The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design

by Wendy Northcutt

  The stories in this chapter show that humans still have a long way to go in evolving to cope with the ubiquitous dangers of our transportation system. Vehicles can be hazardous to your longevity!

  DARWIN AWARD: DARING FEET

  Confirmed by Darwin

  18 JULY 2004, TACOMA, WASHINGTON

  Michael, 27, was spending a pleasant afternoon cruising on his motorcycle, and witnesses who saw him speeding down Meridian Avenue were not surprised when state troopers reported that he had lost control near the Kapowsin highway. You see, he was steering with his feet. Michael was killed instantly after being thrown from his motorcycle, which had veered to the right and hit a guardrail.

  Reference: Tacoma News Tribune

  DARWIN AWARD: RUTTING CONTEST

  Unconfirmed by Darwin

  OCTOBER 2004, TAIWAN

  Most rutting contests involve two male mammals, like the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, Ovis dallis, which ram each other at high speed in order to impress a female sheep and win the right to procreate. These mammals tend to have unusually thick skulls and extra fluid surrounding the brain to prevent damage from the competition. Humans tend not to have such thick skulls and other natural adaptations, and therefore do not generally rut.

  Of course, man, the tool user, can find artificial means to overcome natural limitations. One well-known example of this behavior is the medieval jousting contest, in which participants wear armor and ride horses toward each other at high speed.

  The most recent observation of human rutting behavior occurred when two Taiwanese university students donned protective helmets and revved their motor scooters in an effort to impress a comely female of their species. The two were in the same class, but were not friends. Other classmates reported that both men fancied the same female student.

  After indulging in a few drinks during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the two encountered each other, and words were spoken. The gauntlet was thrown down. In lieu of horses, the two would ride their motor scooters at each other at high speed, and the one who didn’t turn away would win the exclusive right to pursue the female.

  Obviously, both were very keen on her, because neither of them turned away. Their scooters collided head-on at fifty miles per hour. Both died instantly. The girl at the center of the rut refused to comment, other than to say that she “wasn’t interested in either of them.”

  Reference: Major Taiwan media

  DARWIN AWARD: 4-1-0 CLUB

  Confirmed by Darwin

  14 OCTOBER 2004, MISSOURI

  When Peter and Jesse wanted to see what their new ride could do, like many young men, they got more than they bargained for. It was all fun and games until the vehicle stalled. In most cases this wouldn’t be a serious problem—but Peter and Jesse stalled at forty-one thousand feet.

  You see, they weren’t pushing the old man’s car to the limit. They were flying a fifty-passenger jet, a Bombardier CRJ200. Fortunately, there were no passengers aboard to share the fatal consequences.

  Jesse, thirty-one, was the captain of Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701, and Peter, twenty-three, was the copilot. They were transporting an empty plane from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Minneapolis, where it was needed for a morning flight. They decided to see what that baby could do. Their fun began while ascending, as they pulled 1.8 Gs in a maneuver that activated an automatic stall avoidance system.

  Then they decided to “forty-one it,” which meant taking the jet to forty-one thousand feet—eight miles—the maximum altitude the plane was designed to fly. The thrust of the engines pressed them into their seats with 2.3 times the force of gravity as they soared ever higher, laughing and cursing in a friendly manner, ignoring the overheating engines and the stick shaker that warned they were operating outside safe aerodynamic parameters.

  At this point, air traffic control contacted the pilots to find out what they were up to. A female controller’s voice crackled over the radio: “3701, are you an RJ200?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “I’ve never seen you guys up at forty-one there.”

  The boys laughed. “Yeah, we’re actually a, there’s ah, we don’t have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come on up here.”

  Little did they know that their fun was doomed when they set the autopilot for the impressive climb. They had specified the rate of climb rather than the speed of the climb. The higher the plane soared, the slower it flew. The plane was in danger of stalling when it reached forty-one thousand feet as the autopilot vainly tried to maintain altitude by pointing the nose up.

  “Dude, it’s losing it,” said one of the pilots.

  “Yeah,” said the other.

  Our two flying aces could have saved themselves at that point. An automatic override began to pitch the nose down to gain speed and prevent a stall. Regrettably, Jesse and Peter chose to overrule the override. Oops. The plane stalled.

  “We don’t have any engines,” said one.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” said the other.

  Jesse and Peter still might have saved themselves. They were within gliding range of five suitable airports. Unfortunately, they did not reveal the full extent of their difficulties to the controller. They said that they had lost only one of the two engines. They glided for fourteen full minutes, losing altitude all the way. As they drifted closer and closer to the ground at high speed, still unable to get the engines restarted, they finally asked for assistance: “We need direct to any airport. We have a double engine failure.”

  Unfortunately, it was too late. “We’re going to hit houses, dude,” one of pilots said, as they desperately tried to reach an airport in Jefferson City. They missed the houses and the runway, crashing two and a half miles from the airport. Both men died in the crash.

  “It’s beyond belief that a professional air crew would act in that manner,” said a former manager of Pinnacle’s training program for the Bombardier CRJ200.

  Reference: New York Times, NTSB, aero-news.com

  DARWIN AWARD: AUTO BLOTTO

  Unconfirmed by Darwin

  7 SEPTEMBER 1990, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

  Men seem to have an affinity for large trucks. What else can explain the actions of a thirty-four-year-old thief who decided to take possession of the engine of an old Bedford tip-truck?

  The truck was parked outside a glass recycling company in Alexandria. It generally takes three men to lift an engine block of this size, but our enterprising pilferer decided that the best way to remove the engine was from below, rather than the conventional out-the-top-with-a-hoist technique.

  He crawled under the cab and began to loosen the bolts.

  Suddenly the engine block broke loose and landed on his face, killing him instantly. Police ascertained that he had at least one accomplice, judging by the pool of vomit found under a nearby bush.

  An employee discovered his body early the next morning. The manager said that the truck was about to be scrapped. “If he had come and asked me for it, I would have given it to him.”

  Reference: Australian Police Journal, Vol. 53, No. 2, June 1999

  * * *

  Readers comment that an engine block can’t drop without removal of the whole drive train and cutting out the motor mounts and bracing. Possibly it was the transmission or gearbox that fell on him, not the engine.

  * * *

  DARWIN AWARD: STEPPING OUT

  Confirmed by Darwin

  12 APRIL 2004, THE NETHERLANDS

  Certain land animals have evolved over the millennia to use speed in the pursuit of prey or avoidance of predators. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) can run as fast as 60 mph over the plains of Africa, and the pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) can reach 55 mph over the plains of North America. Humans (Homo sapiens) are not among the animals built for speed. So things were bound to go wrong when a nineteen-year-old male, driving the A67 highway near Blerick, sought to impress his two passengers by putting his car on cruise control at 20 mph, getting out
of the car, and running alongside it. He planned to jump back in and drive on, but the moment his feet hit the ground, he fell over and slammed headfirst into the asphalt. He died the next day.

  Reference: Telegraaf, Dutch Teletext, Guinness Book of World Records

  * * *

  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the fastest 100m dash time is less than ten seconds, resulting in an average speed of 23 mph from a dead stop.

  Sprinting in the Guinness Book of World Records

  www.DarwinAwards.com/book/guinness.html

  * * *

  DARWIN AWARD: THE NUISANCE OF SEAT BELTS

  Confirmed by Darwin

  5 JANUARY 2005, USA

  In September of his senior year at the University of Nebraska, twenty-one-year-old Derek wrote an impassioned declaration of independence from seat belts for his college newspaper. Although “intrusive and ridiculous” seat-belt laws saved 6,100 lives a year, according to statistics from the U.S. Congress, Derek concluded with the statement, “If I want to be the jerk that flirts with death, I should be able to do that.”

  Derek “was a bright young boy, a 4.0” majoring in five subjects and planning to attend law school. But good grades don’t always equate with common sense.

  Derek was returning from a holiday in San Antonio, Texas. The driver of the Ford Explorer and his front-seat passenger both wore seat belts. Only Derek was willing to buck the system, sitting without a seat belt in the back seat because, in his own words, he belonged to the “die-hard group of non-wearers out there who simply do not wish to buckle up, no matter what the government does.”

  When the SUV hit a patch of ice, slid off U.S. 80, and rolled several times, Derek, in an involuntary display of his freedom, was thrown from the vehicle. He died at the scene. The other occupants of the SUV, slaves to the seat belt, survived with minor injuries.

  Alcohol was not involved in the accident.

  Reference: Lincoln Journal Star

  DARWIN AWARD: TERMINAL CREATIVITY

  Confirmed by Darwin

  3 APRIL 2004, OREM, UTAH

  Bobby, fifty-one, had trouble getting his truck to start. He couldn’t be in two places at once, working under the hood and pressing the accelerator. Why not take a handy ice scraper and wedge one end against the accelerator and the other end against the seat? Then he could get under the hood and bypass the starter by connecting terminals on the starter solenoid.

  Success!

  Unfortunately he had forgotten to put the truck in neutral and it began accelerating toward his neighbor’s motor home. Police concluded that Bobby jumped in front of the truck to prevent it from crashing into the motor home. He was partly successful. A neighbor found him pinned between the truck and the motor home, nearly dead. Paramedics rushed him to Timpanogos Regional Hospital, where the would-be mechanic died from terminal creativity.

  Reference: Salt Lake Tribune, Provo Daily Herald

  DARWIN AWARD: JACK UP

  Unconfirmed by Darwin

  9 APRIL 2003, NEW ZEALAND

  Phil needed to make repairs to the underside of his car. But when he jacked it up, there wasn’t enough room for him to work. So he removed the car’s battery, placed the jack on top of it, and set to work again, this time with plenty of elbow room.

  Unfortunately for Phil, car batteries are not designed to carry much weight. The battery collapsed and the jack toppled, trapping him beneath the car. Unable to breathe due to the weight on his chest, he quickly expired in a pool of battery acid.

  This incident is illuminated by two additional facts: First, Phil’s occupation was accident prevention officer at a large food-processing plant. And second, ten years previous, he had been working under a car when the jack collapsed, trapping him and breaking one of his legs.

  Some people just don’t learn—even from their own mistakes.

  Reference: Personal account of his work mate;

  Daily News, Taranaki, New Zealand

  DARWIN AWARD: TREE VS. MAN

  Confirmed by Darwin

  21 DECEMBER 2004, GEORGIA

  It looked at first like a bizarre traffic accident. Smoke rose from the charred remains of a large tree that had toppled onto a smoldering pickup truck. The body of a man, burned beyond recognition, was found inside the truck. Investigators were puzzled. How could the truck have collided with a tree behind a house? Why did the tree fall onto the truck instead of away from it? And what had started the fire?

  As the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place, it became clear that the dead man was the victim of his own device. Reggie, forty-seven, had offered to remove a tree behind his girlfriend’s house. He borrowed his father’s pickup truck, apparently in the belief that he could yank out the bottom of the tree, which would then, cartoon-like, fall away from the truck. He tied the truck to the tree and floored the accelerator.

  The uprooted tree, pulled in the direction of the force, toppled onto the truck, crushing the cab and trapping Reggie. The still-running engine eventually overheated, starting a grass fire that ignited the truck’s gas tank, turning it into a fireball that spread to the tree.

  Mercifully for Reggie, police determined that he was probably dead before the truck caught fire.

  Reference: AP

  DARWIN AWARD: TUNNEL VISION

  Confirmed by Darwin

  19 MARCH 2004, VIRGINIA

  RARE DOUBLE AWARD!

  DARWIN AWARD & HONORABLE MENTION

  Paul, forty-eight, was an electrician for the state department of transportation (DOT). He and Zachary were part of a fifteen-person crew assigned to replace the lights in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The crew would ride through the tunnel in a converted dump truck that had a ledge on the back used to hold tools during the procedure. DOT uses a different truck for each side of the tube, because the ceiling in the eastbound tube is three feet higher than the ceiling in the westbound tube. The taller truck therefore had a tight squeeze returning through the westbound tube. Paul and Zachary should have paid more attention to this fact.

  The crew had finished working on the eastbound tube. On the return trip to the office for their lunch break, Paul and Zachary chose to violate safety and rules, and rode on the high platform, facing backward, rather than climbing into the cab. Paul and Zachary learned one major reason for the rules when the truck turned into the westbound tunnel…

  Perhaps they had forgotten that this tunnel was three feet lower than the one they had just left. Perhaps their safety helmets made them feel invincible. They soon learned otherwise. When his head hit the entrance of the tunnel Paul was knocked off the truck to his death. Zachary was sitting lower than Paul and survived with minor injuries, earning himself an Honorable Mention.

  Reference: Daily Press, AP

  DARWIN AWARD: DOPE ON A ROPE

  Confirmed by Darwin

  16 FEBRUARY 2004, SIMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

  “The family that plays together, stays together.”

  Alan, a forty-three-year-old electrician, was hanging out with his seventeen-year-old son and the son’s girlfriend. They were feeling cooped up, so they hopped the back fence to play by the railroad tracks that ran behind it.

  * * *

  “Dope on a Rope” is also the search-and-rescue nickname for the practice of dangling a rescuer under a helicopter on a fixed rope, as opposed to a powered hoist, to assist a victim.

  * * *

  Alan thought it would be a blast to watch a shopping cart being dragged by a train. He tied one end of a twenty-foot rope to the shopping cart and the other to a full water bottle, which he planned to use as a weight.

  When an eighty-six-car Union Pacific freight train rumbled through at fifteen miles per hour, Alan stood behind the cart and hurled the bottle at the train. The bottle broke! So he quickly tied another bottle to the rope. Standing in front of the cart, he lobbed the bottle under the train, and gleefully noted that his plan had worked this time—until the shopping cart whipped into him and dragged him for mor
e than a mile along the tracks, reportedly pulling up two spikes in the process.

  Alan was dead before the engineer could stop the train. A spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration said that this was “an extremely unusual occurrence.” Alan’s son told reporters, “He was just the funniest guy.”

  After the incident, Simi Valley Police Sergeant Joe May warned pedestrians not to loiter near train tracks.

  Reference: Los Angeles Herald-Tribune, Ventura County Star

  DARWIN AWARD: DEATH VALLEY DAZE

  Confirmed by Darwin

  27 JULY 2005, CALIFORNIA