Here are the Darwin awards, they are those given to those who gave up
their lives in the name of stupidity. Some of these are new, some I sent
out several months ago, but nevertheless, here we go
steve


 The Darwin Awards

 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.

 Darwin Awards are (by definition) granted posthumously.
 This citation is bestowed 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.

 [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.

 [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.


 [Unknown, 25 March] A terrible diet and 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 hospitalized.

 [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]  Man slips, falls 23 stories to his
 death. 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."

 [UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of
 windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane
 with his shoulder and plunged24 floors to his death. A police
 spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of theToronto
 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.

 [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.

 [Times of London] A thief who sneaked into a hospital was
 scarred for life when he tried to get a suntan.  After evading
 security staff at Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and
 helping himself to doctor's paging devices, the thief spotted a
 vertical sunbed.  He walked into the unit and removed his clothes for
 a 45-minute tan.  However, the high-voltage UV machine at the
 hospital, which is renowned for its treatment of burns victims, has a
 maximum dosage of 10seconds.  After lying on the bed for almost 300
 times the recommended maximum time, the man was covered in
 blisters.Hours later, when the pain of the burns became unbearable, he
 went to Southampton General Hospital, 20 miles away, in Hampshire.
 Staff became suspicious because he was wearing a doctor's coat.  After
 tending his wounds they called the police. Southampton police said:
 "This man broke into Odstock and decided he fancied a quick suntan.
 Doctors say he is going to be scarred for life.

 "More intelligence-challenged people"

 45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a
 mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed
 in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the
 mechanic for an oil change.  According to police, Brasher later said
 that she didn't realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood
 to change the oil.

 Portsmouth, R.I.Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of
 vending machine robberies in January when he: 1.  fled from police
 inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine
 and 2.  later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.

 Karen Lee Joachimi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, for
 robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel.  She was armed with only an
 electric chainsaw, which was not plugged in.

 The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into
 Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 am, flashed a gun and
 demanded cash.  The clerk turned him down because he said he
 couldn't open the cash register without a food order.  When the man
 ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for
 breakfast.  The man, frustrated, walked away.

 In case you've forgotten about the 1995 awardees, some of them are
 listed below:

 *       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." [Kalamazoo Gazette, 4-1-95]

 *       Same thing up here in MI.  Seems some poor fella thought it
 would be good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car.  Newspaper
 reports it took a FULL MINUTE of neighbors whacking away at him with a
 2x4 to free their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.

 *       Bowling Green, Ohio, student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head
 bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train.  He told police he was
 trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head
 without getting hit.

    * In Wesley Chapel, Florida, Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the
 leg with pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car.
 When repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he
 couldn't find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.