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I love these. For those who don't know the Darwin awards "salute the improvement of the human genome by honouring those who remove themselves from it in really stupid ways. Of necessity, this honour is granted posthumously"

there are loads, but this is my all time favourite...


1995 Darwin Awards
 
 
Jet Assisted Take-Off


The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.

The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise.

It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.

Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket.

The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:

The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.

The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.

Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading
"How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-Sh*t"

Brilliant, I think the Darwin awards are great reading, but, as you all know, I'm sick  ;D

Me too - when I was at school we found a book in the library called "What a way to go" - a book all about daft ways people have died.... I couldn't stop laughing at it  ;D

Oh dear, we are all a bit sick, but I challenge anyone to prove they have NEVER laughed at the Darwin Awards.

 >:D :-* ::)

Tightend just to let you know that this one was declared an Urban Legend but at the time was considered to be true and won the 1995 darwin award!
Not intentional spamming but for info on darwinawards.com it has the following -

Considered true for years, it was later debunked as an Urban Legend by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The story fooled the judges in 1995, so JATO has been grandfathered in as a Darwin Award Winner. Officer Bob Stein of the Arizona Department of Public Safety says, "I receive inquiries several times a day about accidents, drug busts, and investigations we are conducting. About two years ago I picked up the phone and researched the answer to what has now become an Arizona myth. Even after all this time, I still receive about five calls a month from people wanting to know, did it really happen?"

The author of the JATO legend would enjoy a cult notoriety were his identity known today. He is unknown; however, there are several who claim of ownership of the idea of strapping a jet engine onto a vehicle. One man's story of the JATO and the Railroad Cart is a 25,000- word essay on what NOT to do if your father own a scrapyard.

Keith Cody reports, "Steve Lubars called the Arizona Highway Patrol in July 1996 to research this story. According to Charles DeCarolis at the Arizona Department of Public Safety, "No such incident has ever been described in any Highway Patrol accident or crime scene reports," and he said I could quote him 'on the record.'"

Edson C. Hendricks says, "Baffles me why anyone would believe the JATO story, because it's physically implausible. Attaching a modern JATO to an automobile so that it will not tear free on firing would be a remarkable engineering feat. Anyone smart enough to accomplish that, would also be smart enough to be nowhere near when the JATO is fired! Leaving that aside, as long as the car stays on the ground, the wheels would have sufficient friction to keep the motion straight, although they would probably lack the traction to maintain stability. Once the contraption became airborne, there would be NOTHING to stabilize the flight. Those doodads on airplanes like wings and tail assemblies are not only for style, but to keep the aircraft level. An airborne automobile propelled by an attached JATO would slam nose down into the ground in very short order." (JATO Unit Photo: Courtesy of Jean and NASA.)

Orphiucus says: "This reminds me of a colleague's reminiscence, which may be the basis of the JATO story. He was a military pilot In the 50's in Guam, when two men strapped not one but two JATO engines to the back of a military Jeep. They took it to Guam's 3-mile airstrip and ignited the engines, which hurled them 200 yards down the runway before the Jeep, now travelling at more than 300 mph, disintegrated. The men were shredded to bits, and the engines broke free from the remains of the jeep and darted wildly around the base before burning out. A film of this incident exists, in a military archive or maybe in a shoebox in someone's attic. "

They have some real crackers on the site...enjoy

I never knew that. Still my favourite though!

lol I love the Darwin Awards.  Haven't seen them for a while but they are great  ;D

there's a thread ending post if ever i saw one :)

my favourite is the guy who plays Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol.

yt's not ending this thread


another favourite:



2005 Darwin Award Nominee

Confirmed True by Darwin

(7 March 2005, Hanoi, Vietnam)

 Nguyen, 21, had been drinking with friends in the Tu Liem district of Hanoi, when he pulled out an old detonator he had found. The detonator was about six centimeters long and 8 centimeters in diameter, with two wires hanging out of the end. Because it was old and rusty, he said, it couldn't explode. His friends disagreed.
To prove his point, Nguyen put the detonator in his mouth and asked his friend to plug the dangling wires into a 220-volt electrical receptacle. Nyugen was wrong!

The victim had little time to reflect on how he could have been so mistaken, or whether 220 volts alone could have been fatal. According to police, "the explosion blew out his cheek and smashed all his teeth." Nguyen died on the way to the hospital.

To quote Bill Hicks - "We lost a moron ;D"

One that cracked me up (and made me wince) was the idiot who, for a laugh - put his balls into a golfball washer at the golf course for 'a laugh', but then turned the handle - which dragged them into the cogs & effectively ripped them off him  :'(. He got a Darwin Award - because you don't have to die - you just need to remove your imperfect genes from the gene pool.

lol you're reading the same as me on the darwin site!
so is it bad form to copy their stuff here or are we cool with that? cos i could copy it all day!

no, they were sent to me a while ago

and I will therefore desist if they are straight "lifts"

cos we are not ok with that


and I know what you are like yt when you get going....

be that a joke thread referance?!
thats why i asked.... ;)
and yes they are straight 'lifts'

exactly

i get a sense that your archives are full to overflowing with stuff....

let's move on... ;D :)up