Darwin Awards for 2006 - might be real

[johnjzjz]

This comes around every year about this time, dont know if any is true but real is better that made up -- i think it might be real but it is funny -- jz


Subject: Fw: Darwin Awards for 2006

The Darwin Awards are finally out - the annual honor given to the
person(s) who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's
winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled
over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out.
And the winners are:

Semifinalist #1: A young Canadian man, searching for a way of
getting drunk cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy
alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction
made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. This
resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him
and his sister. (You gotta feel sorry for his sister!)

Semifinalist #2: Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft
at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they
decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of
their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the
wreckage with their pants around their ankles.

Semifinalist #3: A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after
he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad
trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast food worker,
taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one
foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park,
jumped, and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman,
said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found
nearby. "The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater
than the distance between the trestle and the ground," Carmichael
said. Police say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma."

Semifinalist #4: A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It
seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the
rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future Darwin Awards
candidate - was hospitalized.

Semifinalist #5: Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas
noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the
building extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights,
power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians
from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building,
they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their
frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described
the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and
retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter. Upon
operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse
exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was
found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by
the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had
never been thought of as 'bright' by his peers.

And now, ladies and gentleman, the winner of this year's Darwin Award:

The Finalist: The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of
smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the
road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an
airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable
at the scene.
Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An Amateur
Rocket Scientist had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted
Take Off, actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy
military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short
airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and
found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to
the car, jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO!

The facts (as best as could be determined) are that the operator of
the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately
3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched
and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating
properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing
the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at
full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, and soon to
be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog
fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become
irrelevant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile
remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds)
before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing
the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then
becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles -- and impacting the
cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater 3 feet
deep in the rock.

Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small
fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater,
and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris
believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground
speed of approximately 420 mph, though much of his voyage was not on
the ground.

[Brando56894]

haha those are great! i like the second picture too im punishing mine right now actually...

[unstable bob gable]

The one about the JATO assisted Impala is def an urban legend.

[Brando56894]

sounds like it, i could see most of it but lifting the car off the ground? doubtful...

didnt the guy that broke the land speed record have like 2 sidewinder afterburners (or whatever the thrusters are called) strapped to his car??

[johnjzjz]

yes but the boosters he had lift planes the size of 767s overloaded up into the air, -- military transports carry tanks -- thats not anything like a rocket assist -- jz

put a PW F100-220 in any car... itll find a way to lift it off the ground lol. all it takes is a little air under the front end and your airborne

[slugger27nj]

Originally Posted by unstable bob gable

The one about the JATO assisted Impala is def an urban legend.

This is definitely an urban legend. I saw this a while ago on Mythbusters on Discovery Channel. They recreated it and got their test car to go crazy fast, but not close to lifting off. If I remember correctly, they interviewed the highway patrol where this supposedly happened. They basically said it didn't, but they do get phone calls and e-mails about it all the time.

[NJSPEEDER]

when mythbusters did the JATO pack thing they even went as far as to strap 3 of them to the car to get it going faster. it did get going fast enough to outrun the helicopter they were using as a chase vehicle, but nothing indicated it ever tried to lift off the ground.

[curt86iroc]

niice!

[Knipps]

the JATO is in the Darwin Awards book [as an urban legend], and iirc it was published 4-5 years ago
there is also a second volume in the series

[Brando56894]

Originally Posted by slugger27nj

This is definitely an urban legend. I saw this a while ago on Mythbusters on Discovery Channel. They recreated it and got their test car to go crazy fast, but not close to lifting off. If I remember correctly, they interviewed the highway patrol where this supposedly happened. They basically said it didn't, but they do get phone calls and e-mails about it all the time.

i knew i saw this on mythbusters!

[enRo]

Hey, you forgot to add Tony Romo to that list