The 2009 Darwin Awards

[ysengrin]

It should be noted that a fatality is a requirement for a Darwin Award.

Two runners up: DOUBLE DIP (after being rescued once, woman jumps back into swollen creek in attempt to escape police -- or, her mother said, to rescue her moped) and DYING TO GO (looking for place to pee, man vaults highway divider and falls sixty-five feet).

The Winnah: CRUSHING DEBT (two would-be ATM robbers overestimate dynamite needed).

BONUS AWARD: a new winner for 2008: the BALLOON PRIEST, complete with video (man uses mass of party balloons tied to a chair to go for a publicity flight; takes along cell phone and GPS, calls for aid when he becomes lost over the ocean but can't operate the GPS to inform rescuers of where he is).

Comments

[schnee.livejournal.com]

The winner really isn't all that convincing to me, to be honest. I don't know how easy it is to overestimate the amount of explosives you need for something, and certainly one COULD argue that you should only handle explosives if you're trained for it, but still, I have a distinct feeling that if this hadn't been about criminals, it wouldn't have been included. "Technician overestimates amount of explosives needed, dies" probably wouldn't have made it.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

There is a definite bias in the Darwins towards criminal activities.

Technician overestimates amount of explosives needed reminds me of a story about the pyrotech FX folks working on Die Hard 2 -- they only had one shot at blowing up this outrageously expensive model jet, the director wanted it to be big, and they wound up grossly overestimating the explosives needed in compensation. On film it's spectacular, but I've heard it was a real "oh, shit" moment at the time when it was set off ...

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*s* Well, as long as they all escaped unscathed and as long as the scene worked...

[thakur.livejournal.com]

Actually, a fatality is NOT a requirement, only that the recipient be rendered permanently incapable of reproducing. There have been several 'living' Darwin awards in the past.

[wes-sale.livejournal.com]

So they more or less had the ulitimate goofup with explosives.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid only blew up a railroad car; the enterprising ATM robbers knocked down the building and killed themselves in the process.

As for the priest that disappeared somewhere out at sea - that's just plain sad.