I did a search and did not see this posted yet.
Yes, it's the one we've all been waiting for ... the Darwin Award 2002.
The candidates have finally been released!
For those not familiar with the Darwin Award, It's an annual honor given to
the person who provided the Universal human gene pool the biggest service
by getting KILLED in the most extraordinarily stupid way.
As always, competition this year has been keen again.
DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES
· In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned
i n two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide
sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
· In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally
zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his
daily run.
· 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. Beach goers 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 usin g heavy equipment almost an hour to
free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a
hospital.
· In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he
fell face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was burglarizing.
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.
· 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 flak vest Berrena was wearing.
· 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.
· 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.
DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS
· In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with
a shot from his 22 caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the
hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.
· 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.