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2003 Darwin Awards


Bandus
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I'm not sure if these are new or old. But this is the first time I've seen them and some of them are damned funny...

The 2003 Darwin Award Winner:

When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

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And now, the honorable mentions:

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping round, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspecting

negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine out and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

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A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

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After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Beltway had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital,

telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

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An American teenager was in the hospital yesterday recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When

asked how he received the injuries, the lad told

police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

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A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, puts a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money,

was a crime committed?)

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Seems this Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window,

grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the

would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught

on videotape.

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As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and

the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in

the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

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The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and

demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion

rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

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When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle Street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find an ill man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying

to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

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lol even the urban legends on the darwin awards website have good stuff .. here's the 2 most popular ones

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Accident Report

This one needs an introduction, so you won't be lost at the beginning. This man was in an accident at work, so he filled out an insurance claim. The insurance company contacted him and asked for more information. This was his response:

"I am writing in response to your request for additional information, for block number 3 of the accident reporting form. I put 'poor planning' as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I trust the following detail will be sufficient. I am an amateur radio operator and on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80-foot tower. When I had completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought up about 300 pounds of tools and spare hardware. Rather than carry the now unneeded tools and material down by hand, I decided to lower the items down in a small barrel by using the pulley attached to the gin pole at the top of the tower. Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and material into the barrel. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow decent of the 300 pounds of tools."

"You will note in block number 11 of the accident reporting form that I weigh only 155 pounds. Due to my surprise of being jerked off the

ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming down. This explains my fractured skull and broken collarbone. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold onto the rope in spite of my pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of tools hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel."

"Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed approximately 20 pounds. I refer you again to my weight in block number 11. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, and the lacerations of my legs and lower body. The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of tools and, fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools, in pain, unable to stand and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind. I let go of the rope..."

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Bizarre Death - 1994 Urban Legend

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS, President Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 23,1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the descender was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide."

That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor, whence the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. Thed old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

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quote:


Originally posted by Bandus:

I'm not sure if these are new or old. But this is the first time I've seen them and some of them are damned funny...


HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS?

If you're going to grab stuff off the net and post it here, post a link to the original or don't post it at all.

The next person who does this, is getting BANNED with NO warning. I have a VERY LOW tolerance threshold for stuff like this.

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I nominate this one from a few days ago in Pennsylvania

"A hunter found dead in his tree stand on Saturday night accidentally shot himself in the neck, according to the Armstrong County coroner's office. Thomas Morris Van Dyke, 40, was found dead in a tree stand 14 feet above the ground in South Buffalo at 8:30 p.m., after he had been reported missing by his family about an hour earlier......Armstrong County Coroner Robert T. Bower said Van Dyke had a history of carrying his gun with the safety off while hiking through woods and climbing tree stands....."

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quote:

Originally posted by Greg Miller:

"A hunter found dead in his tree stand on Saturday night accidentally shot himself in the neck, according to the Armstrong County coroner's office. Thomas Morris Van Dyke, 40, was found dead in a tree stand 14 feet above the ground in South Buffalo at 8:30 p.m., after he had been reported missing by his family about an hour earlier......
Armstrong County Coroner Robert T. Bower said Van Dyke had a history of carrying his gun with the safety off while hiking through woods and climbing tree stands.....
"


Climbing a tree with the safety off? The sad thing is, that he probably has children, and taught them the same gun safety technique.

Sad, just sad.

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I never have a round chambered until I actually get in position in a tree stand... and before I climb down, I unload...

I never have the safety off until it's time for me to shoot something.

These are things my father taught me from a young age. I was exposed to guns my entire life, but I never got my own until I was about 10. And then there were strict rules and things that I had to learn before I was trusted with the weapon... and was taught respect for the power.

If everyone was taught responsible gun ownership... accidental deaths in this country would be almost nonexistent... some people are just hardheaded however.

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Sorry SC. I didn't get these off a website or else I would have posted a link.

I follow more or less the same rules as you Silk. I have always been taught to be damned careful. Furthermore, I've seen in person what guns can do to people and I'm not about to let myself do something unsafe and be one of those people. You follow very simple rules, you increase your likelihood of survival ten fold.

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