Darwin Awards

[Gonz]

Since there are so many contenders, add your own & we may all get a chuckle at the low end of the brain tree.

ODESSA, Texas -- A student who drank a chemical from his high school lab on a dare was recovering in a hospital, but not before a scare.

The student drank the unidentified chemical on a two-dollar bet at the school, said Nancy Smith, a UMC supervisor.

"We need to find out what it was from the toxicologist," Assistant Principal Ray Lascano said. "All of those materials belonged to one of the chemistry labs."

The student was found last Wednesday in a school hallway, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

The unidentified student, a junior at Odessa High School, was upgraded Monday from critical to satisfactory condition at University Medical Center in Lubbock.

Lascano, who talked with the youth's mother Monday afternoon, said swelling in his throat had receded enough for him to talk. The student was moved from the Lubbock hospital's intensive-care unit to the pediatric unit, he said.

Lascano said Ector County Independent School District officials were still investigating.
Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.

 

[Stop Laughing]

Man charged with stealing tracking device
JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) — To track down this alleged thief, all police had to do was flick on a computer.
A 40-year-old man was arrested Wednesday and charged with stealing a computerized tracking device that uses a global positioning system to keep track of jail prisoners on home detention.

"He apparently didn't know what he had because he would be awfully stupid to steal a tracking device," said correctional officer Thomas Roth, who runs the home detention program at the Rock County Jail.

The $2,500 device was temporarily placed outside a home by a woman serving home detention. The device, which is a little bigger than a brick in size, has a built-in GPS satellite receiver.

Prisoners wear a transmitter about as big as a cigarette pack on the ankle, and it acts as a 100-foot tether to the portable tracking device.

By the time the prisoner called to report the theft Monday night, the device had automatically notified the jail that it had been taken outside the prisoner's home area.

Roth then tracked the device through the Internet on his home computer.

A trail of electronic dots led authorities to an apartment building, where the suspect was captured.

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

 

[Sharky]

Only those who die as a result of their own stupidity are eligible for a Darwin Award . . .

 

[Inkara1]

That reminds me of the video I saw on America's Dumbest Criminals, where these two guys stole a BBQ grill--one that was being used--and put it in the back of their van. Well, the cops were chasing them, and when they turned a corner fast, the BBQ fell over and set the van on fire.

 

[Sharky]

From: http://www.DarwinAwards.com/index.html

Robert, 37, shot himself while explaining gun safety to his wife in Glendale, California, when he placed a .45-caliber pistol he thought was unloaded under his chin and pulled the trigger. Shovestall's wife told police that the incident occurred after her complaints about her husband's 70 guns prompted him to demonstrate their safety.

A 23-year-old bar-brawler who had been escorted out of the Turtle Club in Florida by a bouncer, sneaked back in and leaped off a staircase, aiming a kick at another man, but was killed when he landed on his head.

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet, didn't put enough postage on a letter bomb, and it came back marked "return to sender." He opened the package and was blown away.

Two animal rights activists were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn by freeing a captive herd. Suddenly all two thousand of pigs stampeded through the gate they were opening, and trampled the hapless protesters to death.

News of the Weird reports that in September 1996 a man was crushed to death on a stairway at the Sammis Real Estate and Insurance office in Huntington, N.Y., while he was stealing the office's 600-pound safe. He apparently violated that cardinal rule of hauling massive objects: Never stand on a step lower than the one the safe is on. The safe was empty at the time of the incident.

In San Jose, California, Herman, an avid hunter, used the butt of his shotgun to bash his girlfriend's windshield during an argument. But his loaded gun accidentally discharged into his stomach, killing him and ending the argument.

"I cannot help but notice that there is no problem between us that cannot be solved by your departure."