The Darwin Awards 6: Countdown to Extinction

by Wendy Northcutt

  Reader Comments

  “License to Spill.”

  “Hybrid vigor—or evolutionary dead end?”

  “A motorized barstool will never be stable. He needs a wider wheelbase. Perhaps a motorized gurney?”

  A TV news report featuring video of the motorized bar stool:

  www.DarwinAwards.com/book/barstool.html

  Darwin Award Winner: A One-Track Mind

  Confirmed by Darwin

  Featuring train versus car!

  16 JULY 2008, ITALY | Gerhard Z., sixty-eight, was queued at a traffic light in his Porsche Cayenne. Before one reaches the light, there is a railroad crossing, and Gerhard had not let the queue progress forward far enough before he drove onto the tracks. As you might imagine, given Murphy’s Law, a train was coming. The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped.

  “Was he texting?”

  According to witnesses, it took the driver a while to realize he was stuck on the rails.

  Finally he jumped from the car and started to run—straight toward the oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his SUV! The attempt was partly successful, in that the car received less damage than its owner, who landed thirty meters away. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

  Actually, one is well advised to run toward the train, so that the collision throws the car in the opposite direction away from you. In that respect, the gentleman was in the right. The caveat is that you run toward the train alongside the tracks, not on the tracks!

  The moral of the story? Momentum Always Wins.

  Reference: l’Adige (Italian daily paper)

  Reader Comments

  “He needs better training.”

  “Man did that train pepper that Cayenne!”

  “Cars are easier to replace than internal organs.”

  “A dark and twisted example of momentum and transfer of energy.”

  Wendy was traveling in Egypt. At night, on busy roads, the car headlights were so dim they were almost useless. It seemed so dangerous! Why were the headlights “browned out”? . . . A local guide said, “We dim the headlights to make the bulbs last longer.” The bulbs last longer, but what about the occupants? Madness!

  “Crazy as carrying timber into the woods.”

  —Roman idiom

  Darwin Award Winner: Poor Decision on a Major Scale

  Confirmed by Reliable Eyewitness

  Featuring a military vehicle and a bed!

  SEPTEMBER 1997, FORT POLK, LOUISIANA | The 82nd Airborne Division was on its periodic training junket to Fort Polk. One of the many items stressed at briefings before a training mission of this proportion is the fact that there are many untrained people running about the area, at all times of day and night, in all kinds of vehicles, most of them large.

  During the training we were reminded, when sleeping in the woods at night, be sure to sleep at the base of a large tree. Drivers may or may not be wearing night vision equipment, and may or may not be familiar with the roads, but even the most misguided driver will avoid a large tree, thus assuring your own safety.

  Sleep by a tree, and you will wake up in the morning.

  This reminder was repeated in light of recent events.

  An army major had been assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as an observer controller. One night he decided to bed down on what he deemed to be an unused old trail. Down the “unused” trail later that night a random driver drove, perhaps taking a wrong turn in the darkness, or perhaps taking a shortcut from point A to point B. Somehow this driver found himself on a road with a few “disconcerting bumps” but he continued to drive on.

  When the young private assigned as the major’s radio operator roused himself from sleep (safely at the base of a large tree a short distance from the trail) he quickly discovered the lifeless body of his charge. One poor decision took the life of the major—a man with a college degree, a commission from Congress, and years of responsibilities that included reminding trainees to sleep away from the roads.

  He was pronounced DRT (Dead Right There).

  Reference: Galen Fisher, B Co. 3/325

  Reader Comments

  “Superior officer? I don’t think so!”

  “What happened to the sergeant who was assigned to keep the major out of trouble?”

  “And to think, I wanted to be promoted to Major!”

  “That was certainly a major catastrophe.”

  Darwin Award Winner: Painkiller

  Confirmed by Darwin

  Featuring cars, drugs, and insurance

  17 OCTOBER 2009, MINNESOTA | On October 26, charges were dismissed against Lucas William Stenning, thirty-two, who six weeks earlier had pleaded guilty to knowingly violating registration required of a predatory offender. Charges were dismissed . . . because Lucas was dead.

  In a related story, on the afternoon of October 17 in the city of Bock, an injured “hit-and-run victim” was reported. The pedestrian, found on the side of the road, died in the ambulance at the scene.

  In a related story, police reported that a thirty-two-year-old man had concocted a scheme to stage an accident in order to obtain prescription drugs. The plan was to jump out of a moving vehicle, become injured, go to the hospital, and receive narcotic painkillers. (“Dude, that’s brilliant!”) That plan failed when its mastermind, Lucas William Stenning, died at the scene due to head injuries.

  In other words, Lucas avoided a serious legal problem because he was deceased due to injuries he caused himself by leaping from a moving vehicle in order to obtain prescription painkillers. Ouch!

  Reference: Mille Lacs Messenger, Mille Lacs County Times

  Reader Comments

  “Some people just don’t realize there is such a thing as going too far.”

  “I guess ‘no warrant needed’ on this one.”

  “Sounds like one of our Lil’ Darlins’.”

  Darwin Award Winner: Mock Death

  Confirmed by Darwin

  Featuring a vehicle and insurance

  1 NOVEMBER 2009, BELGIUM | Police received a desperate call from a man who had been attacked on a motorway near the town of Liege. When the policemen arrived, they found Thierry B., thirty-seven, lying dead on the ground, his body stabbed, his car burning. Witnesses had seen a big truck driving away.

  But there was no evidence of fighting or struggling around the body—only the knife wounds on his shoulder and neck. Puzzled, inspectors analyzed Thierry’s cell phone calls. He had recently reconnected with an old friend, a fact that intrigued Inspector Clouseau. I mean, Commissioner Lamoque. Childhood friend, lost sight of for ten years, back in touch? Lamoque invited the forty-two-year-old friend in for a chat about the roadside aggression.

  Turns out, Thierry was aggrieved regarding insurance money he felt he was owed but was never paid, after his restaurant burned two years before. He had asked his old friend to bring him a knife and a jerrican of fuel, and leave him alone on the motorway: a man with a plan to get the insurance money one way or another.

  The “victim” then set his car on fire, called the police, and stabbed himself, accidentally cutting an artery in his own neck. By the time his simulated act of violence was over, he was over too, face against the ground ten yards from his burned car. Roll credits on this little drama.

  Reference: La Dernière Heure (Belgium)

  Reader Comments

  “Mock aggression mocks death.”

  “Faking it.”

  “They’ll probably raise his rates.”

  “Objection! How do we know this was not murder or suicide by persons unknown? L. Ron Hubbard, anyone?”—Conspiracy theorist

  At-Risk Survivor: Chutes and Spills

  Unconfirmed Military Account, Suspected Urban Legend

  Featuring the military, parachutes, vehicles, and plenty of machismo

  2003, IRAQ | A group of marines obtained some surplus parachutes that had been taken out of circulation. The silk chutes were good for nothing more than providing shade in Ir
aq—or midsummer mischief. To begin with, the marines popped two chutes and competed to see who could run one hundred meters fastest while dragging a chute, but in short order they moved on to more daring adventures.

  The most prominent idea floated was either to jump off the top of the barracks or paraglide from a truck driven along the beach. Obviously jumping off a building wasn’t wise, and the long drive to the beach precluded immediate gratification. But why not deploy a canopy, like a drag-racing parachute, behind a car while driving?

  With proper planning, this might have caused no more damage than a missing bumper, but without proper planning it almost provided one lance corporal with a premature death. You see, in the interest of saving time, the marines attached the chute to the driver instead of the car. He buckled in, and the chute was tossed out of the sunroof of the Eclipse.

  The first two runs were a “failure” because the chute didn’t catch enough air. After a brief reconnoiter the men held the chute open behind the Eclipse while the driver, now pumped full of adrenaline, revved the engine and popped the clutch. The stretch of road was no longer than two hundred yards, but it was the longest drive ever taken by that marine.

  The canopy quickly expanded to its fullest, the loose cords pulled taut, and the driver was lifted dramatically off his seat. He found himself suspended in the cabin with only the seat belt preventing him from being yanked through the sunroof. What with being pulled in different directions, the cord lacerations, and the fear of crashing into barriers dead ahead, he had had enough. However, in his position against the roof of the cab, he couldn’t do much about the situation. The young man realized that he had a legit chance of being the next dumb marine to win a Darwin Award.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to stretch his limbs far enough to depress the clutch and pull the emergency brake. The car stopped suddenly—not to the sound of screeching tires, but to the sound of cracking fiberglass. More on that in a moment.

  With the car at rest, the marine expected to slide down to his seat and beat a hasty retreat from that death trap. Instead he remained inexplicably pressed against the roof. He struggled with the seat belt, released the five-point parachute harness, and finally slithered out of the car, breathing a prayer of gratitude.

  The small crowd rippled with the nervous laughter of people who had narrowly survived a runaway roller coaster. Observers had seen the parachute sway violently from side to side behind the small car. At the very instant the driver had pulled the brake, the chute had caught on a concrete Jersey barrier next to the buildings.

  It was a gut-wrenching moment. If he had braked a second later, the marine would have been crushed between the opposing forces of the moving vehicle and the stationary parachute. The loud cracking fiberglass noise? That was the sound of the cords compressing the sunroof and breaking the spoiler loose from the trunk.

  A sailor who witnessed the stunt from the E-club came running out with an expression of disbelief. “Are you trying to get a Darwin Award, marine? Why did you do that?”

  “The greatest fighting force in the world, but maybe not the smartest.”

  The marine answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice, “We got bored.”

  Reference: Anonymous

  TRUE OR FICTITIOUS?

  Readers are skeptical of this scenario. They argue that if he was pinned to the roof of the car and could barely reach the clutch, then obviously his foot was off the accelerator and engine braking would have brought a standard shift vehicle to a rapid halt. Furthermore, they point out that the U.S. Marines and other branches of the military are not allowed to have personal vehicles in a war zone. It would have had to have been a military grade vehicle, not an Eclipse. There certainly are several glaring inconsistencies!

  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

  www.DarwinAwards.com/book/chute

  At-Risk Survivor: ICanSayIToldYouSo

  Confirmed by Reliable Eyewitness

  Featuring medicine, vehicles, and machismo

  JULY 2009, IOWA | A doctor at the University of Iowa’s oral surgery clinic relayed the almost unbelievable story of a patient he had treated in the emergency room. As you will soon find out, it took a medical miracle to prevent this man from taking home the grand prize.

  The man, in his late twenties, and his wife were driving down the highway when they were involved in a one-car accident from which the wife emerged unscathed, while her husband sustained two broken legs, multiple rib fractures, a broken arm, a broken collarbone, and the worst facial trauma the fifty-five-year-old oral surgeon had ever seen. “We put his forehead back together like a puzzle, intermixing pieces of bone and metal plates.”

  Wondering how there could be such a fantastic difference in their injuries, Doctor decided to ask Wife a few questions.

  She said that the couple had been arguing about the man’s reckless habits, specifically his love for “street skating.”

  In an activity almost too absurd to exist, the participants get a vehicle going at a good speed, sometimes up to thirty mph, open the door, hang on for dear life, and drag the soles of their feet on the pavement.

  The wife began the discussion in the car that day by using her sane mind to tell her Evel Knievel-wannabe husband that he was going to get killed by willingly jumping out of, hanging onto, and dragging his feet alongside a moving vehicle. Nettled, Husband set out to prove to Wife that this activity was, in fact, not dangerous.

  Traveling at sixty mph—in a car he himself was driving—he opened the door, got a good grip, and hopped out, forgetting that he was traveling at double or triple the “normal” speed for this asinine stunt. His feet immediately caught the pavement and were pulled out from under him, but he did not fall from the car quite yet. He held on long enough for the out-of-control vehicle to roll into a ditch and for him to come into face-first contact with a telephone pole, stopping the argument faster than an auctioneer could spit out, “ICanSayIToldYouSo.”

  Miraculously this champ will live to fight another day with a fully functional—or at least as functional as it was prior to the accident—brain, as he sustained no lasting head injury.

  Reference: Anonymous

  The next story features this guy’s identical twin . . .

  At-Risk Survivor: Flying Door

  Unconfirmed Military Account

  Featuring the military, a vehicle, and machismo

  1973, VIRGINIA | When I was in the Marines, a bottom-enlisted and an NCO were required to stand twenty-four-hour watch together. One evening I showed up for duty to find the NCO, whom we’ll call Todd, limping and covered with dozens of fresh scabs! He was reluctant to reveal what caused his injuries until I promised not to tell. I lived with that promise for thirty years, until now.

  This NCO Todd had an NCO friend whom we’ll call Dutch, and these guys would do just about anything for a laugh. The two NCOs ended up working together in the squadron truck and had an idea good for a few laughs.

  Dutch was possessed of great upper body strength; he had been a Greco-Roman wrestler in high school and was still an active weight lifter. Dutch would put his elbow outside the open window, hang on to the door under his armpit, and when Todd made a left turn Dutch would open the door and swing out with the centrifugal force of the turn, riding on the door under his arm. Good fun, huh?

  These two were having a few laughs with their flying door routine, all well and good, until one turn brought the open door too close to a fire hydrant. The hydrant caught the bottom corner of the door and the door rebounded, slamming shut at over thirty miles an hour and sending Dutch sailing across the vinyl bench seat and slamming into Todd with enough force to knock open the driver’s door and eject him from the vehicle!

  Dutch managed to recover the wheel and prevent Todd from being run down. Both men were in pain for weeks, and this being the military, both spent long hours in extra duty. After all, they were guilty of risking U.S. government property.

  Reference: Carin Gleason

  MAD SC
IENCE: PROJECT STEVE

  Creationists try to convince the public that evolution is a “theory in crisis” by compiling lists of scientists who doubt evolution. The National Center for Science Education responded with Project Steve.8 Instead of compiling a list of ten thousand scientists who support evolution, they decided to poke fun at the nuts by compiling a list of only those scientists named “Steve” who affirm the validity of evolution. Steve was chosen in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould, beloved evolutionary biologist. In March 2010 there were 1,138 Steves on the list! Because Steves comprise only about 1 percent of scientists, Project Steve makes the point that scientists support evolution.

  At-Risk Survivor: Clap-Clap-Clap Your Hands

  Unconfirmed Personal Account

  Featuring a vehicle and music!

  NOVEMBER 2009, POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK | “I was driving down the road when the car in front of me suddenly accelerated, then stopped accelerating but continued going straight as the road curved, ultimately crashing into a rail. I pulled over to help, and asked the driver what caused the crash. He told me that ‘The Cha Cha Slide’ was playing on the radio and he was dancing along. When the lyrics came to ‘Left foot, left stomp,’ he did just that, flooring the accelerator. Then the lyrics commanded, ‘Freeze,’ and he froze, and then, ‘Everybody, clap your hands’—at which point he crashed.”