The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (5 page)

His wife, who was on holiday at the time of the incident, cleared up the mystery and revealed why our subject will go down in history as a Darwin Award winner. As she was leaving for the holiday, she remembered Darren wondering whether his new jacket was “stab-proof.”

That’s right. Darren decided to find out if his jacket could withstand a knife attack. Did he choose to test his jacket while it was draped over the back of a chair? No, our man thought that the best approach would be to wear the garment and stab himself. Sadly, his armor proved less resistant to a sharp blade than he had hoped.

The coroner reached a verdict of accidental death by “misadventure.”

Reference: www.thisisglenfield.com (website defunct after June 2007)

Reader Comment:

“Shanks for nothing.”

Darwin Award: Falling in Love

Confirmed True by Darwin

20 JUNE 2007, SOUTH CAROLINA

A passing cabbie found a twenty-one-year-old couple naked and injured in the road an hour before sunrise. The two people died at the nearest hospital without regaining consciousness. Authorities were at a loss to explain what had happened. There were no witnesses, no trace of clothing, and no wrecked cars or motorcycles.

Investigators eventually found a clue high on the roof of a nearby building: two sets of neatly folded clothes. Safe sex takes on a whole new meaning when you are perched on the edge of a pyramid-shaped metal roof. There was no sign of foul play (only of foreplay). “It appears as if (they) accidentally fell off the roof,” Sergeant Florence McCants said.

This is a true Darwin Award trifecta:
two
people die,
while
in the act of procreation, due to an
astonishingly
poor decision. Bottom line: If you put yourself in a precarious “position” at the edge of a pointy roof, you may well find yourself coming and going at the same time.

Reference: MyrtleBeachOnline.com,
The State
newspaper, WISTV.com,
Associated Press, Fox News, WTLX.com, WOAI.com, KNBC.com

Reader Comments:

“Talk about falling for someone….”

“Dammit, I
told
her to hold on.”

“Diddler on the Roof.”

Darwin Award: Weight Lift

Confirmed True by Darwin

27 JULY 2007, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

Twenty-four-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel’s gym when she realized she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.

So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up toward her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?

Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let’s just say the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.

Reference: oem.com.mx and eyewitness account

Reader Comments:

“Talk about a brainless fool!”

“Going up?”

Darwin Award: Pushmi-Pullyu

Confirmed True by Darwin

4 APRIL 2007, GERMANY

Around midnight a forty-nine-year-old man attempted to impress his wife with his unbelievable strength. He climbed over the balcony of their seventh-floor flat, clung to the outside of the parapet, and began a set of pull-ups. After a few pull-ups, which were undoubtedly impressive, his sedentary lifestyle began to take its toll. His muscles lost strength, and he was unable to lift himself back onto the balcony. He eventually fell seven stories (eight if you include the ground floor) and impaled himself on a thornbush. Ouch! The official verdict placed the blame squarely and pointedly on the macho showmanship of the deceased.

9 OCTOBER 2007, OHIO

The German man is not alone in his efforts to impress a woman. An eighteen-year-old was lured by the siren song of the guardrail onto his girlfriend’s eleventh-floor balcony. Attempting to impress the lady, he, too, began a set of pull-ups, only to lose his grip and plummet eleven stories (ten if you omit the ground floor) to land facedown in the parking lot. The Ohio coroner was more charitable than his German counterpart. This death was ruled accidental.

Reference: presseportal.de,
The Plain Dealer

Reader Comment:

“Best way to get rid of the unwanted hubby.”

Darwin Award: Rock Out

Confirmed True by Darwin

17 NOVEMBER 2006, SINGAPORE

Rock and roll will never die.

Picture a college dorm room. Dirty laundry, sexy posters, food wrappers, textbooks, and in the middle of it all, a sixteen-year-old male rocking out to loud music. A typical student, a typical day. But this particular student, rocking out on his air guitar, was about to “take things too far” according to the coroner’s report.

Li Xiao, a student at the Hua Business School, bounced up and down on his bed with such enthusiasm that he rocked himself right out of the third-floor window.

Normally the windows are locked, but students reportedly force the locks so they can sneak a cigarette. Perhaps alluding to Ted Nugent’s rock song, the court ruled it a case of “death by misadventure.”

Reference:
The Straits Times,
Channel 9 News Australia, Reuters, etc.

Reader Comments:

“Did he dive into an imaginary mosh pit?”

“Air Guitar Disaster”

“Oingo Boingo”

Darwin Award: High on Life

Confirmed True by Darwin

3 JUNE 2006, FLORIDA

Take a deep breath…. Two more candidates have thrown themselves into the running for a Darwin Award. The feet of Jason and Sara, both twenty-one, were found protruding from a huge, deflated helium advertising balloon. Jason was a college student, and Sara attended community college, but apparently their education had glossed over the importance of breathing oxygen.