I thought it might be time to update you on the most recent nominations for the annual Darwin Awards – those wonderfully horrible tales of mishaps that sent fellow human beings into the afterlife and out of the gene pool. They seem to get more and more bizarre as the years go by. Fortunately – thank goodness – none of the tales has originated anywhere near our area.
However, I do believe we have some people in our area that could someday make the list. Why would I ever think such a thing? Well, we are Southerners . . . and when someone shouts, “Hey, y’all, look at this,” it is usually the precursor that something bad is about to happen.
Here are some of the most recent nominees for the awards. I hope you are not kin to any of them.
Pillar of Strength
(South Africa)
For several days Johannesburg office workers watched a demolition worker slowly chip away at a pillar supporting the concrete slab above him. One observer said, “I wondered how they would drop that section.” The walls were gone, and only the supporting pillars remained.
Dozens of observers watched the slow and senseless demolition proceed. Finally the only possible outcome concluded this epic battle. The besieged support collapsed, crushing man and machine beneath a pile of rubble. Ishmael Makone, 52, was killed instantly inside the cab of his mini-excavator.
“I cannot believe they did not foresee this,” said a shocked witness who did not foresee this. Observers said they had been concerned about the workers’ safety for several days. “There was no common sense.”
Low Flying Drunk
(Canada)
Sleeping residents of Chilliwack were awakened early one morning by the sound of a small aircraft flying lower than usual. The engine noise was like a mosquito, zooming too close, too quickly and then veering away. What the bleep was going on?
In the wee hours of the night, during a bout of heavy drinking, two future Darwin Award nominees concluded that - with neither having a pilot’s license nor flight training - they nevertheless knew enough to pilot an aircraft and decided to take a plane from the small local airport for a drunken joyride over the city. They invited two females along for the ride. Fortunately, the level-headed ladies declined.
From idea to execution, the plan evolved quickly. One of the gentlemen worked at the airport and had access. The two men then managed to unlock a plane, get it off the ground and into the sky. They went on to buzz around in the dark, skimming above the roofs of the houses. This went on for an extended period of time.
Eventually they decided to land. They attempted to land on the grassy median between east and west-bound lanes of the Trans Canada Highway. They almost made it under the electrical wires that cross the median.
Almost.
Where these wires were concerned, fate intervened. Instead of making a soft landing on the grassy verge, the tail clipped the wires, sending the aircraft diving nose-first into the ground and killing both occupants. Only then were the sleepy Chilliwack residents able to return to their REM sleep.
A Cushioned Blow
(Germany)
Smoking kills . . . if you try hard enough. A 42-year-old man was badly injured by his air mattress one morning. The previous night he had inflated the punctured mattress with a tire repair spray, which like all solvent-based aerosols, is flammable. Furthermore, he did this while keeping his windows tightly closed in his loft apartment. The next morning, this airhead lit a cigarette before he opened the valve to deflate the air mattress. The resulting explosion wrecked most of the furnishings, part of the roof and blew a window from the wall. The damage was so severe that a structural engineer condemned the flat. Narrowly missing a “full-blown” Darwin Award, our hero was taken to a burn care unit and managed to survive this incident.
Yes, I understand the last story did not involve the not-so-intelligent human departing from the gene pool. It was just too funny not to share. It is one of the stories on the Darwin Awards Web site that did not earn a nomination for the annual award. It was just an honorable mention. However, I see nothing honorable about making this annual list. I hope none of you are ever one of its finalists.
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