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2009 Darwin Awards

Nominees

Double Dip:
(3 June 2009, North Carolina) Greensboro was innundated with four inches of pouring rain in two hours, stranding several cars on flooded roads. Rosanne T., 50, was not deterred. She hopped on her moped and drove to a convenience store where she "possibly had a beer," according to her mother, before deciding to blunder home through the storm. She phoned home to say, "My moped has two rubber wheels, Mom, I'll be fine."

North Carolina does not require a license to own a moped.
Ms. T. had acquired hers two years previously after a DUI conviction.

The Highway Patrol had blocked off several roads that were inundated with water, including Rosanne's path home. But she rode right past the officer and the barriers, lost control of her vehicle, and fell into the swollen creek below. The officer retrieved rope from his vehicle and proceeded to haul her from the water.

He then interviewed the woman, probably inquiring about her motivation for speeding through a roadblock during a flash flood. When the officer returned to his patrol car to call for assistance, Rosanne took the opportunity to escape--by jumping back into the creek!

The officer attempted to rescue her again, but alas, it was too late.

The victim's mother speculated that her daughter's motivation for jumping into a flooded creek was to rescue her drowning moped. "She loved that thing."

Dying To Go:
(12 April 2008, Florida) Traffic was moving slowly on southbound I-95. Shawn M. had recently left a Pompano Beach bar, and now he was stuck in traffic. As the saying goes, you don't buy beer--you just rent it, and Shawn couldn't wait another moment to relieve himself. "I need to take a leak," he told his friends.

Traffic was deadlocked, so the waterlogged man climbed out, put his hand on the divider, and jumped over the low concrete wall... only to fall 65 feet to his death. "He probably thought there was a road, but there wasn't," said a Fort Lauderdale police spokesman. The car was idling on an overpass above the railroad lines.

His mother shared her thoughts. "Shawn didn't do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm, just like his father."

Sparkleberry Lane:
(31 July 2009, South Carolina) Two disguised men entered a Sprint store on Sparkleberry Lane, pulled out guns, and stole wallets, purses, and credit cards from employees before ordering them into a bathroom. Both men fled, but they could not flee from their own stupidity. 23-year-old James T. had disguised himself by painting his face gold.

Yes, in order to conceal his identity during the robbery, James had covered his skin with spray paint. If this isn't a Darwin Award, what is? Paints are clearly labelled, do not get on skin, do not get in eyes, do not inhale. Paint fumes are well-known to be toxic, and the metallic colors are particularly noxious. James began having trouble breathing (surprise!) and died wheezing shortly after the robbery took place.

To add insult to injury, the disguise was ineffective. Witnesses were certain as to the identity of their assailant. Had he lived, James, like his surviving accomplice, would have been charged with armed robbery.

Saw It Coming:
(27 June 2009, New York) A severe storm damaged power lines and left 17,000 homes without electricity. Mieczyskaw Mil, 64, was one of the affected parties. His power line serviced only 17 homes and therefore was one of the last to be repaired. Seven hours after the line fell, Mieczyskaw Mil finally lost his patience.

The old man had been shooed away repeatedly by firefighters who were guarding the power line. "Police and firefighters literally chased him away. We did everything we could," said d!ck Martinkovic, commissioner of public safety in Sullivan County. But they were not prepared for the homeowner's sudden bold move.

Frustrated with waiting, Mil emerged from his home shortly after midnight with an industrial circular saw in his hand and plastic bags on his feet. He stood in a puddle of water and attempted to saw through a 4800-volt feeder line that was dangling off the pole. He fell and became tangled in the hissing and buzzing live wire. While emergency responders waited for utility workers to shut down the power, Mil was busy being killed by continuous electrocution.

Painkillers:
(17 October 2009, Minnesota) On October 26, charges were dismissed against Lucas William Stenning, 32, who six weeks earlier had pleaded guilty to knowingly violating registration required of a predatory offender. Charges were dismissed....because Lucas was dead.

In a related story, on the afternoon of October 17 in the city of Bock, an injured "hit and run victim" was reported. The pedestrian, found on the side of the road, died in the ambulance at the scene.

In a related story, police reported that a 32-year-old man had concocted a scheme to stage an accident in order to obtain prescription drugs. The plan was to jump out of a moving vehicle, become injured, go to the hospital and receive narcotic painkillers. That plan failed when its mastermind, Lucas William Stenning, died at the scene due to head injuries.

In other words: Lucas, 32, avoided a serious parole violation because he was deceased due to injuries he caused himself by leaping from a moving vehicle in order to obtain prescription painkillers. Ouch!

Trifecta Electra:
(12 October 2009, Florida) The Slush Pile mods say age fifteen is too young to win, but this case might be an exception. A Palm Bay couple and their 15-year-old son were putting up a ham radio antenna one evening. Bafflingly, not one of them thought to survey their surroundings. Unaware of the presence of an unseen menace overhead, the trio raised the aerial pole in the dark, struck a power line, and Zap! Three Darwin Award winners.

"It is an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the most tragic result," said the Palm Bay Fire Marshal. "It happened in an instant." However, it can hardly be called an accident. All three were voluntary particpants and old enough to know better.

Readers beware, power lines lurk overhead waiting for the unwary. Our thanks to 55-year-old Melville, 49-year-old Anna and 15-year-old Anthony for reminding us not to stick a pole in the power grid. Just say no to premature cremation.

She Talks Faster Than She Walks"
(30 May 2009, Louisiana) Back seat drivers beware! Annoyed at how slowly her boyfriend was driving, Tamera B, 22, encouraged him to pick up the pace so she could get to work on time. Joking that it would be faster to walk to work, she opened the door of the pickup and stuck her foot out before falling to her death. Deputies of the jurisdictional Sheriff's Office stated that the truck was traveling at highway speed on I-12 at the time of the incident.

Her death was ruled accidental.

Wetting The Bed:
(27 October 2009, Arkansas) Thirty-year-old Devan LeAnn of Shongaloo, Louisiana, was visiting Lake Ehrling with a male friend. Recent bouts of heavy rain had resulted in a flood of runoff water, and they decided "it would be fun" to take a mattress careening down the surging water in the spillway.

Unfortunately Leann was riding a foam egg-crate style mattress pad, rather than a buoyant air mattress. Imagine a wet foam pad. Are you sinking yet? According to her friend, Devan LeAnn simply vanished from sight at dusk. The next morning her body was found in a tangle of trees 70 yards below the spillway.

Fool's Gold:
5 February 2009, India) Bachelor lottery agent Pravin Kuse lived with his brother's family in Vasai. His own house, an abandoned 100-year-old building, was located a few meters away.

Some legends hold that a pot of gold lies buried at the end of the rainbow, but Kuse learned in a dream that an ancient pot of gold was actually buried beneath his house. He decided to follow his dream and dig for that gold. He shared his plans with his aged mother, warning her to keep quiet to avoid a fight over the fortune.

The dream told him to dig beneath the staircase so after lunch, every day without fail, Kuse would take his spade and dig a little deeper beneath the stairs. The neighbors had no idea that days and nights of digging had resulted in a fifteen-foot deep tunnel. The innovative gold-digger had even rigged a remote-control toy car to carry a flashlight to assist him in the dark.

One day the 32-year-old lottery agent did not return home, and his worried relatives lodged a missing persons report. Police were dispatched to the old house where they discovered that the floor had caved in. The soil beneath the staircase becomes moist at a depth of 15 feet due to its proximity to the sea, and the unsupported walls of the tunnel had collapsed. Within a few hours an earthmover had excavated Kuse's body from the debris, along with a spade and the innovative mobile flashlight.

Race To The Bottom:
(5 September 2009, Oregon) Jake reached the summit of Saddle Mountain, and then and there he informed his friends that he had planned to make a controlled slide down the cliff face. He would meet up with them in the parking lot or on the trail below.

Most folks are satisfied with the risks and rewards of dune sliding, and the inevitable 150-foot tumble and a broken limb. Jake, 18, decided to 'git-r-dun' down a thousand-foot cliff. He slid pell-mell down the cliff--and what was intended to be a controlled rockslide ended abrubptly 1000 feet below the summit, when his body came to rest in a steep ravine.

Friends were shocked. "We are shocked," they said, "because he is always doing stuff like this and coming out smiling." Due to the hazardous terrain, recovery workers were not able to reach the body until 36 hours laterz when Clatsop County Rescue and Portland Mountain Rescue teams confirmed the death.

Missed (But Not Missed) By The Bus:
(13 August 2009, Quebec, Canada) A 24-year-old woman was ironically successful in her attempt to catch a bus in Quebec City. Clutching a can of pop, the woman ran into a restricted area and tried to flag down 45-foot bus that had left on time--without her. As she tried her best to get herself noticed, she herself failed to notice that the bus was making a swift turn in her direction.

A veteran driver said that drivers cannot hear anything over the sound of their engines. The woman was disappeared beneath the wheels of the turning bus, and it was obvious to a former nurse who rushed to her aid that she was no longer able to concern herself with getting there on time.

Considering that you have to do something really stupid to get squished by a bus in a transit center--such as sneaking into a restricted area and running under the tires--the bus company does not plan to increase security. A spokesperson said the woman should never have been in the parking lot.

Collateral Damage:
(30 April 2009, York, United Kingdom) In another DIY project gone wrong, a homeowner attempting to demolish a large brick garden shed succeeded in his primary objective, but suffered collateral damage when the cement slab roof demolished the unfortunate chap.

In the unequal contest between mortal flesh and cement slab, the slab always wins.

The flattened 41-year-old was alone on his property at the time. One has to query the wisdom of undertaking a demolition project with no one on hand in the event of a mishap. However, a neighbor who happened to witness the incident immediately summoned help. Firefighters used hydraulic rams and high pressure air bags to allow paramedics to reach the man, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Nutty Putty Cave:
(25 November 2009, Utah) As is true of many other Darwin Awards, the unfortunate demise of John J. is a cautionary tale that may save the lives of others.

Nutty Putty Cave, named for its soft brown clay, was discovered in 1960. This naturally formed thermal cave is 1400 feet long, narrow, with multiple passageways and room-size openings. To explore Nutty Putty Cave, spelunkers must have experience, or travel with a guide. These rules were imposed in 2006 after six incidents of people getting stuck in its narrow passages, requiring rescue.

By all accounts, John, 26, was an experienced caver. This avid explorer lived a life of adventure, including spelunking in vertical caves more difficult than Nutty Putty. John was aware of the dangers, but perhaps his full life had made him a bit overconfident. Once his group was inside the cave, John split off and navigated a solo path. At the end of a difficult stretch of passages that twisted and turned in sharp angles over uneven ground, he found an unmapped finger and tried to squeeze his 6-foot tall, 200-pound body through the opening.

When a narrow passage must be navigated, spelunkers know that the safest method is feet-first, making it easier to climb back out. John slithered into the 10"x18" opening head-first, and there he remained, jammed in the tiny slot.

He was located, of course. Nutty Putty Cave is small enough that one cannot stay missing for long. All told, 137 people were involved in the exhausting rescue effort, using air-powered tools and a system of pulleys and ropes to extract the caver. Despite their best efforts, the crevice was too small to accomodate a rescue. John was wedged in an area where the cave peters down to nothing, and nothing could be done.

After 26 hours, he expired.

WINNER:

Crushing Debt:
(26 September 2009, Belgium) The city of Dinant is the backdrop for this rare Double Darwin Award. Two bankrobbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM died when they overestimated the quantity of dynamite needed for the explosion. The blast demolished the building the bank was housed in. Nobody else was in the building at the time of the attack.

Robber One was rushed to the hospital with severe head trauma; he died shortly after arrival. Investigators initially assumed that his accomplice had managed a getway, but the second bungler's body was excavated from the debris twelve hours later. Would-be Robbers One and Two weren't exactly impoverished--their getaway car was a BMW.

Death Inc

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