More Darwin Awards for those individuals who have removed themselves from the human gene pool:
5th Runners Up: A San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam
pad.
The 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 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 lift towers,s aid Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police
Department. The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit 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 determined the tower he hit
was the one with its pad removed.
4th RUNNER-UP Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, who was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call
the police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without paying.
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.
3rd RUNNER-UP Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock and was killed
instantly when it fell on him.
2nd RUNNER-UP "Man loses face at party." A man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas
who used the .22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup truck), popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue.
Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the 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."
"It wouldn't go off and this guy said "I'll show you how to set it off." He put it into his mouth, bit down and it blew all his teeth out and his lips and
tongue off, Payne said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical Division."I just can't imagine
anyone doing something like that," Payne said.
1st RUNNER-UP Doctors at Portland University Hospital said 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 (probably known now as Stupid Mountain
Men Anonymous) in Grant's Pass, Oregon. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Robert's right eye. Doctors said that had the arrow gone 1 millimetre to the
left, a major blood vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon Doctor Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland 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 that 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.
The WINNER: (The late) John Pernicky and his friend, (the late) Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington, decided to attend a
local Metallica concert at the George Washington amphitheatre.
Having no tickets (but having had 18 beers between them), they thought it would be easy to "hop" over the nine foot fence and sneak into the show. They pulled
their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was for Mr. Pernicky, who was 100-pounds heavier than Mr. Hawkins) to hop the fence and then assist his friend over.
Unfortunately for (the late) Mr. Pernicky, there was a 30-foot drop on the other side of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself crashing
through a tree. His fall was abruptly halted (and broken,along with his arm) by a large branch that snagged him by his shorts.
Dangling from the tree with a broken arm, he looked down and saw some bushes below him. Possibly figuring the bushes would break his fall, he removed his
pocket knife and proceeded to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. Finally free, Mr. Pernicky crashed into holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his ENTIRE body and now,
without the protection of his shorts, a holly branch penetrated his rectum. To make matters worse, on landing, his pocket knife penetrated his thigh.
Mr. Hawkins, seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, threw him a rope and planned to pull him to safety by tying the rope to the pickup truck and
slowly driving away. However, in his drunken haste/state, he put the truck into reverse and crashed through the fence landing on his friend and killing him.
Police arrived to find the crashed pickup with its driver thrown 100 feet from the truck and dead at the scene from massive internal injuries. Upon moving the
truck, they found John under it half-naked, scratches on his body, a holly stick in his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and his shorts dangling from a tree branch 25-feet in the air.
Congratulations gentlemen, you win...
Submitted by John, Long Island, NY