This story is still developing, as it happened just yesterday. So this might become a Darwin award in the near future. For now it's just an honourable mention, although we can be pretty sure he won't be passing many genes around for the first few years.
Driving can be a boring thing. Our hero, a 19 year old male from the Dutch town of Blerick, had the perfect solution to fight boredom while driving. While driving the A67 highway during the night after eastersunday, he decided to impress his two passengers by putting the car on cruise-control at 20 Mph, get out of the car and run alongside it. Afterwards he would get in and drive on. While the entertainment value of this stunt is easy to see, our friend underestimated the speed of a car driving at 20 Mph. The moment he got out of the car, he fell over and slammed headfirst into the asphalt.
He now is in hospital with severe braindamage, and his condition is critical. One might wonder how braindamage could occur here, as it seems he didn't have much of a brain to begin with. Even if he lives, he deserves a place in these pages.
This is another gem from the Short Stay Unit in Frankston Hospital:
In Australia, there was an ad campaign which encouraged parents to supervise their kids while they swam in the pool. Our Honorable Mention was one of these parents.
He was watching his kids play in the pool in the backyard. They had an aboveground pool with a trampoline next to it. The kids had a great time jumping from the trampoline into the pool. The Dad thought that would b fun.
However the Dad didnt jump from the trampoline but from the roof of the nearby garden shed. He summoned up all of his cretinous courage and leaped:
He landed on the trampoline square in the center. The trampoline launched the 40-something Dad into the air.
Dad cleared the pool...
And the back fence...
And landed on his neighbour's windscreen backside first.
It gets better. He was stuck! He couldnt get out! He called out to his kids but they were laughing to hard to get mum
He needed several stiches in his rear end and payment of his neighbours windscreen. Unfortunately the neighbour didnt see this astronaut otherwise his enforcement of payment for the windscreen perhaps would have been more lenient
The kids? Once they regained composure (apparantly a good five minutes) they went straight back jumping trampoline-to-pool.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- Two men were injured when their fishing boat exploded as it left the dock.
Richard Bastiani, 47, of Fort Lauderdale, was transferred to the burn unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and released Sunday, hospital officials said.
Harry Unger, 44, of Fort Lauderdale, was treated Sunday at the emergency room at North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach and released.
The explosion happened just after 6 a.m. Sunday at the Alsdorf Park boat ramp on the Intracoastal Waterway. The impact threw both men to the deck of the boat before they scrambled to safety, Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King said.
"Apparently, they were in a vapor cloud, and that's what caused the explosion," King said.
King said that before the explosion, the men stopped at a gas station to fill up the boat. One of the men apparently pumped the gas through one of the fishing-rod holders, sending the fuel throughout other parts of the boat instead of the fuel tank.
They put the boat in the water at the boat ramp and sparked the explosion when they started the engine. The explosion engulfed the 26-foot boat and destroyed it as well as damaging part of the nearby dock. It took firefighters 10 minutes to bring the blaze under control
(29 January 2003, Brazil) At work, Manoel Messias Batista Coelho was responsible for cleaning out the storage tanks of gasoline tanker trucks. He had been employed in that capacity for two months when he ran afoul of fuel.
The 35-year-old began to fill a tanker with water, a standard safety procedure that forces flammable vapor out of the container. He returned an hour later to check whether the water level was high enough to proceed. But he had trouble deciding, because it was so DARK inside the tanker.
A resourceful employee, Manoel forgot the very reason why he was filling the tank with water when he lit a cigarette lighter to shed some light on the situation. His little test successfully determined that the water level was NOT yet high enough for safety. The vapor explosion launched him through the air, and he landed in the company parking lot 100 meters away.
Manoel suffered severe burns, blunt force trauma, and an injury to the head that exposed his brain. Our witless car washer had learned his terminal lesson in safety by the time the firemen arrived.
(3 March 2002, Sheffield, England) As Kim Fontana, 32, and Paul Cowley, 40, left the pub, they noticed that a streetlight was burned out, creating an attractive pool of darkness on the road. Unable to rein in their passion, they began to canoodle on the asphalt outside the pub.
Witnesses said the couple was lying right on the white line, kissing and cuddling. The passionate pair were warned of the danger of their chosen position not once, not twice, but three times -- by a car driver, a bus driver, and a pedestrian.
An off-duty paramedic honked three times and shouted, "You want to get up, or otherwise youll be run over." The man simply said "Cheers, mate," and the paramedic heard a female voice laughing. A bus driver swerved to avoid them, and drove past with wheels on the curb. A concerned pedestrian shouted to warn them that another bus was headed their way.
Despite these disruptions, Kim and Paul continued, oblivious to the approach of a small, single-decker Nipper bus. The bus driver mistook the undulating shape for a bag of rubbish in the poorly lit street, and was unable to stop in time. There was a dull thud...
Kim and Paul were struck and killed at midnight. Paramedics found Kim lying on her back with her jumper pulled up, and Paul between her legs with his trousers pulled down.
The only downside to this timely removal of lunacy from the gene pool is the fate of the bus driver. Despite the couple's own actions, and a police investigator's statement that "one can expect a pedestrian walking or running in the road, but to expect a driver to anticipate a pedestrian lying in the road is out of the ordinary" -- a judge felt that "his driving fell below the standard one would reasonably expect of a prudent, competent driver."
The bus driver was fined for careless driving and his license was revoked for six months. Fortunately, his employers consider him an excellent employee, and plan to give him other duties for six months. Relatives of the victims said they were glad the driver had kept his job.
(16 March 2003, Michigan) Ignoring Coast Guard warnings, David Manley ventured onto the icy surface of Saginaw Bay with his pickup truck one chilly morning. Predictably, the vehicle broke through the ice, but the 41-year-old managed to avert tragedy and escape from the sinking truck. He reached the shore wet and cold, but alive.
Despite his traumatic experience, and despite a day of sunshine and warm temperatures in the 60s, David returned to Saginaw Bay late the following night. This time he was driving an all-terrain vehicle, and accompanied by a friend. Surprise! The ATV also plunged through the ice.
His companion survived, but David had used up his luck. His body was recovered by the Coast Guard southwest of the Channel Islands. An autopsy was scheduled to determine whether anything besides a desire to win a Darwin Award was a factor in his demise.
(9 April 2003, New Zealand) Phil needed to make repairs to the underside of his car. But when he jacked it up, there wasn't enough room for him to work. So he removed the car's battery, placed the jack on top of it, and set to work again, this time with plenty of elbow-room.
Unfortunately for Phil, car batteries are not designed to carry much weight. The battery collapsed and the jack toppled, trapping him beneath the car. Unable to breathe due to the weight on his chest, he quickly expired in a pool of battery acid.
This incident is illuminated by two additional facts: First, Phil's occupation was Accident Prevention Officer at a large food processing plant. And second, ten years previous, he had been working under a car when the jack collapsed, trapping him and breaking one of his legs. Some people just don't learn -- even from their own mistakes.
(January 2003, India) Regarding accidental deaths during the construction of a subway in New Delhi, the New York Times wrote, "One of those killed was an unlucky thief who tried to steal braces holding up a concrete slab; it fell and killed him."
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