Darwin Awards - worst way to die

[Arthur Dent]

Also, falling from an airplane and having your chute not open

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.....::catches breath::.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.....::Checks watch::AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH...."Hey, I can see my house from here!"....AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH...Splat

I think being in an accident and having a major artery cut open and not being able to do anything about it would SUCK. Just watching your life drain out slowly over the ground.

But, back to the Darwin Awards...the runner's up:

5th RUNNER-UP
Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at
the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad.
The 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth Hospital.
The accident occurred about 3a.m, the Mono County Sheriff's department said.
Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley
and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift towers,
said Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are
used to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the
pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower.
It has since been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one
with its pad removed.


4th RUNNER-UP
Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis
market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo grabbed a hot
dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without paying.

Police found him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics removed the
six-inch wiener from his throat where it had choked him to death.


3rd RUNNER-UP
Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing above him
on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell on him.


2nd RUNNER-UP
"Man loses face at party." A man at a West Virginia party (probably related
to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas who used the 22 bullet to replace
the fuse in his pickup truck), popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit
down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue.
Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the
party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne."
Another man had it in an aquarium hooked to a battery and was trying to
explode it. "It wouldn't go off and this guy said, "I'll show you how to
set it off." He put it into his mouth, bit down and it blew all his teeth
out and his lips and
tongue off, Payne said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday
with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston
Area Medical Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like
that," Payne said.

1st RUNNER-UP
Doctors at Portland University Hospital said an Oregon man shot through the
skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive and will be released soon from
the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an
initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous (probably known
now as Stupid Mountain Men Anonymous) in Grant's Pass, Oregon. A friend
tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Robert's right
eye.
Doctors said that had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood
vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon Doctor Johnny Delashaw at the university Hospital in Portland
said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain with the tip protruding
at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood
vessels. Delashaw also said that had Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on
his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards
that he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I
feel so dumb about this." No charges have been filed, but the Josephine
County district attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under
investigation.