The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction (17 page)

 

 

4 MARCH 2009, NEW JERSEY | The Newark Fire Department was called to assist a man who had suffered injuries from a crash—while driving a motorized bar stool! The man claimed that his lawnmower-bar-stool hybrid could reach a speedy thirty-eight mph on its five-horsepower engine, but he was traveling a sedate twenty mph when he rolled and crashed while making a turn.

Although under the speed limit, he was over the drink limit. During a police interview at the hospital, he admitted to consuming “about fifteen beers.” When numbers reach the double digits, it’s hard to be exact. The driver was issued a citation for operating a vehicle (classified as “all others”) while intoxicated, and driving with a suspended license—presumably the motivation behind his motorized creation.

He pleaded not guilty—demanding, in fact, a jury trial before his peers. Those of you who drive motorized bar stools and other unconventional vehicles, watch your mailbox for a jury summons.

If the twenty-eight-year-old inventor wants to drive a hybrid, he should consider modifying his bar stool to corner better—once he regains the right to operate a motorized vehicle on public roads.

 

Reference:
Newark Advocate, The Boston Globe

 

“License to Spill.”

“Hybrid vigor—or evolutionary dead end?”

“A motorized barstool will never be stable. He needs a wider wheelbase. Perhaps a motorized gurney?”

 

 

16 JULY 2008, ITALY | Gerhard Z., sixty-eight, was queued at a traffic light in his Porsche Cayenne. Before one reaches the light, there is a railroad crossing, and Gerhard had not let the queue progress forward far enough before he drove onto the tracks. As you might imagine, given Murphy’s Law, a train was coming. The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped.

According to witnesses, it took the driver a while to realize he was stuck on the rails.

Finally he jumped from the car and started to run—straight toward the oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his SUV! The attempt was partly successful, in that the car received less damage than its owner, who landed thirty meters away. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

The moral of the story? Momentum Always Wins.

 

Reference:
l’Adige
(Italian daily paper)

 

“He needs better training.”

“Man did that train pepper that Cayenne!”

“Cars are easier to replace than internal organs.”

“A dark and twisted example of momentum and transfer of energy.”

 

 

SEPTEMBER 1997, FORT POLK, LOUISIANA | The 82nd Airborne Division was on its periodic training junket to Fort Polk. One of the many items stressed at briefings before a training mission of this proportion is the fact that there are many untrained people running about the area, at all times of day and night, in all kinds of vehicles, most of them large.

During the training we were reminded, when sleeping in the woods at night,
be sure to sleep at the base of a large tree.
Drivers may or may not be wearing night vision equipment, and may or may not be familiar with the roads, but even the most misguided driver will avoid a large tree, thus assuring your own safety.

Sleep by a tree, and you will wake up in the morning.

This reminder was repeated in light of recent events.

An army major had been assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as an observer controller. One night he decided to bed down on what he deemed to be an unused old trail. Down the “unused” trail later that night a random driver drove, perhaps taking a wrong turn in the darkness, or perhaps taking a shortcut from point A to point B. Somehow this driver found himself on a road with a few “disconcerting bumps” but he continued to drive on.

When the young private assigned as the major’s radio operator roused himself from sleep (safely at the base of a large tree a short distance from the trail) he quickly discovered the lifeless body of his charge. One poor decision took the life of the major—a man with a college degree, a commission from Congress, and years of responsibilities that
included
reminding trainees to sleep away from the roads.

He was pronounced DRT (Dead Right There).

 

Reference: Galen Fisher, B Co. 3/325

 

“Superior officer? I don’t think so!”

“What happened to the sergeant who was assigned to keep the major out of trouble?”

“And to think, I wanted to be promoted to Major!”

“That was certainly a major catastrophe.”

 

 

17 OCTOBER 2009, MINNESOTA | On October 26, charges were dismissed against Lucas William Stenning, thirty-two, who six weeks earlier had pleaded guilty to knowingly violating registration required of a predatory offender. Charges were dismissed . . . because Lucas was dead.

In a related story, on the afternoon of October 17 in the city of Bock, an injured “hit-and-run victim” was reported. The pedestrian, found on the side of the road, died in the ambulance at the scene.

In a related story, police reported that a thirty-two-year-old man had concocted a scheme to
stage an accident
in order to obtain prescription drugs. The plan was to jump out of a moving vehicle, become injured, go to the hospital, and receive narcotic painkillers. (“Dude, that’s brilliant!”) That plan failed when its mastermind, Lucas William Stenning, died at the scene due to head injuries.

In other words, Lucas avoided a serious legal problem because he was deceased due to injuries he caused himself by leaping from a moving vehicle in order to obtain prescription painkillers. Ouch!

 

Reference:
Mille Lacs Messenger, Mille Lacs County Times