The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design (25 page)

The mighty oak trees of Stellenbosch, a city near Cape Town, were planted more than three hundred years ago. In recent years, they have begun to succumb to disease. The city has been cutting them down and planting new trees.

A man was sitting at a café, watching a team with loud chain saws working to remove a tree whose center had become dangerously decayed. The arborists had marked the danger zone with red-and-white barrier tape and posted notices of danger, taking every precaution to prevent damage to property or persons.

Just as the tree was ready to fall, and the chain-saw operator was making the final cut, our man jumped up from his seat in the café. He ducked under the safety tape and started hurrying up the pavement to meet his girlfriend at a nearby shop. Despite the workers’ frantic shouts, he continued toward the tree that by this time was falling as planned.

The chain-saw operator tried a desperate tackle to get him out the way, but it was too late. Missing the would-be rescuer by inches, the tree landed on the man’s head, killing him instantly. And that is how one can qualify for a Darwin Award simply by walking under a tree.

Reference:
Eikestad Nuus

The Kleman Plaza parking garage has the ideal bannister for a long slide, spiraling around an open stairwell all the way down from the fifth floor without a break. Brian, twenty-four, was a real-life hero who had saved a friend from drowning, but friends said he was also a “big fan of reality TV and high-risk stunts.” The bannister was his big chance!

But just sliding down a five-story bannister was nowhere near risky enough for Brian, so he planned to leap onto the bannister to begin his slide. He ran, he jumped…and he sailed completely over it, plunging fifty-two feet to the bottom of the stairwell. A friend fondly reminisced that “Brian had done crazier things than this” before. But this was Brian’s first stunt spectacular enough to win a Darwin Award.

According to a police investigation, “alcohol may have been a factor.”

Reference:
Tallahassee Democrat,
WCTV

The Martinitower is the tallest building in the north part of The Netherlands, rising ninety-six meters above the polders. High winds blast the top, making it a frightening place for some sight-seers. Fortunately, a balustrade protects visitors from accidentally being blown off, and built-in seats allow them to rest their weary bodies after the onerous climb to the top. But these safety measures were mere inconveniences to a twenty-year-old man who decided to impress his girlfriend with his devil-may-care nonchalance. He climbed up on the balustrade and swung his legs to the outside. Then, aided by a gust of wind, he “slipped away,” according to his father, who added, “he just liked to show off a little.”

Reference:
Algemeen Dagblad

“Welcome to the Machine.”—Pink Floyd

An ice maker may seem innocuous, but when it’s big enough to walk into—for example, one that supplies ice to fishing boats—it can be so dangerous that safety procedures and fail-safe devices are required. So it was a bit of a surprise when employees at a fish-processing plant heard screams emanating from inside the giant ice maker.

An employee had been running the machine when the flow of ice jammed. Access to the machine’s auger chamber was restricted, and employees are trained never to enter the chamber while the auger is running. It would be easy enough to ignore the warning signs, but it is hard to get around another safety feature: The auger will not run unless the operator holds down a foot pedal outside the chamber. Take your foot off the pedal and the machine shuts down.

There was no way the operator could run the auger and also enter the chamber. Or so it seemed, but one enterprising employee found a way. He laid a heavy piece of metal on the foot pedal to keep the auger running while he entered the chamber to clear the ice jam. He was caught by the swirling auger and drawn inevitably, and fatally, into the ice machine.

Ironically, the employee had helped negotiate a labor contract stipulating that workers should scrupulously follow all safety procedures and abide by the company’s operating rules.

Reference:
The Press,
Christchurch, New Zealand

Regarding accidental deaths during the construction of a subway, the
New York Times
wrote, “One of those killed was an unlucky thief who tried to steal braces holding up a concrete slab; it fell and killed him.”

Reference:
New York Times

A construction worker drilling the foundation of a parking garage project on Starobitsevskaya Street noticed something shiny stuck to the swiftly rotating auger. He took a closer look but still couldn’t identify the shiny object, so he reached down to grab it. Unfortunately, his jacket caught on the auger, winding his hand, his arm, and then his whole body into the apparatus. By the time his fellow workers could shut down the rig, “only the man’s legs below the knees remained intact,” according to the daily newspaper.

Reference:
Moskovskiy Komsomolets

In 1987, the U.K. saw its most violent storm in three hundred fifty years. Winds exceeded ninety miles per hour, and an incredible amount of damage was done to property and people throughout the U.K. Millions of trees were uprooted by the hurricane-force gales.

In Margate in the county of Kent, one unfortunate homeowner had a property bordered by three massive poplars. The wind had felled one, which came to rest across his back garden. Another poplar had been bent over just far enough to lodge its top under the soffit of his roof. The foliage was blocking his upstairs bedroom windows; something had to be done.

This chap did not own a chain saw, nor could he reach the trunk of the tree from the house, even when leaning out the window. So he decided to shinny up and saw off the top while sitting astride the trunk, with his feet wedged against the gutter of his roof. He had plenty of time to reflect on the wisdom of his position, as it took him twenty minutes of sawing before the bent tree—which experts estimate held the energy equivalent to a small field gun—parted company with the portion trapped by the soffit, and sprang back upright.

 

Urban Legend? Many argue that the physics doesn’t work; that there is no way a bent poplar has enough latent energy to rocket a human a distance of a mile. Although the distance the man supposedly traveled is inaccurate, the other details are plausible. It may be a true story with one exaggerated fact. We await confirmation.

 

 

His body was found in a neighbor’s garden over a mile away. The police surgeon stated that his neck probably broke during the whiplash and he would blessedly have known nothing of the impact with the ground.

Reference: Various Margate newspapers in 1986

At the town fairgrounds, some buildings were in need of a coat of paint, so local contractors were hired to do the job.

Between the buildings was an angled culvert, designed to drain rainwater away from the buildings. Because of the slope, the wheeled painter scaffolding tended to roll downhill, so the painters removed the wheels from the scaffolding. They were in the process of moving the scaffolding when the metal structure met a transformer. The painters were killed.

The story made the headlines. The town was abuzz with talk of the tragedy, how it had come to pass, and whether the city was liable for damages. The city officials decided they needed to conduct an investigation.

With much fanfare, they arrived at the scene of the incident, prepared to personally re-create the circumstances. Two officials grabbed the scaffolding in the exact same location as the two painters, began to move it…and were promptly electrocuted.

Reference: A Texas newspaper

 

R
EADER
C
OMMENTS
:

 

“Stay tuned for the
next
investigation.”

 

“Is there any way we can get all city, county, and state officials to investigate accidents in the same manner?”