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January 20, 2004
Darwin again ....
A trawl through the Darwin Awards site has turned up some real gems. First there is the guy hired to flush out petrol tankers and de-gas them. He checked the water level by climbing into a compartment (its dark!) and used his lighter to illuminate the scene. Terminal velocity when he hit the concrete 100 m away was enough to open his skull like a melon. Needless to say he will not be repeating this exercise.
Then there was the couple whose amorous coupling in Sheffield, UK resulted in a bus driver having his license suspended by a judge who obviously felt that making whoopee in the middle of the road (they had been narrowly missed by three other drivers!) was a perfectly legitimate place and the bus driver should have avoided them. They will not be repeating their mistake - and their genes have been successfully removed permanently from the gene pool.
Equally amusing in a dark way, was the idiot in Australia who attempted to tack weld his Oxy-acetylene cylinders to the roof he was working on. No moron, no house and another successful removal of the stupid gene from the gene pool. In the same general area - New Zealand to be precise - comes a report of a Safety Officer who needed to extend the lift of his vehicle jack. He placed it on top of the battery he had removed from the vehicle. It collapsed and dropped the ute on top of him.
Much argument surrounds this last one as some people doubt a battery would collapse under this load. Believe it people, the crucial thing here is the point of load, which is focused on the point on which the footplate of the jack is resting. Go figure, 1,000 kg of engine and vehicle focused on a little bit of flat metal, measuring no more than 60mm x 100mm and this is pressed on top of a battery made of plastic, filled with acid and flimsy plates of lead sulphide or chloride. The battery wall is 4mm thick, the top a little thicker, it can't take that sort of focussed load.
There are times when I really can't believe how stupid some people can be. Then I have to go and deal with the aftermath.
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 20, 2004 05:32 PM