Darwin Awards 2022.

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Honouring Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool – by removing themselves from it in the  most spectacular way possible. The awards are given out every year; these are the latest:

 

 

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, MI, 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’s 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, NC. 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 had conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawson, 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. A person has to wonder what the dimmer members of this law firm are like.

 

Nominee No. 5: [The News of the Weird]: 
Michael Anderson Godwin 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 attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into  a wire and was electrocuted.

 

Nominee No. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]:
A Dunkirk, IN man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader, 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 at 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. 7: [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 wheelchair when the accident occurred," said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel Regional  Police. "It appears that the chair moved, and he went over the balcony," Honer said.

 

Nominee No. 8: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]:
Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. 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, were returning to Des Arc after a frog-catching trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pickup 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 bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to  operate properly, and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge.
After travelling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement, and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor  cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended. 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 be dead," stated Wallis.

"I've been a trooper for 10 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 (Poole's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck?

[onetrack]

Some of those "Darwin awards" date back to the mid-1990's, Peter - they aren't the "latest", by a long shot. But as they say, many things are finite, but human stupidity is infinite.

[Old Koreelah]

Those stories make my eyes water.

[nomadpete]

I think those stories are better suited to the 'gawd elp America' thread