DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES<br /><br /> 1. In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned >in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide <br />sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.<br /><br /> 2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who <br />"totally zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff <br />on his daily run.<br /><br /> 3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he <br />had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach goers said Daniel <br />Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been <br />sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it <br />collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach, on the <br />outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to <br />Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took <br />rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about <br />200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.<br /><br />4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as <br />he fell face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was burglarizing. <br />Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to <br />keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.<br /><br />5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, <br />20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, <br />who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest <br />Berrena was wearing.<br /><br />6. Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in <br />Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a <br />revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.<br /><br />7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel <br />Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning <br />a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.<br /><br />DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS<br /><br />1. In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a <br />millipede with a shot from his 22 caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted <br />off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, <br />fracturing his skull.<br /><br />2. In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean <br />out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane <br />torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his <br />house.<br /><br /><br />3. Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, and <br />his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the <br />dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed.<br /><br />RUNNER UP<br /><br />TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several friends when <br />one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma <br />Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated <br />and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 am. <br />Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had <br />brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and <br />pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable <br />was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the <br />bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his <br />foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river <br />water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say," said <br />Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located.<br /><br />*** AND THE WINNER ***<br /><br />PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his <br />constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a <br />bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally <br />let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of ****! <br />Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the <br />wailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on <br />him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked <br />Mr.Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay <br />unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of <br />him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one <br />there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a <br />watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be <br />just one of those freak accidents at happen."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> ;D 
