It’s time to celebrate the 2017 Darwin Awards, named for the great Charles Darwin in recognition of those who’ve contributed most to humanity’s gene pool by removing themselves from it.
There have been some real doozies handed out each year since 1993 and confirmed by the Darwin Award committee.
I’d find more humor in these honors if a person hadn’t lost his life or accidentally sterilized himself because he didn’t pause to imagine potential consequences to seemingly innocent choices.
Here are 2017’s top choices and an honorable mention this morning in the hopes that, by reading these accounts, you’ll come to realize just how comparatively wise you truly are.
In April 2017, an Argentine judge chose not to send to jail a man who had accidentally shot himself in the testicles while carrying an illegal .45-caliber pistol in his waistband.
The man lost his family jewels, his job as a security guard and had been facing a lengthy prison term until the judge determined a higher authority had doled out enough punishment. His mishap made local headlines in Buenos Aires where it was reported the unregistered weapon had been supplied by his employer. Perhaps adding a touch of insult to injury?
While that shooting occurred two years ago, the case finally was resolved in 2017.
In March in Chínipas, Chihuahua, Mexico, while standing on a truck on an airport runway, double Darwin Award winners Nitzia and Clarissa made a fatal mistake when they decided to snap a cell-phone selfie while attending horse races underway on an adjacent track. The noisy races and the women’s desire for a new profile picture distracted them enough that they did not hear the engine noise from a descending small aircraft. The plane’s wing struck and killed them instantly.
The Darwin judges said they receive many accounts of fatalities involving cell-phone distractions and pleaded with readers to put down their phones for gosh sakes and pay attention.
Also in March, a 31-year-old man in Germany, after a few drinks in a local bar, decided he would blast open a passenger train ticket machine. His plan had a few flaws. First he was seen spraying cans of aerosol gas into a ticket vending machine. Then he ignited the gas. The resulting explosion ripped the front panel from the machine and rocked the neighborhood. Attempts to resuscitate him proved unsuccessful. He succumbed to a head injury.
In Russia, a welder working for the Enterprise for the Construction, Repair and Maintenance of Highways noticed how well a fire extinguisher fit into a decommissioned artillery howitzer, as reported on the State Labor Inspection website.
“Inspired, he stuffed the fire extinguisher down the barrel,” the judges wrote. “Trained to use the elemental powers of hot plasma, welders are normally not daredevils but [he] was determined to prove the old adage: ‘There are old welders and bold welders but there are no old, bold welders.’”
The welder charged the cannon with calcium carbide and water, a reactive combination that produces acetylene welding gas. The fire extinguisher exploded from the howitzer barrel, and shrapnel from the payload killed the welder—whose head was inconveniently located in the shrapnel’s ballistic trajectory.
Three human males, three male elephants, and the dream of a perfect wildlife selfie combined for another award. “In the town of Plumtree in southwestern Zimbabwe, Mr. Moses Ndlovu spotted three elephants in the bush,” the judges wrote. “‘Shrubbery! This will not do,’ he thought, and he and two friends began to drive the three male elephants into a clearing. The elephants cooperated, in a fashion.”
But just then, a large bull elephant and two younger males charged from the shrubbery and headed straight for the men. “It was time to test the old truism, ‘I don’t have to outrun that elephant, I just have to outrun you,’” the judges commented. The men took off, each frantic to save his own life. Lagging behind, Moses was trampled to death by the bull. His friends escaped.
It always been interesting to me how the seemingly innocent moment-by-moment decisions we make throughout life, whether it be standing on a truck at an airport, shoving a pistol in one’s waistband, or trying to herd elephants for photo will be the choices that end our lives.
One entry received “honorable mention” this year because he didn’t die or sterilize himself.
In South Carolina in April, a man in the Friendship community, after two weeks without hot water or refrigeration, attempted on his own to illegally restore power to his home. Yep, it turned out as bad as it sounds.
The Darwin judges said his bid for free grid power failed shockingly when he leaned an aluminum ladder against the power pole, climbed up and applied jumper cables to an energized conductor. A witness said he heard a sound like a shotgun blast as 7,200 volts traveled from the primary wires across the jumper cables, through the man’s body, down the ladder, and into the ground.
Jolted from atop the pole, he was thrown to the ground, and hurried to a hospital with contusions and electrical burns. Although not eligible for a 2017 Darwin Award, I wouldn’t bet against this finalist making the cut in years to come.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at [email protected].