Smokr's Lounge

A not-for-non-profit-non-organisation

925 seconds over 56K

Hard to believe, but another year has passed. For those who don't know
it, the Darwin Awards are awarded every year to the person(s) who died
in the stupidest way, thereby, thankfully, removing themselves from the gene pool.

The nominees are:

NOMINEE No. 1: [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.

NOMINEE No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, (a
mechanic) of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to
repair what police describe 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."

NOMINEE No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger,
47, Accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C.
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.

NOMINEE No. 4: [UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer
demonstrating the Safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper
crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his
death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of
the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was
explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law
students. Hoy previously has conducted the demonstration of window
strength according to police reports. Peter lawyers, 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.

NOMINEE No. 5: [Bloomberg News Service] 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 an 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 the poisonous cloud that was hanging over
his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been open, it wouldn't
have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom.
According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for
creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was
hospitalized.

NOMINEE No. 6: ["The News of the Weird."] Michael Anderson
Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years
awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before
having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal
toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a
wire and was electrocuted.

NOMINEE NO. 7: ["The Indianapolis Star"]. A cigarette
lighter may have triggered fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay
County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a
muzzle-loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his
face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his
parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was
cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle-loader that had not been firing properly.
He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder
ignited.

NOMINEE No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man
cleaning a bird Feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in
this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan
Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair 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.

AND FINALLY, Honorable mention: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]
Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the
road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early
Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the
accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc
and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition
at Baptist Medical Center. The accident occurred as the two men were
returning to Des Arc after a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday
night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men
concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned
out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the
.22 caliber cartridge from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse lot
next to the steering column. Upon inserting the cartridge, the
headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded
eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After traveling approximately
twenty miles and just before crossing the river, the cartridge case
apparently overheated; the round discharged and struck Poole in the
right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply right exiting the pavement
and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from
the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis
sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released."Thank God we
weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off or we might both
be dead" stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for ten years in this part
of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two
would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder. Upon being
notified of the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the
boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.