forwarded from Donna Endres

[Michael Eisenstadt]

I THINK THESE HAVE ALREADY MADE THE ROUNDS, BUT I'M PASSING THEM ON JUST
IN
CASE.  

Subject: Darwin Award 2002 Nominees

Darwin Awards
- It's an annual honor given to the person 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 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
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.

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 threshold 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.

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 it.