From Claudia:

Darwin Awards 2003

Darwin Awards 2003...They are finally out again. You all know about the
Darwin Awards - it's an annual honor given to the persons who did the gene
pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily
stupid way.

Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of
it.

And the nominees for 2003 are:

9.. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply
because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk.
Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the
fireplace in his house. This resulting explosion and fire burned his house
down, killing both him and his sister.

8. A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home died of
suffocation, according to police. He! was approximately 6' 2" tall and
weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and
white saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared that he was trying to
create a schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask
that had the filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its
place. The other end of the hose was connected to one end of a hollow wooden
tube approx. 12" long and 3" in diameter. The tube's other end was inserted
into his rectum for reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation.
Police found the task of explaining the circumstances of his death to his
family very awkward.

7. Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when
another plane approached. It appears that they decided to moon the occupants
of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed. They
were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ! ankles..

6. A police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no details
before arriving, except that someone had reported that his father was not
breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man face down on the couch
naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start CPR, she
noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance arrived and
removed the man - who was declared dead on arrival at the hospital - the
police made a closer inspection of the couch, and noticed that the man had
made a hole between the cushions. Upon flipping the couch over, they
discovered what had caused his death.
Apparently, the man had a habit of putting his penis between the cushions,
down into the hole and between two electrical sanders (with the sandpaper
removed, for obvious reasons). According to the story, after his orgasm the
discharge shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting him.

5. A 27-year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway near
Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her passenger and
killing herself. As a commonplace road accident, this would not have
qualified for a Darwin nomination, were it not for the fact that the
driver's attention had been distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which had
started urgently beeping for food as she drove along.. In an attempt to press
the correct buttons to save the Tamagotchi's life, the woman lost her own.

4. A 22-year-old, Glade Drive, Reston, VA, man was found dead after he tried
to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. Fairfax
County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these
straps together, wrapped one end around one foot,
anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit
the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators
think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. The length of the
cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle
and the ground" Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was
"Major trauma."

3. A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a
friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The
friend, no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate, was hospitalized.

2. Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell of
a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building extinguishing all
potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc...
After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company
were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty
navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked.
Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into
his ! pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon
operation of the lighter like object, the gas in the warehouse exploded,
sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the
technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The
technician suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of as
'bright' by his peers.

And.....the #1 Nominee

1. Based on a bet by the other members of his threesome, Everitt Sanchez
tried to wash his own "balls" in a ball washer at the local golf course.
Proving once again that beer and testosterone are a bad mix, Sanchez managed
to straddle the ball washer and dangle his scrotum in the machine.. Much to
his dismay, one of his buddies upped the ante by spinning the crank on the
machine with Sanchez's scrotum in place, thus wedging them solidly in the
mechanism. Sanchez, who immediately passed his thr! eshold of pain, collapsed
and tumbled from his perch. Unfortunately for Sanchez, the height of the
ball washer was more than a foot higher off the ground than his testicles
are in a normal stance, and the scrotum was the weakest link. Sanchez's
scrotum was ripped open during the fall, and one testicle was plucked from
him forever and remained in the ball washer, while the other testicle was
compressed and flattened as it was pulled between the housing of the washer,
and the rotating machinery inside. To add insult to injury, Sanchez broke a
new $300..00 driver that he had just purchased from the pro shop, and was
using to balance himself. Sanchez was rushed to the hospital for surgery,
and the remaining threesome were asked to leave the course.

NB: This last one wouldn't normally count, because the idiot didn't die. But
because he cannot reproduce as a result of his qualifying act of stupidity,
we have allowed his entry!