You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner:  The man who found out
  moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the JATO
  (jet assist take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned
  off once it was turned on.
 
  Darwin Awards are (by definition) granted posthumously. This citation is
  bestowed upon (the remains of) that individual, who through single-minded
  self-sacrifice, has done the most to remove undesirable elements from the
  human gene pool.
 
  The 1996 nominees are: 

  [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.
 
  [Hickory Daily Record 12/21/92]  Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally
  shot himself to death in December in Newton, N.C., when, 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.
 
  [Unknown, 25 March] 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 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 from the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed.
  Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have
  been fatal.  But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He
  was "a big man with a huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas]."
  Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.
 
  [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]  Man slips, falls 23 stories to his
  death. A man cleaning a bird feeder on his balcony of his condominium
  apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death,
  police said Monday.  Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair
  Sunday 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."It's one of those freak accidents.  No foul play
  is suspected."
 
  [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 had
  conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports.
  Peter Lauwers, 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.
 
  [AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)] Six people drowned
  Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well
  in southern Egypt. An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into
  the 60-foot well.  He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the
  water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none
  of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also
  drowned.  Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently
  were pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later
  pulled out of a well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south
  of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out.  It survived.
 
  [Times of London] A thief who sneaked into a hospital was scarred for
  life when he tried to get a suntan.  After evading security staff at
  Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and helping himself to
  doctor's paging devices, the thief spotted a vertical sunbed.  He
  walked into the unit and removed his clothes for a 45-minute tan.
  However, the high-voltage UV machine at the hospital, which is renowned
  for its treatment of burns victims, has a maximum dosage of 10 seconds.
  After lying on the bed for almost 300 times the recommended maximum
  time, the man was covered in blisters. Hours later, when the pain of
  the burns became unbearable, he went to Southampton General Hospital,
  20 miles away, in Hampshire.  Staff became suspicious because he was
  wearing a doctor's coat. After tending his wounds they called the
  police. Southampton police said: "This man broke into Odstock and
  decided he fancied a quick suntan. Doctors say he is going to be
  scarred for life.
 
  "More intelligence-challenged people"
 
  45 year-old Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a
  mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed
  in the engine compartment of the car which she had brought to the
  mechanic for an oil change.  According to police, Brasher later said
  that she didn't realize that the mechanic would have to raise the hood
  to change the oil.
 
  Portsmouth, R.I..Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of
  vending machine robberies in January when he:
  1. Fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around
  a vending machine and
  2.  later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
 
  Karen Lee Joachimi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, for
  robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel.  She was armed with only an
  electric chainsaw, which was not plugged in.
 
  The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into
  Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 am, flashed a gun and
  demanded cash.  The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't
  open the cash register without a food order.  When the man ordered
  onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast.  The
  man, frustrated, walked away.
 
  In case you've forgotten about the 1995 awardees, some of them are
  listed below:
 
  *James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Mich., was killed in March as he was trying
  to repair what police described 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." [Kalamazoo Gazette,4-1-95]
 
  * Same thing up here in MI.  Seems some poor fella thought it
  would be a good idea to "move" a downed wire from his car.  Newspaper
  reports it took a FULL MINUTE of neighbors whacking away at him with
  a 2x4 to free their freshly fried former friend from the fatal flashing.
 
  * Bowling Green, Ohio, student Robert Ricketts, 19, had his head
  bloodied when he was struck by a Conrail train.  He told police he
  was trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head
  without getting hit.
 
  * In Wesley Chapel, Florida, Joseph Aaron, 20, was hit in the leg
  with pieces of the bullet he fired at the exhaust pipe of his car. When
  repairing the car, he needed to bore a hole in the pipe. When he
  couldn't find a drill, he tried to shoot a hole in it.

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