FileTitle: Prose1203.html
Category: Humor
Type: Prose
Description: Darwin Awards
     Darwin Awards

     These are nearly always granted posthumously. This citation is
     bestowed upon (the remains of) that individual, who through
     single-minded self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable
     elements from the human gene pool.

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     [San Jose Mercury News]
     An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former
     girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the
     gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

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     [Hickory Daily Record, 12-21-92]
     Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December
     in Newton, N. C., when, awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone
     beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith &
     Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

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     [News of the Weird, 18 May 93, San Jose Mercury News]
     A 24-year-old salesman from Hialeah, Fla., was killed near Lantana,
     Fla., in March when his car smashed into a pole in the median strip of
     Interstate 95 in the middle of the afternoon. Police said that the man
     was traveling at 80 MPH and, judging by the sales manual that was
     found open and clutched to his chest, had been busy reading.

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     [Unknown, 25 March 1993] A Vapid Death

     A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the
     death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his
     body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system.
     His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple
     other things). It was just the right combination of foods.

     It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing from the
     poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or
     had his windows opened it wouldn't have been fatal but the man was
     shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was ``...a big man with a
     huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas].'' Three of the rescue
     workers got sick and one was hospitalized.

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     [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]
     Man slips, falls 23 stories to his death.

     A man cleaning a bird feeder on his balcony of his condominium
     apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his
     death, police said Monday.

     Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair Sunday when the
     accident occurred, said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel regional
     police.

     "It appears the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said.
      "It's one of those freak accidents. No foul play is suspected."

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     [UPI, Toronto]
     Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown
     Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and
     plunged 24 floors to his death.

     A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the
     Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining
     the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students.

     Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength

     Hoy previously had conducted demonstrations of window strength
     according to police reports. Peter Lauwers, managing partner of the
     firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was
     ``one of the best and brightest'' members of the 200-man association.


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     [AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995] CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Six people
     drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a
     well in southern Egypt.

     An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well.
     He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him
     down, police said.

     His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one
     by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to
     help, but they apparently were pulled down by the same undercurrent.

     The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village
     of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo.

     The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.

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     [Times of London]
     A thief who sneaked into a hospital was scarred for life when he tried
     to get a suntan.

     After evading security staff at Odstock Hospital in Salisbury,
     Wiltshire, and helping himself to doctors' paging devices, the thief
     spotted a vertical sunbed. He walked into the unit and removed his
     clothes for a 45-minute tan.

     However, the high-voltage UV machine at the hospital, which is
     renowned for its treatment of burns victims, has a maximum dosage of
     ten seconds.  After lying on the bed for almost 300 times the
     recommended maximum time the man was covered in blisters.

     Hours later, when the pain of the burns became unbearable, he went to
     Southampton General Hospital, 20 miles away,in Hampshire. Staff became
     suspicious because he was wearing a doctor's coat. After tending his
     wounds they called the police.

     Southampton police said: "This man broke into Odstock and decided he
     fancied a quick suntan. Doctors say he is going to be scarred for
     life."