Stupid Is As Stupid Does (Part Two)
1999 DARWIN AWARDS
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The Darwin Awards have
been announced - hooray! Thin the herd!
These awards are given each year to bestow upon (the remains of) that
individual, who through single-minded self-
sacrifice, has done the
most to remove undesirable elements
from the human gene pool.
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Ladies And Gentlemen... (drum roll... and envelope
please)...We proudly
present the 1999 “Natural Selection” awards:... 5th runner-up: Goes
to a
San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at the
Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam
pad.
22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central 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 lift towers,
said
Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The
pads are
used to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently
used the
pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower.
It has
since been investigated and determined the tower he hit
was the one with
its pad removed. 4th Runner-up: Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was
apparently
being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk
threatened to call
the police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his
mouth and walked
out without paying. 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. 3rd Runner-up: Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of
Spain, who
shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock and was
killed
instantly when it fell on him. 2nd Runner-up: “Man loses face at party”.
A
man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the man in
Arkansas who
used the 22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pick-up truck)
popped a
blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion
that
blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24,
of Kincaid, bit
the blasting cap as a prank during the 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”, said Payne. “It wouldn’t go
off and this
guy said I’ll show you how to set it off.” “He put it
into his mouth and
bit down. It blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue
off”, Payne
said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday
with extensive
facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston
Area Medical
vision. “I just can’t imagine anyone doing something
like that” Payne
said. 1st Runner-up: Doctors at Portland University Hospital
said 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 (probably known now as Stupid Mountain
Men
Anonymous) in Grant’s Pass, Oregon. A friend tried to shoot
a beer can
off his head, but the arrow entered Robert’s right eye. Doctors
said that
had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel
would
have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon
Doctor
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 skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels.
Delashaw also said that had Roberts 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.
NOW...THIS YEAR’S WINNERS: (The late) John Pernicky and his friend,
(the
late) Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington, decided
to attend a
local Metallica concert at the George Washington amphitheater.
Having no
tickets (but having had 18 beers between them), they thought
it would be
easy to “hop” over the nine foot fence and sneak into the show.
They
pulled their pick-up truck over to the fence and the plan was
for (the
late) Mr. Pernicky, who was 100-pounds heavier than Mr.
Hawkins) to hop
the fence and then assist his friend over. Unfortunately
for (the late)
Mr. Pernicky, there was a 30-foot drop on the other side
of the fence.
Having heaved himself over, he found himself crashing through
a tree.
His fall was abruptly halted (and broken, along with his
arm, as it were)
by a large branch that snagged him by his shorts. Dangling
from the tree
with a broken arm, he looked down and saw some bushes below
him.
(Possibly) figuring the bushes would break his fall, he
removed his
pocket knife and proceeded to cut away his shorts to free
himself from
the tree. Finally free, (did I mention that he is THE
LATE) Mr. Pernicky
crashed into Holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched
his ENTIRE body
and now, without the protection of his shorts, a holly
branch penetrated
his rectum. To make matters worse (?!), on landing, his pocketknife
penetrated his thigh 3 inches. (The late) Mr. Hawkins,
on seeing his
friend in considerable pain and agony, decided to throw him a
rope and
pull him to safety (now he thinks of the “S” word) by tying
the rope to
the pick-up truck and slowly driving away. However, in his drunken
haste/state, he put the truck into reverse and crashed
through the fence
landing on his friend and killing him. Police arrived to
find the crashed
pick-up with its driver thrown 100 feet from the truck and dead
at the
scene from massive internal injuries. Upon moving the truck,
they found
John under it, half-naked scratches on his body, a holly stick
in his
rectum, a knife in his thigh, and his shorts dangling from a tree branch
25-feet in the air. Congratulations gentlemen, you win...
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