posted 12-31-2002 07:47 PM         

Hard to believe, but another year has passed and we have once again have the Darwin Award nominees. The Darwin is awarded every year to the person who died (or almost died) in the stupidest way. This year's nominees are:

Nominee No. 1:
[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.

Nominee No. 2:
[Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, Mich. , was killed as he was trying to repair what police describe as a "farm type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

Nominee No. 3:
[Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in Newton, NC Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed a Smith &Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he put it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4:
[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 demonstrating the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Peter Lawson, 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.

Nominee No. 5:
[Bloomberg News Service]: A terrible diet and a room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. An autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage. It was just the right combination of foods, and the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud hanging over his bed. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.

Nominee No. 6:
[The News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina 's electric chair on a murder conviction, but his sentence had just been reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 7:
[The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' home about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gun powder ignited.

Nominee No. 8:
[Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario ]: A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair 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."

Finally, Nominee No. 9, The Winner!!!:
[Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. When the headlights malfunctioned, the two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. A replacement fuse was not available, but Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge.

After traveling approximately twenty miles the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the testicle. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. Upon being notified of the wreck, Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught, and did anyone get them from the truck.

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