No foul play is suspected."
> 
>  NOMINEE #4 [Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92]
> 
>  Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December
> in
>  Newton, N.C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone
> beside
>  his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson
> 38
>  Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.
> 
>  NOMINEE #5 [UPI, Toronto]
> 
>  Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown
>  Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged
> 24
>  floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into
> the
>  courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he
>  was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law
>  students.  Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window
> strength
>  according to police reports. Peter Lauwers, managing partner of the
> firm
>  Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of
> the
>  best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.
> 
>  NOMINEE #6 [AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)]
> 
>  Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had
>  fallen into a well in southern Egypt.  An 18-year-old farmer was the
>  first to descend into the 60-foot well.  He drowned, apparently after
> an
>  undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said.  His sister and
>  two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help
>  him, but also drowned.  Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they
>  apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six
>  were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara,
>  240 miles south of Cairo.  The chicken was also pulled out. It
> survived.
> 
>  NOMINEE #7 [Bloomburg News Service, 25 March]
> 
>  A terrible diet and a room with no ventilation are being blamed for the
>  death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his
>  body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His
>  diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of
> other
>  things). It was just the right combination of foods.  It appears that
> the
>  man died in his sleep from breathing from the  poisonous cloud that was
>  hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been
> opened,
>  it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near
> airtight
>  bedroom. He was ". . . a big man  with a huge capacity for creating
> [this
>  deadly gas]."
> 
>  Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalised.
> 
>  NOMINEE #9 [18 May 93, San Jose Mercury News]
> 
>  A 24-year-old salesman  from Hialeah, Fla., was killed near Lantana,
> Fla.,
>  in
>  March when his car smashed into a pole in the median strip of
> Interstate
> 95 in
>  the middle of  the afternoon. Police said that the man was travelling
> at
> 80 MPH
>  and, judging by the sales manual that was found open and clutched to
> his
> chest,
>  had been busy reading.
> 
>  NOMINEE #10 [1/29/96 The News of the weird.]  JOINT NOMINEE
> 
>  Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously in 1989.
>  He had spent several years waiting South Carolina's electric chair on a
>  murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison.
> In
>  March 1989, sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix
> his
>  small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
> 
>  On Jan. 1, 1997, Laurence Baker, also a convicted murderer once on
> death
>  row, but later serving a life sentence at the state prison in
> Pittsburgh,
>  Pa., was electrocuted by his home-made earphones as he watched his
> small
> TV
>  while sitting on his metal toilet.
> 
>  NOMINEE #11["The Indianapolis Star", Wed., Dec. 4, 1996].
> 
>  A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a
>  muzzleloader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his
>  face, sheriff's investigators said.  Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in
> his
>  parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Pryor
> was
>  cleaning a ...54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing
> properly.
>  He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder
>  ignited.
> 
>  NOMINEE #12 [AP, Mammoth Lakes]
> 
>  A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he hit a lift tower at the
> Mammoth
>  Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad,
> authorities
>  said.  Matthew David Hubal, 22,was pronounced dead at Centinela Mammoth
>  Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's
>  Department said. Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski
> run
>  called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from the lift
>  towers, said Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police
>  Department.   The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit the
>  towers.  The  group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski
> slope
>  and Hubal crashed into a tower. It was not clear if the tower he hit
> was
>  one  with its pad removed. "With the cold temperatures, the snow was
>  probably pretty
>  fast," said Donnelly.
> 
>  NOMINEE #13 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland, 5 May 1995]
> 
>  A poacher electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland fell into the
> water and
>  suffered the same fate as his quarry, police said Thursday.  The
> 24-year-old man
>  was one of four who went fishing with a cable, one end of which they
> attached to
>  a net and the other to a high-voltage electricity supply line, the PAP
> news
>  agency quoted a police official in Wloclawek as saying. "For a while
> everything
>  went according to the poachers' plan and they had fish in their bags.
> But
> at a
>  certain moment the man holding the net tripped and fell into  the
> water,"
> the
>  agency said. The other poachers tried in vain to revive him, it said.
> 
>  NOMINEE #14 [AP, St. Louis]
> 
>  Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis
> market.
>  When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog,
> shoved
>  it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him
>  unconscious in front of the store: paramedics removed the six-inch
> wiener
>  from his throat, where it had choked him to death.
> 
>  NOMINEE #15 [Unknown]
> 
>  The poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an
>  overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
> 
>  NOMINEE 16 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]
> 
>  A man at a party popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down,
> triggering
>  an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police
> said
>  Wednesday. Jerry Stromyer, 24,of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a
> prank
> during
>  a party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D.Payne. 'Another man had it in
> an
>  aquarium,hooked to a battery, and was trying to explode it," Payne
> said.
> "It
>  wouldn't go off and this guy said, 'I'll show you  how to set it off.
> "I
> just
>  can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.
> 
>  NOMINEE #17 [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1-1-93]
> 
>  In December near Mineral Wells, Tex., three men who were attempting to
> steal
>  copper wire off live electrical lines for resale were electrocuted.
> Copper
>  wiring is a valuable scrap metal in Texas but is usually stolen from
> electric
>  cables that are not being used.
> 
>  Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners, but still
>  haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"
> 
>  [UPI, Portland, OR]
> 
>  Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said Wednesday an Oregon man
>  shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive,  and
> will
>  be released soon from the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right
> eye
>  last weekend during an initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain
> Men
>  Anonymous, in Grants Pass, Ore. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off
>  his head, but the arrow entered Roberts' right eye. Doctors said had
> the
>  arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have
> cut
>  and Roberts would have died instantly.  Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny
> Delashaw
>  at the University Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to
>  10 inches of brain, with the tip protruding at the rear of his skill,
> yet
>  somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had
>  Robert tried to pull the arrow out on his own he surely would have
> killed
>  himself.  Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had been
>  drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this."
> No
>  charges have been filed but the Josephine County district  attorney's
>  office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
> 
>  From The Calgary Sun Saturday, December 28, 1996: Low blow for gunman
>  VANCOUVER (CP)
> 
>  A man arguing over a love triangle accidentally shot himself in the
>  groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said the
>  man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting match
>  early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants the gun went
>  off.  Police were called to the hospital after the man in his 20's was
>  brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the victim, who is
>  expected to survive.
> 
>  Arkansas Democrat Gazette, July 25, 1996:   Two Local Men Injured in
>  Freak Truck Accident
> 
>  Cotton Patch, Ark.  Two local men were seriously injured when their
>  pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State
>  Highway 38 early Monday morning.  Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder
>  reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole,
> 33,
>  of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little  Rock are listed in
>  serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.  The  accident occurred as
>  the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an
>  overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned.
>  The two men concluded that the headlight  fuse on the older model truck
>  had burned out.  As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis
> noticed
>  that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse
>  box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the
>  headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on
>  east-bound toward the White River bridge.   After travelling
>  approximately twenty miles and just before crossing  the river, the
>  bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right
>  testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right exiting the pavement
>  and striking a tree.   Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions
> from
>  the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound.
>  Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released.
> "Thank
>  God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his nuts off or we
>  might both be dead" stated Wallis.

-- 
Duncan McAlpine, Federal Way, WA   m*@eskimo.com
Why buy plants when you can grow them yourself.....?
http://www.eskimo.com/~mcalpin/
http://www.eskimo.com/~mcalpin/pumkin.html
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