> Hard to believe, but another year has passed. For those who
> don't know it, the Darwin Awards are awarded every year to the
> person(s) who died in the stupidest way, thereby removing
> themselves from the gene pool. The '99 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 in March 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 December in Newton, N.C.
> 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.
>
> 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 explaining the strength of the building's windows to
> visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted the
> demonstration of window strength according to police reports.
> Peter lawyers, 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 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 an
> autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His
> diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple
> of other things). It was just the right combination of foods.
> It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the
> poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been
> outside or had his windows been open, it wouldn't have been
> fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom.
> 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
> before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While
> sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and 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 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, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor,
> 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk 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 gunpowder ignited.
>
> NOMINEE No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man cleaning a
> bird Feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this
> Toronto suburb 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," Honer said.
>
> AND FINALLY, Honorable mention: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette] Two
> local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left
> the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38
> early Monday morning. 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 are
> listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center. The
> accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after
> a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up
> truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the
> headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a
> replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22
> caliber cartridge from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse lot
> next to the steering column. Upon inserting the cartridge, the
> headlights again began to operate properly and the two men
> proceeded eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After
> traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the
> river, the cartridge case apparently overheated; the round
> discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle
> swerved sharply right exiting the pavement and striking a tree.
> Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident,
> but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis
> sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released."Thank
> God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off or
> we might both be dead" stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for
> ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me.
> I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident
> happened," said Snyder.Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia,
> Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did
> anyone get them from the truck.
*******************
Dick
Want to send a message to Bush? Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/monk/petition.html and forward the link to every gun owner you know.
> don't know it, the Darwin Awards are awarded every year to the
> person(s) who died in the stupidest way, thereby removing
> themselves from the gene pool. The '99 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 in March 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 December in Newton, N.C.
> 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.
>
> 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 explaining the strength of the building's windows to
> visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted the
> demonstration of window strength according to police reports.
> Peter lawyers, 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 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 an
> autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His
> diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple
> of other things). It was just the right combination of foods.
> It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the
> poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been
> outside or had his windows been open, it wouldn't have been
> fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom.
> 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
> before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While
> sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and 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 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, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor,
> 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk 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 gunpowder ignited.
>
> NOMINEE No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario] A man cleaning a
> bird Feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this
> Toronto suburb 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," Honer said.
>
> AND FINALLY, Honorable mention: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette] Two
> local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left
> the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38
> early Monday morning. 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 are
> listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center. The
> accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after
> a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pick-up
> truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the
> headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a
> replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22
> caliber cartridge from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse lot
> next to the steering column. Upon inserting the cartridge, the
> headlights again began to operate properly and the two men
> proceeded eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After
> traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the
> river, the cartridge case apparently overheated; the round
> discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle
> swerved sharply right exiting the pavement and striking a tree.
> Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident,
> but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis
> sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released."Thank
> God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off or
> we might both be dead" stated Wallis. "I've been a trooper for
> ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me.
> I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident
> happened," said Snyder.Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia,
> Poole's wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did
> anyone get them from the truck.
*******************
Dick
Want to send a message to Bush? Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/monk/petition.html and forward the link to every gun owner you know.
