2007 Darwin Award Winners

Web Goddess writes "The 2007 Darwin Award Winners have been announced. Precarious sex, squashed thieves, animals eradicated with electricity, the obligatory macho competition involving a train, and one computer (which survived.) But think twice before you read them. Do you really want to know about The Enema Within?"

Slashdotted....

[rustalot42684]

site seems to be slashdotted; here are the ones I had open before it went down.

What Goes Up Must Come Down 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin "What goes up must come down." (20 June 2007, South Carolina) A passing cabbie found a 21 year-old couple Znaked and injured in the road an hour before sunrise. The two people died at the nearest hospital without regaining consciousness. Authorities were at a loss to explain what had happened. There were no witnesses, no trace of clothing, and no wrecked cars or motorcycles. Investigators eventually found a clue high on the roof of a nearby building: two sets of neatly folded clothes. Safe sex takes on a whole new meaning when you are perched on the edge of a pyramid-shaped metal roof. "It appears as if [they] accidentally fell off the roof," Sgt. Florence McCants said. This is a true Darwin Award trifecta: TWO people die, WHILE in the act of procreation, due to an ASTONISHINGLY poor decision. Bottom line: If you put yourself in a precarious "position" at the edge of a pointy roof, you may well find yourself coming and going at the same time. Ironically, one of the deceased was named "Tumbleston."

The Enema Within 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin (21 May 2004, Texas) Michael was an alcoholic. And not an ordinary alcoholic, but an alcoholic who liked to take his liquor... well, rectally. His wife said he was "addicted to enemas" and often used alcohol in this manner. The result was the same: inebriation. The machine shop owner couldn't imbibe alcohol by mouth due to a painful throat ailment, so he elected to receive his favourite beverage via enema. And tonight, Michael was in for one hell of a party. Two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry, more than 100 fluid ounces, right up the old address! When the rest of us have had enough, we either stop drinking or pass out. When Michael had had enough (and subsequently passed out) the alcohol remaining in his rectal cavity continued to be absorbed. The next morning, Michael was dead. The 58-year-old did a pretty good job of embalming himself. According to toxicology reports, his blood alcohol level was 0.47%. In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove himself from the gene pool via an "astounding misapplication of judgment." Three litres of sherry up the butt can only be described as astounding. Unsurprisingly, his neighbors said they were surprised to learn of the incident.

Support Group 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin "Gravity still works." (28 July 2007, Czech Republic) A pack of thieves attempted to steal scrap metal from an abandoned factory in Kladno. Unfortunately for them, they selected the steel girders that supported the factory roof. When the roof supports were dismantled, the roof fell, fatally crushing two thieves and injuring three others. (21 June 2007, Philippines) Three entrepreneurs planned to profit from stolen scrap metal. They entered a former US military complex and approached the prize: an abandoned water tank. Bedazzled by the potential upside, the three threw logic to the wind, and began to cut the metal legs out from under the tank. Guess where it fell? Straight onto the thieves. Their flattened bodies have not yet been identified. (31 July 1997) Two teens were disassembling an electric tower with wrenches when it toppled to the ground. They apparently wanted to sell its aluminum supports for scrap, but they failed to realize the essential role the aptly named "support" plays in a 160-foot tower. One of the men was crushed by the collapse of the ten-thousand-pound tower, while the other dug himself out from under, a sadder but wiser man from his close brush with a Darwin Award. Reference: Associated Press

Oil Tank Trampoline 2007 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin (24 June 2007, Colorado) If you get "Footloose" and cut the rug on an oil tank, be careful not to light a cigarette or bong of weed, else you may soo

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[vrmlguy]

I read the first few links OK, then things started timing out. Since I use the Slashdotter [mozilla.org] extension for Firefox, I immediately clicked on all the .nyud.net:8090 copies of the links. Some of them are still trying to get cached, but here's the complete list of the mentioned links.

• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-05.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-09.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-01.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-07.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-12.html [nyud.net]
  
• http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net:8090/darwin/darwin2007-13.html [nyud.net]
  

Re:Another Year of Offensive Darwin Awards

[CustomDesigned]

Someone's death is not a laughing matter.

The foolish man repeats his mistakes (except when trying for a Darwin award).
The intelligent man learns from his mistakes (unless they are fatal).
But, the wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

Re:Enema Within: How is it qualified for a "Darwin

[RedWizzard]

First of all, it could have been murder.

The authorities certainly thought so [nwsource.com] initially. They since dropped the charges [sfgate.com], however.

Re:Enema Within

[HeroreV]

I don't know about this particular case, but it's common knowledge that the body can absorb alcohol through the anus much faster than by normal means. Alcoholic enemas aren't that uncommon. I know they are done, and I wouldn't be surprised if several people have caused serious harm to their health, or even died, from it. It only takes a few seconds to go from completely sober to falling-on-the-ground drunk with an alcoholic enema.

Re:Slashdotted....

[cwtrex]

Here's my favorite:

The Laptop Still Works!

(26 February 2007, California) 29-year-old Oscar was driving on Highway 99 near Yuba City, when his Honda Accord crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a Hummer. The occupants of the Hummer were not seriously injured. California Highway Patrol officers found Oscar's laptop still running, and plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. Investigators believe that he was using it when his car crossed the center line.

"Driving is not a time to be practicing your multitasking skills," remarked CHP spokesman Tom Marshall.

Oscar is not alone. Last year, 510 California drivers were charged with reckless driving because they were using a TV, video, or computer monitor. A 2001 CHP study cites cell phone use as the top cause of crashes involving distracted drivers, followed by fiddling with music. "Anything that distracts you can kill you, whether it's eating lunch or working on a computer," an AAA spokesman said.

Oscar was a computer tutor. Hopefully his fatal lesson will teach others to surf on the information superhighway, not the asphalt superhighway.

I hope stories like that get publized more often. Too often do I tell people to stick in a cd and leave it alone or to stop playing with their cell phone until they are stopped. Their response is always, but I do it all the time. I tell them, one of these days you are going to get yourself killed. :-\

Btw, for the rest of the stories, search for these names in google and look at the cached copy. Don't forget to add a +darwin so that the stories end up at the top:

Coitus Interruptus 8.0 (8929 votes)

The Enema Within 8.0 (4212 votes)

Weight Lift 7.8 (2169 votes)

Support Group 7.8 (3712 votes)

Stop. Look. Listen. 7.7 (1745 votes)

Beer for Bears 7.6 (2210 votes)

Mole Hunt 7.5 (5355 votes)

A Prop-er Job 7.4 (4418 votes)

Oil Tank Trampoline 7.4 (5721 votes)

Superior Momentum 7.1 (2103 votes)

Elephants Press Back 7.1 (1236 votes)

Barn Demolition 7.1 (3324 votes)

Electronic Fireworks 7.0 (3607 votes)

Fatal a-Traction 6.0 (10 votes)

The Laptop Still Works! 5.7 (1160 votes)

Cow-ard 5.6 (8 votes)

Fatal Foaming Action 4.9 (1433 votes)

Re:Enema Within

[LrdDimwit]

Except that in this case, not only do we have a name and other details that are commonly missing, the victim's wife was initially arrested on murder charges, then released due to lack of evidence (they would have had to prove she knew it would kill him, or would be dangerous -- she says he did it often). So while many of these are borderline urban legendish, this particular one is well documented.

And if this story doesn't deserve a Darwin award, I can't imagine what would. (Not that I hold the whole Darwin Award thing in terribly high regard, but come on -- this one clearly is a winner.)

Re:Twas not a Hummer but Bugs that Killed the Tech

[goofballs]

Blue screen of death fatality? No, the poor bastard was died because he ran into a Hummer. Those things are so wide he did not have to cross the line to have the accident and no passenger car will survive the impact. If you need to haul things, please buy a pickup truck or a van or a hatchback, not something designed for combat. When you don't need to haul things, please buy a passenger vehicle with properly designed crush zones.

cute, but:
- the dude crossed the line
- a hummer h1 is ~8" wider than most fullsized pickups, so not that huge a difference
- it was probably a hummer h2, which is only a couple inches wider than pickups
- a hummer (even the h1) isn't designed for combat

Re:Slashdotted....

[Anonymous Coward]

Use coral cache, works like a charm!

http://darwinawards.com.nyud.net/darwin/darwin2007.html [nyud.net]

Re:Enema Within

[theonetruekeebler]

it's common knowledge that the body can absorb alcohol through the anus

"Common knowledge?" Who the hell do you hang out with?

In other news, the anus is just the hole at end of a long tube. Absorption would happen through the colon.