Subject: The Darwin Awards
From: Matt Giampocaro ([email-masked])

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
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 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 10 seconds.  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.