THE DARWIN AWARDS are given every year to bestow upon (the remains
of)those individuals, who through single-minded self-sacrifice, have
done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human pool.

(1) Los Angeles, CA. Ani Saduki, 33, and his brother decided to remove a
bees nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a pineapple. A
pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of
one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch
from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the
hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards,
seriously lacerating Ani. Deciding Mr. Saduki needed stitches, the
brothers headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards
their car, Ani was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to
either brother, Ani was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation
enroute to the hospital.

(2) Derrick L. Richards, 28, was charged in April in Minneapolis with
third-degree murder in the death of his beloved cousin, Kenneth E.
Richards. According to police, Derrick suggested a game of Russian
roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol (instead of the more traditional
revolver) to Ken's head and fired.

(3) In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27,
and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in
the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.

(4) MOSCOW, Russia - A drunk security man asked a colleague at the Moscow
bank they were guarding to stab his bulletproof vest to see if it would
protect him against a knife attack. It didn't, and the 25-year-old guard
died of a heart wound. (It's good to see the Russians getting into the
spirit of the Darwin Awards.)

(5) In France, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to
commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose
around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He
drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot
himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet
missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the
threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking
extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out
of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he
died of hypothermia.

(6) RENTON, Washington, USA. On February 3, 1990, a Renton, Washington man
tried to commit a robbery. This was probably his first attempt, as
suggested by the fact that he had no previous record of violent crime,and
by his terminally stupid choices as listed below: 1. The target was H&J
Leather & Firearms, a gun shop. 2. The shop was full of customers, in a
state where a substantial portion of the adult population is licensed to
carry concealed handguns in public places. 3. To enter the shop, he had to
step around a marked Police patrol car parked at the front door. 4. An
officer in uniform was standing next to the counter, having coffee before
reporting to duty. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced
a holdup and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly
returned fire, removing him from the gene pool. Several other customers
also drew their guns, but didn't fire. No one else was hurt.
 

1997 DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS
In Bradford, PA, J. Cruwe, 28, caught a small snake in a container which
he handed to his wife. She opened the container and, startled to see the
snake, dropped it. The excited and poisonous snake immediately bit Mr.
Cruwe on the shin. MrCruwe survived the wound and recovered after a
short visit to the local emergency room.

In rural Carbon County, PA, a group of men were drinking beer and
discharging firearms from the rear deck of a home owned by Irving
Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering by,
but the beer apparently impaired their aim and, despite of the estimated
350 shots the group fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter
drainage pipe some 100 feet away from Mr. Michaels' deck. Determined to
terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured
some down the pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several
unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the entire 5
gallons of fuel down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no avail.
Not one to admit defeat to wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels
proceeded to slide feet-first approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe
to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled Mr.
Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of
speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a
submarine," according to witness Joseph McFadden, 31. Mr. Michaels was launched
directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished
friends, onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through
the air. "There was a Doppler Effect to his scream as he flew over us,"
McFadden reported, "followed by a loud thud." Amazingly, he suffered only
minor injuries. It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said, "Like when
they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I'd do it again if I was
sure I wouldn't get hurt."

TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one
of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the middle of
the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The conversation grew more heated and at least
10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 a.m. Upon arrival
at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought
bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed
out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was
secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge.
His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and pulled his foot off
at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the frigid waters of
the Tacoma Narrows and Puget Sound and was rescued by two nearby fishermen.
All I can say," said Bingham, "Is that God was watching out for me on
that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's severed
foot was never located.

Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese trawler were plucked out
of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their
rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities
questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. To a man they claimed that
a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amid ships,
shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes. They remained
in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly
informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes
had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian air field,
forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily taken off for home.
Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a
now rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves,
they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of
Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.