DARWIN AWARDS

The Darwin Award is made each year to the person or persons who have managed to kill themselves (and therefore prevent the survival of their genes � hence Darwin!) in the most bizarre ways imaginable. Previous winners include the man killed when the vending machine that 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 3:00 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 investigated and shows that the tower he hit was the one with its pad removed.
2. [AP, St Louis, MO] Robert Pueio, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Pueio 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 top of him.
4. [AP, Kincaid, W.VA] A man at a party popped a blasting cap in 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 out, 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, I 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 one millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital 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 Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards that 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 her 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 first, then attempted to hold her brains in!
7. From a radio program a true report of a happening in Michigan. A guy buys a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000 and has $400+ monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting and of course all of 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 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 the 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. You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggie 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 a shotgun and shoots the dog. The gun 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 and scared, thinking these two Nobel Prize winners have gone insane. He takes off to find cover, (with the now really short fuse still burning)� under the brand new Cherokee. BOOM! Dog and Jeep are both blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He had yet to make the first of those $400+ a month payments.

AND THE WINNER: