Perhaps we should institute the Taiwan Survival Awards in a similar vein. Anyhow, read on…
First Place - The 2002 Darwin Award Winner:
When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim
during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot
did something that can only inspire wonder: He peered down the barrel
and tried the trigger again. This time it worked…
And now, the honorable mentions:
The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting
machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his
insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of
its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine out and lost a
finger. The chef’s claim was approved.
A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during
a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had
taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver
found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting
from Harare to Beltway had escaped. Not wanting to admit his
incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone
waiting there a free ride.
He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the
staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre
fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.
An American teenager was in the hospital yesterday recovering from
serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he
received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to
see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, puts a $20 bill on the counter,
and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man
pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk
promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled,
leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got
from the drawer? $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you
money, was a crime committed?)
A thief burst into a Florida bank one day wearing a ski mask and
carrying a gun. Aiming his gun at the guard, the thief yelled, “FREEZE,
MOTHER-STICKERS, THIS IS A ****-UP!” For a moment, everyone was silent.
Then the snickers started. The guard completely lost it and doubled over
laughing. It probably saved his life, because he’d been about to draw
his gun. He couldn’t have drawn and fired before the thief got him. The
thief ran away and is still at large. In memory of the event, the banker
later put a plaque on the wall engraved with the words, “Freeze,
mother-stickers, this is a ****-up!”
Seems this Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that
he’d just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some
booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head
at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief
on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was
made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed
her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was
able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within
minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car
and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and
told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes,
officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”
The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger
King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded
cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the
cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings,
the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man,
frustrated, walked away.
Kentucky: Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running
a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of
pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper
off their truck. Scared, they left the scene and drove home. With the
chain still attached to the machine. With their bumper still attached to
the chain. With their vehicle’s license plate still attached to the
bumper. They were quickly arrested.
A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER! When a man attempted to siphon gasoline
from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he
bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man
curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman
said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his
siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of
the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh
he’d ever had.