This was sent to me by a friend.  It is a little long and is nonparkinson, but
you might enjoy it.  People do the darnest things!!  --Nancy V

THE 1997 DARWIN AWARDS

The Darwin Award is made each year to the person who has managed to
kill  themselves (and therefore prevent the survival of their genes -  hence
Darwin!) in the most bizarre way imaginable.  Previous winners have
included the man killed when the vending machine he was trying to
extract a can of Coke from fell on him, and last years aviator who
strapped a JATO module to his car and lit the blue touchpaper.

NOMINATIONS:

#1 - [AP, Mammoth Lakes, CA] A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he
hit a lift tower at the Mammoth mountain ski area while riding down the
slope on a foam pad, authorities said.  Matthew David Hubal, 22, was
pronounced dead at Centinela Mammoth Hospital.  The accident occurred
about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's Department said.

Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump
Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from the lift towers, said
Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department.  The
pads are used to protect skiers who might hit the towers.  The group
apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed
into a tower.  It has since been found out  that the tower he hit was
the one with its pad removed.

#2 - [AP,St. Louis, MO] Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being
disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the
police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out
without paying for it.

Police found him unconscious in front of the store:  paramedics removed
the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.

#3 - [UPI, Spain] To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing
above him on an overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell
on him.

#4 - [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA] A man at a party popped a
blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that
blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police said Wednesday. Jerry
Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during a party
late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne.

"Another man had it in an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and was trying
to explode it," Payne said.  "It wouldn't go off and this guy said,
"I'll show you how to set it off."  "He put it in his mouth and bit
down.  It blew all his teeth off, his tongue and his lips," Payne said.

Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial
injuries, according to a spokesman at Charleston Area Medical Division.
"I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.

#5 - [UPI, Portland, OR] Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said
Wednesday an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is
lucky to be alive, and will be released soon from the hospital. Tony
Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an initiation into a
men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous, in Grants Pass, Ore.  A
friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered
Roberts' right eye.      Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to
the left, a major blood vessel
would have cut and Roberts would have died instantly.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland
said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with the tip
protruding at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all
major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had Robert tried to pull the
arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself.

Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had been drinking that
afternoon.  Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this."  No charges have
been filed but the Josephine County district attorney's office said the
initiation stunt is under investigation.

#6 - [AP, Arkansas] A woman named Linda went to Arkansas last week to
visit her in-laws, and while there, went to a store.  She parked next to
a car with a woman sitting in it, her eyes closed and hands behind her
head, apparently sleeping.

When Linda came out a while later, she again saw the woman, her hands
still behind her head but with her eyes open. The woman looked very
strange,so Linda tapped on the window and said "Are you okay?"  The
woman answered "I've been shot in the head, and I am holding my brains
in."

Linda didn't know what to do; so she ran into the store where store
officials called the paramedics.  They had to break into the car because
the door was locked.  When they got in, they found that the woman had
bread dough on the back of her head and in her hands.  A Pillsbury
biscuit canister had exploded, apparently from the heat in the car,
making a loud explosion like that of a gunshot, and hit her in the head.
When she reached back to find what it was, she felt the dough and
thought it was her brains.   She passed out from fright at first, then
attempted to hold her brains  in!

#7 - From a radio program, a true report of a happening in  Michigan,
USA. A guy buys brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000 and has
$400+  monthly payments.  He and a friend go duck hunting and of
course all the  lakes are frozen.

These two Atomic Brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog, the beer
and of course the new vehicle.  They drive out onto the lake ice and get
ready. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for
the ducks, something for the decoys to float on.  In order to make a
hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down
and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole
drill. Out of the back of the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of
dynamite with a short,
40-second fuse.

Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that if they
place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they
are standing (and the new Grand Cherokee), they take the risk of
slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly go
up in smoke with the resulting blast.  So, they decide to light this
40-second fuse and throw the dynamite.

Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the
beer, the guns and the dog?  Yes, the dog:  A highly trained  Black Lab
used for retrieving, especially things thrown by the owner.

You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the
ice and captures the stick of  dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse
about the time it hits the ice.   The two men yell, scream, wave arms
and wonder what to do now.

The dog, cheered on, keeps coming.  One of the guys grabs the shotgun
and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with 8 duck shot, hardly big
enough to stop a Black Lab.   The dog stops for a moment, slightly
confused but continues on.

Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really
confused & of course scared, thinking these two Nobel Prize winners have
gone insane. He takes off to find cover, (with the now really short fuse
burning on the stick of dynamite).... under the brand new Cherokee. BOOM
!

Dog and Cherokee are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in
a very large hole, leaving the two candidates for Co-leaders of the
Known Universe standing there with this "I can't believe this happened"
look on their faces. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle
in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered.

AND THE WINNER:

John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of  Washington,
decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at
Gorge, Washington. Having no tickets (but 18 beers among them) they sat
in the parking lot, and after finishing the beer, decided that it would
be easy enough to hop over the nine-foot high fence and sneak into the
show.

The two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan
was for John  --100 pounds heavier than Sal -- to hop over, and then
assist his friend over the fence.   Unfortunately for John, there was a
30 foot drop on the other side  of the  fence. Having heaved himself
over, he found himself crashing through a tree.  His fall was abruptly
halted by a large branch
which snagged him by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm
broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him.

Figuring the bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife
and proceeded to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree.
When finally free, John crashed below into holly bushes. The sharp
leaves scratched his entire body.   To make matters worse, his pocket
knife proceeded to fall with him and  landed three inches into his left
thigh.

Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to throw
him a
rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds less, he
decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the pickup
truck. This is when things went from bad to worse.

In his drunken state, Sal put the truck into the wrong gear, pressed on
the gas, and crashed through the fence, landing on and killing his friend.
Sal  was thrown from the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and
 also died  at the scene.

Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet from
the vehicle and upon moving the truck, a half naked man, with numerous
scratches, a knife in his thigh, and a pair of shorts dangling from the
tree  branches 25 feet in the air.