The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design (21 page)

Bill, forty-four, and Ted, forty-seven, narrowly avoided earning a double Darwin when they accidentally blew up their fishing boat. They had stopped at a gas station to fill up the boat’s gas tank. Unfortunately, they put the nozzle into one of the fishing-rod holders instead of the gas tank, sending fuel throughout the boat. With gasoline sloshing around in the bilge and forming a vapor cloud, the two men drove merrily on, looking forward to a great day of fishing.

They launched the boat, which floated quietly in the calm water—until they pushed the starter on the engine. The spark from the engine instantly ignited the vapor cloud surrounding the men. The force of the blast knocked them both to the deck. The twenty-six-foot boat was engulfed in flames and destroyed, along with part of the nearby dock. Firefighters spent ten minutes trying to control the blaze.

Bill was treated and released from the emergency room. Ted was transferred to the burn unit and released the next day. “It certainly was a horrible lesson to learn about boating,” said the Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue spokesperson.

Reference: wftv.com,
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
,
St. Petersburg Times

A man decided to light up a cigarette while relaxing in a portable outhouse, inadvertently demonstrating one more reason to give up the habit. According to a spokeswoman for Monongalia Emergency Medical Services, the methane in the Porta-Potty “didn’t take too kindly” to the lit cigarette, and expressed its displeasure by exploding in a fireball.

The man, whose identity was withheld “due to privacy policies,” was able to drive himself to a nearby health center. Emergency workers declined to reveal whether the man’s injuries (although not “life-threatening”) were serious enough to remove him from the gene pool.

Reference:
Dominion Post

The Clifton Suspension Bridge, soaring two hundred fifty feet above the seven-hundred-foot-wide Avon Gorge, has attracted people with something to prove ever since it was finished. In 1885 Sarah Ann Henley threw herself from the bridge after an argument with a boyfriend, but was saved by her parachute-like dress and cushiony crinoline petticoats. In 1957, a flying officer of the RAF successfully flew a Vampire jet under the bridge at four hundred fifty miles per hour. He briefly celebrated before he and his jet disintegrated on the cliffs on the south side.

To prevent further incidents, rules were established prohibiting under-flights, over-jumps, and other aberrant behavior. Bungee jumping is specifically banned. Despite strict rules, however, the historic bridge attracts many would-be Darwin candidates, such as Slim, twenty-two, who violated the rules and lived to tell the tale.

Slim walked onto the bridge, attached a lengthy bungee cord, and leapt off. His plan was to set himself on fire, cut the cord, and drop into the river below, quenching the flames. Unfortunately his knife was not up to the task. The blazing man dangled over the river for twenty-six interminable seconds, before he found a spare knife and severed the rope. At long last he plunged into the river, extinguishing the flames, and then swam off.

Slim was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary and later transferred to the burn unit in the city. A spokesperson for the Dangerous Sports Club told the BBC, “His heart is in the right place, but stunt men usually put on flame-retardant suits.” Slim himself told the BBC that it was a thrill-seeking stunt that went horribly wrong. After that brief comment, he demanded £1,000 for a full interview.

Reference: BBC News On-Line

The good news as Hurricane Bob bore down on the Atlantic coast was that everybody in J.R.’s office was sent home early to prepare for the storm. And J.R. was well prepared. No matter how bad the devastation, he would have light, heat, water, and hot food. So he had nothing to worry about when the power failed under the massive onslaught of the storm.

The bad news was that, despite his thorough preparations, J.R. had forgotten one important detail.

As night fell, he fired up the oil lamps and placed his Coleman camping stove on top of the electric range in his kitchen to cook his dinner. After finishing the meal, J.R. commended himself on his foresight. He went to bed secure in the knowledge that Mother Nature could not beat him.

Diligent linemen worked through the worst of the weather to restore power. Before dawn, all the appliances in J.R.’s house were again working, including the electric range. But J.R. had forgotten to check that one important detail….

The burner under the Coleman was on, heating the little stove’s gas canister through the night. It finally exploded, blowing the kitchen wall two feet off the foundation, snapping several floor joists, and smashing every window in the house. The explosion caused $65,000 in damage, and J.R. had narrowly escaped an encounter with destiny—saved only by his closed bedroom door.

Reference:
New London Day

Saul was a thirty-nine-year-old manager at a company that provides plasma to burn victims. He was also an avid snowmobiler. Early one morning on the way to work, he purchased some gasoline to use as a cleaning solution for the sled’s engine. (There are so many ways that plan can go wrong—which will Saul choose?) He placed the container on the front seat of his car and went into work.

That afternoon, Saul needed to retrieve some paperwork from the car. Since smoking was not allowed in the building, it seemed an opportune moment to slide into the car and light up. But his cigarette wasn’t the only thing that lit up when he flicked his Bic.

Fumes had been leaking from the gas container all day. As he took his first (and last) drag, they ignited. In the inferno, Saul’s car was severely damaged, but he managed to escape with only a few burns, becoming one of the few to be eligible for his company’s employee discount program for plasma!

Reference: Personal Account

I am a key intensive-care staff member in Buckinghamshire. One summer day a patient was brought in, sirens screaming. The thirty-eight-year-old was obviously the victim of an explosion, with shrapnel wounds and gunpowder burns on his face and abdomen. His thigh and groin had also sustained serious injury, although his testicles were intact.

We removed a three-inch section of twisted pipe from his abdomen, repaired his large intestine, and sealed ruptured vessels to control bleeding. After five hours of surgery, the patient was admitted to the ICU on a ventilator and blood and plasma expanders.

The police thought he might be a terrorist whose bomb had detonated prematurely, and they placed a media restriction on him. Due to the restriction, the full details never appeared in the press, but the story started to emerge when we spoke to the man’s brother-in-law.

The victim was not a terrorist at all, but an unemployed van driver. During a family get-together, he took his thirteen-year-old nephew down to his brother-in-law’s garden shed for a fishing lesson. To catch fish at the local quarry, he planned to teach the boy a technique he had pioneered in his youth: tossing homemade explosives into the lake and collecting the stunned fish that floated to the surface.

This clever fisherman cut a section of five centimeters scaffolding pipe and hammered one end closed. Then he packed it with a pad of cotton, rammed home with a smaller section of steel pipe. On top of this he poured a substantial amount of gun
powder taken from bootleg Chinese aerial fireworks, which are illegal in the U.K. His plan was to place another cotton pad on top of the gunpowder and seal the whole bundle with a plug of wood.

Considerable hammering and noise were required to get a “tight wad.” As it was Sunday, the brother-in-law was worried that the neighbors would complain about the noise. Twice he asked his relative to cease and desist, and finally took his son and proceeded back toward the house.

Meanwhile, this Darwin candidate continued to ram home the pipe’s contents while holding the device between his legs for stability. As the gentleman explained to me some weeks later, “My big mistake was when I used the steel pipe to pack the tube, instead of the end of the wooden hammer-handle.”

Indeed. The brother-in-law and his son were thirty feet from the shed when a spark ignited the gunpowder.

The pipe bomb shot the wooden plug into his eye orbit, whilst the body of the pipe unwrapped like a cardboard tube and launched itself into the gentleman’s abdomen. The blunt lateral force stopped the pipe from ejecting from his body, but the impact lacerated his bowels and the shock force and shrapnel caused massive hemorrhaging.

The candidate lost a major part of his thigh, but the upward force of the explosion protected his testicles from injury, so his genes were not lost to humanity. He survived the incident, and has therefore not quite fulfilled the full Darwin Award criteria, although the facial disfigurement may yet ensure that his genes are not propagated.

One comment made the trauma team’s day. The surgeon displayed a three-inch metal fragment from the man’s abdomen and announced to all and sundry, “Who’s going to contact the Darwin Awards, then?” All four doctors, three nurses, and two technicians cracked up laughing. Medical humor!

Reference: Ches Whistler, Personal Account

The Society for Creative Anachronism was re-creating medieval life at Beech Bend Park, which is nestled in a woody curve of the Barren River. Two female friends had pitched their tents with other sword-wielding, baggy-pants celebrants. They invited me and “Adam” to join them for one evening’s campout. Since both were lovely blondes, as well as charming companions, we readily agreed. They provided us with faux-medieval garb that would enable us to blend into the crowd. A tabard and baggy pants were enough for me, but Adam wanted something more.

Every SCAdian practices a skill, be it cooking, dancing, craft, or energetically whacking others with a duct-taped sword. Adam wanted to go all the way. He can juggle, which was a start, but not quite impressive enough. He decided to breathe fire. Adam had seen this stunt performed with pure grain alcohol. But he’d never done it, he was too young to buy alcohol, and the liquor stores closed at eleven
P.M
. Still determined to blaze with glory, he went looking for a substitute.

Let’s see…what flammable liquids can a young man buy in a Kentucky Wal-Mart at eleven-thirty
P.M
.? There were several choices, none good. Adam settled on Coleman stove fuel. It was clear, and it didn’t smell too bad. He could pour it into an empty wine bottle for period realism. Adam decided it was close enough.
Back at camp, Adam told one blonde friend, “C’mere, I’ve got something to show you” and led her behind a large cloth tent. Nearby stood a group of men in chain-mail armor, warming themselves around a fire. They could see Adam, but I couldn’t.

Seconds later, a deep “WHOOOM!” burst from behind the tent, accompanied by a gout of orange flame. “Whoa!” cried all the guys around the campfire, turning to applaud. But their applause soon died. Through a double layer of tent fabric I could see this…afterglow. “Holy shit! He’s on fire!” the mail-clad men yelled, and ran over to pound out the flames blazing around Adam’s head.

What Adam hadn’t realized was that unlike grain alcohol, stove fuel gives off copious fumes. As he swigged the fuel, some trickled down his chin. Fortunately, he’d shaved off his goatee the day before. As it was, fumes wreathed his head and fuel trickled down his throat. In the ensuing conflagration, he managed to scorch his eyebrows and the hair off the back of his head, while hardly touching that on top. Rivulets of flame ran down his neck, and he suffered chemical burns in his throat.

Adam was still standing, and at first thought he was not seriously hurt. But the burns started to sting, and I led him to the chirurgeon’s tent. They quickly ascertained that neither medieval technology nor modern first aid would suffice, and I drove Adam to the hospital in a horseless carriage. The burns on his neck healed without serious scarring, his hair regrew, and the octave he lost off his voice came back in about six months.

Five years later, I went to another SCA gathering in a different city, accompanying the same female friends. A long and entertaining day concluded with a belly-dancing demonstration around a bonfire, accompanied by throbbing drums. I turned to
the stranger standing next to me and commented on how exciting the event was.

“Aw, this is nothin’, man,” he replied. “If you think this is exciting, you shoulda been here five years ago. Some crazy dude set his head on fire!”

Reference: Jim Gaines, Personal Account