Year 2000 Darwin Awards


They have finally been released! For those not familiar with the Darwin
Award, it's an annual honor given to the person who provided the human gene
pool the biggest service by getting
killed in the most extraordinarily stupid way. As always, competition this
year has been keen. Some candidates appear to have trained their whole lives
for this event!

DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS
 (Failed to qualify on the technicality that the perpetrator did not, in
fact, remove him/herself from the gene pool.)

1. In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a
shot from his 22-calibre rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the
hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.

2. In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out
cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch
and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.

3. Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, in September,
and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of dynamite that
blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the
dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but
they apparently failed to notice that the window was closed.

4. This from Tacoma, WA:  Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several
friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from
the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew
more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at
4:30 a.m. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no
one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking,
volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One
end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied
to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore
his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy
river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say," said
Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no
other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located.

DARWIN AWARD RUNNERS UP

1. In September, in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two
feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate
to retrieve his car keys.

2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned"
when he ran, according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high
cliff on his daily run.

3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into
the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug
the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a
beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him
beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their
hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of
Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy
equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones
was pronounced dead at a hospital.

4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell
face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was burglarising. Death was
caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands
free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was
stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was
trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the Flakvest Berrena was
wearing.

6. Sylvester Briddell, Jr , 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Del, as
he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with
four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel Kolta, 27,
and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the
game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.

AND THIS YEAR'S WINNER:

1. PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his
constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a
bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally
let fly-and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop! Investigators say
ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive
oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of
mud. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr.
Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay
unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him,"
said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there
to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a
watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. "It seems to be just
one of those freak accidents that happen."