2005 Darwin Awards
[The year would not be complete without the Darwin Awards - awarded
every year to the persons who died in the stupidest manner, thereby
removing themselves from the gene pool. This year's nine Darwin Award
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, 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' 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. (For whatever reason,
residents of Southern states always seem to figure prominently among
the Darwin nominees.)
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 demonstrations of window strength according
to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden
Day, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and
brightest" members of the 200-man association.. (Nice to see another
Canadian province getting into the awards.... The Maritimes always
have been heavily involved.)
Nominee No. 5 [Bloomberg News Service]: A terrible diet and a room
with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was
killed by his own gas emissions. There were no marks on his body, and
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
opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his
nearly 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 attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a
wire and was electrocuted. (North Carolina entrants are always
perennial favorites.)
Nominee No. 7 [The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have
triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. 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 at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was
cleaning a 54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly.
He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder
ignited.
Nominee No. 8 [Reuters, Mississaug