Last year's Darwin Award was given to a man crushed to death by a Coke machine from which he was attempting to yank a free soda. (The Darwins go to the people who do the gene pool the biggest favor by removing themselves from the planet in an extraordinary and stupid way).
And The Winner (Loser) Is:
Mystery owner of a jet-propelled 1967 Chevy Impala. The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a
cliff rising above the road at the crest of a curve. The wreckage resembled that at an airplane crash, but it was a car--make and model unidentifiable at the scene.
A lab figured out the story. It seems the driver had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off--actually a solid fuel rocket) that's used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" taking off from short airfields. He drove his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the jet device.
The cops calculate that the driver of the car...hit JATO ignition at a distance of about 3 miles from the crash site. Ashphalt was scorched and melted there.
Reaching maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an
additional 20-25 seconds, the driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the rest of the event.
The Chevy remained on the highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. It became airborne for an additional 1.4 miles, impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet and leaving a black crater three feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of
the steering wheel.
NOTE: Solid-fuel rockets don't have an 'off'... once started, they burn at full thrust 'till the fuel is all gone.
This year's runner-up:
An insurance company asked for more information regarding a work-related accident claim. This was the response:
"I put 'poor planning' as the cause of my accident. I am an amateur radio operator and was working 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 materials down by hand, I decided to lower the items using a pulley. Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the tools into a small barrel.
Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 300 pounds of tools. You will note in block number 11 of the accident report that I weigh 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. 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. I regained my presence of mind and was able to hold onto the rope in spite of my pain. At 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 so only three vertebrae were cracked.
I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay on the tools, in pain, unable to stand and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope..."
....and yet one more:
Larry Walters is among the relatively few who have actually turned their dreams into reality. His story is true, though you may find it
hard to believe.
Larry was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly.
When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. So when he finally left the service, he had to satisfy himself with watching others fly the fighter jets that crisscrossed the skies over his backyard. As he sat there in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.
Then one day, Larry Walters got an idea. He went down to the local army-navy surplus store and bought a tank of helium and forty-five weather
balloons. These were not your brightly colored party balloons, these were heave-duty spheres measuring more than four feet across when fully inflated.
Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair, the kind you might have in your own back yard. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with helium. Then he packed some sandwiches and drinks and loaded a BB gun, figuring he could pop a few of those balloons when it was time to return to earth.
His preparations complete, Larry Walters sat in his chair and cut the anchoring cord. His plan was to lazily float back down to terra firma. But things didn't quite work out that way. When Larry cut the cord, he didn't float lazily up; he shot up as if fired from a cannon! Nor did he go up a couple hundred feet. He climbed and climbed until he finally leveled off at eleven thousand feet! At that height, he could hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really
experience flying! So he stayed up there, sailing around for fourteen hours, totally at a loss as to how to get down.
Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los Angeles International Airport. A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower about passing a
guy in a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet with a gun in his lap. (Now there's a conversation I'd have given anything to have heard!) LAX is right on the ocean, and you may know that at nightfall, the winds on the coast begin to change. So, as dusk fell, Larry began drifting out to sea. At that point, the Navy dispatched a helicopter to rescue him. But the rescue team had a hard time getting to him, because the draft from their
propeller kept pushing his home-made contraption farther and farther away.
Eventually they were able to hover over him and drop a rescue line with which they gradually hauled him back to earth. As soon as Larry hit
the ground, he was arrested. But as he was being led away in handcuffs, a television
reporter called out, "Mr. Walters, why'd you do it?" Larry stopped, eyed the man, then replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."
Another Stop And Rob Story
A man walked into a Circle-K (a convenience store similar to a 7-11), put 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? Fifteen dollars.
I Demand A Refund
A South Carolina man walked into a local police station, dropped a bag of cocaine on the counter, informed the desk sergeant that it was substandard cut, and asked that the person who sold it to him be arrested immediately.
A Good, Honest Crook!
A bank robber was arrested the day after the robbery at a motel near the state line only twenty or thirty miles away. Why did he stop so close to the scene of the crime? He explained he was on parole and
couldn't cross the state line without permission from his parole officer.
Ahead: A *Serious* Hangover!
Seems this Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock thru a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his
head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious.
The liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. (PLUS, The whole event was caught on videotape.)
I know you are, but what am I?
As a female shopper exited a Ney 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, police had apprehended the perpetrator. They put him in their cruiser 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."
Just A Bad Day
If you thought YOU were having a bad day, read on:
Response to a wildfire on the south of France's Cote d'Azur was billed as a marvel of modern fire-fighting technology. Two specially-built flying boats zoomed in, skimmed the waters of the Mediterranean, scooping vast amounts of water into their belly tanks, and then dropped the water on the hillside fire. All was jolly and the wine flowed freely until a body was found in the ashes.
The coroner found that the gentleman had apparently fallen from a great height, suffering serious injuries before being burned to death. The report further noted that the victim was wearing a bathing suit, snorkel, and swim fins.
Dumb and Dumber
- Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
- A man in Johannesburg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.
- A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film.
- The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.
- A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.
- Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.
- A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.
- Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
- When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.
- Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.
- 45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a mechanic
reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the mechanic for an oil change. According to police, Brasher later said that she didn't realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood to change the oil.
- Portsmouth, R.I. Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of vending
machine robberies in January when he (1) fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine and (2)later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
- Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida for robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel. She was armed with only an electric chain saw, which was not plugged in.
- The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger
King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50am, 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.
- David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after allegedly
knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
- The Belgium news agency Belga reported in November that a man suspected of
robbing a jewelry store in Liege said he couldn't have done it because he was busy breaking into a school at the same time.* Police then arrested him for breaking into the school.
- Drug-possession defendant Christopher Johns, on trial in March in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been searched without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because a "bulge" in Christopher's jacket could have been a gun. Nonsense, said Christopher, who happened to be wearing the same jacket that day in court. He handed it over so the judge could see it. The judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and laughed so hard he required a five-minute recess to compose himself.
- Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz gave himself five-inch-long welts in March when he tried to iron his polo shirt while wearing it. "I've ironed that way five or six times," he said, "and never had it happen."
- Dave so-and-so of Anniston, Alabama, was injured recently after he attempted
to replace a tubelike fuse in his Chevy pickup with a 22-caliber rifle bullet (used because it was a perfect fit). However, when electricity heated the bullet, it went off and shot him in the knee.
Cigarette lighter may have triggered fatal explosion Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural
Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.
